""if Edwards wants to blame somebody for his defeat, he shouldn't look at the media"

yes he should

Betcha you went to that porch
with Amanda and the rest of
the blogurrls too.
How cool.
How kinda sad tho' too
In the now.
Innit?

I'm so angry at myself for not throwing myself with full vigor into his campaign 12 months ago.

Why did I think there was "plenty of time"?

As we tip over into receession, and the precarious financial and economic positio of the median American voter grows more precarious as a result, Edwards becomes another scalp for the "In politics, being right too soon is much worse than being wrong" collection.

We'll all be talking about poverty in eighteen months -- many of us about our own.

I can accept that Edwards may have pushed the debate to the left, and that's fine if he did. And I certainly share everyone's sentiments with respect to hoping that Elizabeth beats her illness.

But John Edwards had every opportunity to actually move the country to the left as a US Senator. Instead, he governed as a typical conservative white Southern Senator, including sending 4,000 brave American servicemembers to their death in Iraq.

Edwards talked left and governed right. And we don't need that. We never have needed that. I'm glad he's gone and hope this is the end of his political career.

A lovely post, Ezra. It exemplifies what I love the most about blogs - journalism + humanity. John and Elizabeth Edwards are great Americans.

But John Edwards had every opportunity to actually move the country to the left as a US Senator. Instead, he governed as a typical conservative white Southern Senator...

This line of analysis rolled back in time prevents the LBJ who logrolled civil rights legislation for over a decade when in the Senate from signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as President, and the Roosevelt who ran on a platform of recovery through a balanced budget and government retrenchment from enacting the New Deal.

Uh, b.h., I'll admit that there was an Edwards blackout, but to the extent that all candidates are subject to the media's machinations Edwards is hardly a unique case and he knew what he was getting into in re his status as the third wheel to the Obama/Clinton show. All the candidates understood this, I'm sure.

Also, just from the perspective of someone who gets e-mails and studies websites from the Kucinich, Obama, and Edwards campaigns, Obama's campaign was the one that was the most persistent in recruiting. If I'm going to extend that into an interpretation of how coherent the campaigns were as a whole in gaining new supporters, I would say that Obama's was the most well-run and on-message.

Celebrity is a lot, but as the relative non-enthusiasm of HRC voters have shown, it isn't everything.

This line of analysis rolled back in time prevents the LBJ who logrolled civil rights legislation for over a decade when in the Senate from signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as President

I love LBJ's civil rights record as President, but that doesn't mean that he was right to block Eisenhower's attempts at civil rights in the 1950's or to go along with Kennedy's opposition to doing anything about civil rights in the early 1960's.

Imagine if John Edwards, articulate good ol' boy Southern senator, had stood up with people like Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold and opposed the war in Iraq! What a difference that would have made!

I understand that as a matter of realpolitik, some people allow grave injustices so that at some future point they will amass the power to redress them. But that isn't really an excuse. John Edwards could have helped a lot of people as a US Senator and didn't. And since the guy never got the greater power he sought, that's the legacy he has to live with. A politician who talked a good game but played ball with the conservative movement.

But John Edwards had every opportunity to actually move the country to the left as a US Senator. Instead, he governed as a typical conservative white Southern Senator, including sending 4,000 brave American servicemembers to their death in Iraq.

Edwards talked left and governed right. And we don't need that. We never have needed that. I'm glad he's gone and hope this is the end of his political career.

Posted by: Dilan Esper

All I can say to this is that Edwards may have come around late, but at least he came around.

Here's to people who can change their minds and grow. We need more of those people in our politics, not less.

Maybe Edwards should place the blame on centering his candidacy around his healthcare reform proposal. How can a slick talking malpractice attorney that got rich of the system have any credibility on reforming it.

Elizabeth Edwards should have run for President. She truly is probably the classiest, smartest, and most progressive of any of the Obamas, Clintons, and Edwards.

In the end, in choosing between Edwards and Obama, she and her manifest influence on her husband are what made the decision so hard.

I hate to rain on the parade during what should be his special day, but having worked on the Kerry-Edwards campaign and having read some of Shrum's observations on that effort, I have to say, despite all the great policy Edwards brought in, at the end of a day he's still, quite frankly, a flip-flopping liar. Hate to use those words, but really, does anyone dare refute them? Full kudos to Edwards for having his priorities in proper place, but honestly, can't we also acknowledge the severe shortcomings of character?

Highly predicable and it was what I have been saying all along.

Edwards was the rich white man trying to beat two competitors that were each members of protected and favored groups by their party. This same party has overtly practiced identity politics to excess for decades.

No one should be surprised.....I wasn't.

El Viajero, Edwards has an identity that is equally favored for the presidency not only among Democrats but, as it happens, Republicans too: he's a straight, white, Southern, Christian male. How many of those have won the presidency?

That's a racial and gender identity and, in terms of conventional wisdom, it is a racial/gender identity that wins elections. To contrast, how many plain spoken doubts are there about the "electability" of a woman or a black man but a readily assumed "rightness" of the candidacy of someone like Edwards?

Don't pretend that Edwards didn't have advantages of his own in identity politicking.

Voting for the war was not the correct move but forgivable given the time. The Cheney-Bush blitzkrieg was working overtime with the complicit media to fabricate the need for an invasion. Many were duped because the onion had many layers and those who didn't peel far enough didn't get to the truth.

Admitting mistakes takes wisdom and strength. Look at our fearless leader's example and rest assured that, unlike Edwards, he will never admit to making a bad decision. Too bad Hillary won’t follow his lead and admit to being duped into a bad vote.

Being a trial lawyer makes him a better person in my eyes. How many “average” people could afford a $300/hour lawyer to take their cases without a contingency? Imagine how many of those hours you’d have to fork out if your opponent was a large insurance company? I couldn’t afford their delay tactics and neither could most “average” citizens. Thank you trial lawyers!

Having volunteered and served as a precinct captain for Edwards in Iowa, I think Paula's observation about the Obama campaign's concern for recruiting touches one of the crucial factors in Edwards' defeat. Edwards staffers were always quite blunt about the fact that their strategy was to capture the votes of previous caucus-goers. They didn't spend much time worrying about people who hadn't caucused before. (I'm not even sure they had to had the resources to do so, had they wanted to.) Edwards campaign in Iowa did what it set out to do -- iirc, they won the previous caucus-goers. If 2008 had been a repeat of 2004, Edwards would almost certainly have emerged the winner in Iowa. But he couldn't compete with a turnout machine that brought so many new caucus-goers into the process.

Don't pretend that Edwards didn't have advantages of his own in identity politicking.

True enough if you're talking about the general election. However, the party of identity politics just can't wait to give an Affirmative Action nomination.

According to Rasmussen, neither of the Dem frontrunners are polling well against McCain, the Republican frontrunner....

http://tinyurl.com/2q942x

Wonderful piece Ezra, the part of Elizabeth was the best thing I've read on the Edwards dynamic and campaign in, well, maybe ever.

I sent Senator Edwards a long email today thanking him for his campaign, for caring, for fighting and for inspiring. I doubt he will ever read it himself but it was cathartic for me to get out exactly what it was that his campaign meant to me.

Thank you again for your piece.

No one deserves to call himself progressive if they use Affirmative Action like a cudgel.

At the end of the day HRC and esp. Obama are trying to overcome very real biases against their respective identities. How soon people forget that the entire year has been an airing of questions in regards to their effectiveness in a GE: whether they would be seen as limited "special interest" candidates to women and Blacks, whether HRC could be seen as "strong enough", whether they could truly be seen as reflecting the needs and ideas of ALL Americans. And with any other candidates, they would have resulted in a quick dismissal of their candidacies. (I don't remember Carol Moseley Braun or Al Sharpton getting any special treatment just because of their race and/or gender.) Edwards didn't have to face this gauntlet -- and whether you want to acknowledge it or not that very freedom has allowed him to run the kind of truly partisan, truly ideological campaign rhetoric that his supporters love so much. That neither HRC nor Barack can run without fear of being seen as identity-politics and hippie-trash spewing radicals. I'm not excusing the timid nature of their careers and their voting records, but as a woman of color I can understand where it comes from, trying to earn a "legitimate" place in the world of white men.

Also, Edwards supporters have been pointing out for some time that he did better in a head-to-head race against McCain than the other two, but I find it telling that they've haven't gone ahead and explained why. Is it because non-affiliated voters appreciate his deeply partisan message a lot more than his own party? Edwards must have been courting independents behind everyone's back if he has such great number among them!

With Democrats like you, who needs Republicans?

Edwards needs to remember the first kick in the chins came from John Kerry's endorsement of Barack Hussein Obama even before the voting began. Et Tu Brutus? John Edwards will be back but God has a plan and we have nothing to say about it. One day he will look back and say, "Oh, that's what was supposed to happen."

Edwards talked left and governed right. And we don't need that. We never have needed that. I'm glad he's gone and hope this is the end of his political career.

If I hear this particular nugget of adolescent posturing one more time, I swear to god ...

Leave the authenticity derby to the cable news hosts, all right? Why, exactly, we should give a shit that the most progressive candidate in the race by far was at one point in his career closer to the center has never been explained. Why we should prefer someone who started left and then moved to the center over someone who started toward the center and moved to the left: also never explained. Why we should hate Edwards for his center-left voting record but give Obama a pass for his: no answer. Etc.

Instead, we get clowns like you condemning Edwards for failing to live up to a set of ad hoc standards that apply only to him. And now we're going to have a bona fide centrist for a nominee, possibly one with a raging hard-on for Republican approval. Thanks, asshole.

see ya never, edwards. fuck the south.

Why we should hate Edwards for his center-left voting record but give Obama a pass for his: no answer. Etc.

No one's giving Obama a pass on his record. His career in both IL State Leg. and the Senate is center-left, and he's running as a center-left candidate. He has a record of pushing for some progressive issues (prison reform, ethics) but not others (credit reform, military spending), he opposes pre-emptive war, but isn't leaving military options out of the equation.

As much as I disagree with half of this, at least I get the feeling of a relatively constant method of judgment and ideology. I suspect that another one of Edwards' troubles was the fact that his campaign lacked coherency with his actual career. For ex, one of my cons for Edwards is that he's never had experience trying to pass progressive reform, and therefore it's perfectly valid to question his effectiveness in moving it though Congress, half of which is still nowhere near him ideologically. Obama, on the other hand, can point to at least a couple of cases where he's tried to get through major reforms, which would give him a better idea of what to compromise and what to keep when he faces resistance. (Ultimately, however, it's up to people to make sure he makes those compromises that do the most good for us rather than monied interests.)

Nice post, Ezra. I feel a genuine sense of loss. Neither Clinton, nor Obama seem particularly progressive to me. I realized Edwards was a long shot, but dared to hope, anyway. I've been voting AGAINST Republicans most of my life. I'll do it again in November, but hope someday to vote FOR a Democrat. I wish the Edwards family all of the best, and thank them for their effort to bring some issues to the fore many would choose to sweep aside, or step over.

Leave the authenticity derby to the cable news hosts, all right? Why, exactly, we should give a [censored] that the most progressive candidate in the race by far was at one point in his career closer to the center has never been explained. Why we should prefer someone who started left and then moved to the center over someone who started toward the center and moved to the left: also never explained. Why we should hate Edwards for his center-left voting record but give Obama a pass for his: no answer. Etc.

Instead, we get clowns like you condemning Edwards for failing to live up to a set of ad hoc standards that apply only to him. And now we're going to have a bona fide centrist for a nominee, possibly one with a raging hard-on for Republican approval. Thanks, [censored].

1. I don't apply these standards just to him. I apply them to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and everyone else who runs for President as a Democrat.

2. The issue is not that Edwards wasn't going to be a liberal President. You have half a point with respect to the fact that we have no way for sure of knowing what ideology he was going to bring to the Presidency.

The issue, rather, is that in his only experience in government (i.e., the only thing that gave him any qualification to run for President), he was a terrible Southern white conservative Senator.

Since he didn't achieve the Presidency, we have no idea of knowing whether he was really just a dishonest cynic who would be a great liberal leader once given power, or whether he was what his Senate record told us he was.

But since the only thing he actually accomplished in politics was buying himself a Senate seat, that's the only record we can judge him by. And by that record, he should be remembered in a negative light, not a positive light.

3. If you are upset that a candidate that you seem to think was superior to Obama and Clinton was unable to win the nomination, perhaps you should think about why that is rather than blaming us who had a different view than you did. You might find much to blame in Edwards' record.

Put another way, politicians have to convince voters that they will do what they say they will do. Edwards talked like a liberal and he governed as a conservative. If he had, in contrast, governed like a liberal, voting against the Iraq War, leading a filibuster against it, and then speaking at ANSWER marches and upbraiding his colleagues in the Democratic Party for going along with it, becoming a leader (the way, for example, John Murtha did), I might surmise that a lot of us would be a lot more convinced of the guy's basic liberalism.

Or if, instead of proposing a health care scheme that was designed to funnel huge amounts of money to insurance companies, he had come out for single payer and introduced a bill to implement it as a Senator, and then campaigned on that in his Presidential campaign. It might have convinced us.

The point is, if much of the Democratic electorate thinks that Edwards was a bad candidate, it's because he was a bad candidate who came off as a phony rather than a real liberal. And that's HIS fault, not ours, especially since we had plenty of reasons to think that way.

4. I don't understand the pro-Edwards spin. On the one hand, he moved all the candidates to the left. On the other hand, Obama is a centrist who loves Republicans. Which is it? Did Edwards move Obama to the left or didn't he?

5. Let's be serious here about Obama's liberalism. (I won't defend Clinton's liberalism, because I don't think she is one.) Obama was a former community organizer from Illinois who goes to an Afrocentric church and opposed the Iraq War. He has supported single payer health care in the past. He took on police departments and right-wing anti-crime groups to get interrogations videotaped, which tangibly helped minorities.

This guy is no centrist. He talks about involving Republicans; I understand that some people are afraid of that. My reading is that he is just saying that you can't move the country to the left without bringing along Republicans. But I freely concede that I may be wrong on that.

But by any objective comparison, a black community organizer from Illinois who opposed the Iraq War is clearly far, far to the left of a rich white Southern trial lawyer from South Carolina who supported the Iraq War.

If we get Barack Obama, we get the most liberal candidate of the big 3 and the most liberal President since LBJ. (Of course, we'll probably get Hillary Clinton and President McCain.) If we had gotten John Edwards, we would have to have hoped and prayed that we did not get the Edwards who served in the Senate and voted with the conservatives.

Jason,

Another good post. But, to be quite frank, the problem is your audience. You are talking to people won't even admit that the media drives them, much less the finer points of how they have doubt standards. Their illogics seem logical, and they can write novel (as per Dilan) as to how their are logical (although not).

Edwards talked like a liberal and he governed as a conservative.

This is more than a little misleading. For one thing, by no reasonable measure was Edwards a "conservative" in the Senate. He was solidly within the mainstream of his party.

Further, to say he "talked like a liberal and governed like a conservative" implies a temporal order that is crucially inaccurate. It would be more appropriate to say he governed like a 'conservative', THEN talked like a liberal, which is pretty different.

On the one hand, he moved all the candidates to the left. On the other hand, Obama is a centrist who loves Republicans. Which is it? Did Edwards move Obama to the left or didn't he?

Surely you see that these are not incompatible propositions. He moved the other candidates further to the left; that doesn't mean they aren't still, essentially, centrists. They're just not as far to the center as they would have been.

But by any objective comparison, a black community organizer from Illinois who opposed the Iraq War is clearly far, far to the left of a rich white Southern trial lawyer from South Carolina who supported the Iraq War.

I'm sorry I got nasty earlier, and I'm trying to be polite, but this is truly inane. Why on god's green earth would you think that Obama's race and Midwest roots, and Edwards wealth and Southernness (????) have any bearing whatsoever on political ideology? Why would you say that a trial lawyer couldn't possibly be to the left of someone who was (briefly) a community organizer?

The only point of substance you have touched on is the Iraq war. And yes, Obama opposed the war initially, while Edwards supported it. Obama subsequently has voted to continue the war.

But even if you give Obama the edge on Iraq, there is simply no way that being wrong initially on a single issue (which isn't, actually, a left-right issue, exactly) is completely determinative of one's place on the political spectrum. No matter how important Iraq is, it just can't play this role. By your standards, Pat Buchanan is to the left of John Kerry.

I mean, you've really just propounded one of the most preposterous accounts of political ideology I've ever seen. Apparently living in Illinois now makes you automatically more liberal - I'm sorry, "far, far to the left" - than someone from North Carolina. You can't actually believe what you have said.

I'll note also, though I have no idea if this is true for anyone here, that many of the same people who bash Edwards for daring to grow more progressive over time and advocate for more progressive policies than he did while in office are the very same people who indulge in the hero-worship of Al Gore, a politician who has done the exact same thing, more so even.

Al Gore the VP and presidential candidate turned off progressives in droves; now he's like a folk hero. Which is fine, but why Gore also gets a pass where Edwards doesn't: another unsolved mystery.

According to Rasmussen, neither of the Dem frontrunners are polling well against McCain, the Republican frontrunner....

http://tinyurl.com/2q942x

Posted by: El Viajero

I'll take my chances as far as Rasmussen is concerned. This is a polling company that gets its electoral analysis from such creditable and "balanced" sources as Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Lawrence Kudlow, non-partisans all.

Besides, it's early and there is plenty of time to set the dynamic and narrative for the White House race. I'm not too concerned about the numbers at this point. Neither side even has a nominee yet.

Besides, if you have faith in Rasmussen, take a look at the article the site is running on the "enthusiasm gap" between party regulars and party voters. The GOP supporters are not nearly as passionate and the turnout has been reflecting that.

Of course, for the Rasmussen crowd you could always look at how unaffiliated voters prefer the Democrats on domestic issues and trust the party more than the GOP overall. That is at Rasmussen.

And unaffiliated voters are a full third of the electorate. I think that complicates the "McCain lead" does it not?

Take a look:

http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues/trust_on_issues

Aren't "trial lawyers" one of the Democrats' most loyal constituencies?

Jason C:

Black community organizers in Chicago, are, on average, far more liberal than rich white lawyers in the Carolinas. Edwards' defenders were telling us all through 2004 how conservative his voting record really was-- now you are saying he was in the mainstream of liberalism, i.e., Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer. Sorry, he wasn't.

The fact is, if we are ever going to elect liberals again, we have to elect non-Southerners. Southern Democrats have to be conservative and militaristic to get elected down there, and they are. And that's why both the Clintons and Edwards supported the Iraq War.

Massachusetts Senators are, on average, more liberal than Illinois Senators.

Therefore, if we are going to elect a liberal, we have to elect John Kerry or Ted Kennedy.

Because Southerner voters only apply conservative and militaristic standards to Southern candidates, apparently.

I love the racism in Dilan's post. On the bright side, he's equal opportunity in his racism and that counts for something.

Black community organizers in Chicago, are, on average, far more liberal than rich white lawyers in the Carolinas.

If you presented me with two anonymous politicians, and all you told me was that one was a black community organizer from Chicago, and the other was a wealthy lawyer from North Carolina, and then asked me to place a bet on which one was further to the left, then (assuming I wouldn't smell a setup) I would place my money on the community organizer.

That means nothing for the present discussion. The facts that you point to could maybe serve as useful heuristics, given no other information. But if you have two actual, identified individuals, and you want to know where they are relative to one another on the ideological spectrum, it makes absolutely no sense to insist on categorizing them abstractly (using, I might add, characteristics that are carefully selected to suggest a particular answer) and then deciding the issue on where the average person with those characteristics would be.

Anybody could play those games. Who's going to care more about the working class: the guy who was born to a blue-collar family, who got his BA from North Carolina State and his JD from UNC, or the guy who was born to an anthropologist and a Harvard-educated economist, who himself went to Columbia and Harvard Law?

See how silly that would be.

The most plausible conclusion is that you dislike Edwards and like Obama for reasons that are wholly non-rational (if not irrational), and you're fumbling for reasons to justify your preexisting preference. Which wouldn't even be so bad if you'd come up with slightly more plausible rationalizations.

Hatin on Edwards and his supporters, and injecting race at that, isn't going to do much to sway us to your side. Lets hear from some more "moderate" Obama supporters, eh?

Another problem with Dilan Esper's analysis "Edwards talked like a liberal and he governed as a conservative" is the timeline. ("Governed as a conservative" is an exaggeration, and a rather dishonest one at that, but whatever.)

The correct statement would be that Edwards talked like a moderate, "governed" (or to be more precise, legislated, which ain't the same thing as any Obama supporter ought to be able to understand) like a moderate, and now is talking like a liberal. Esper's phraseology is designed to mislead people into thinking that Edwards sold out on his campaign promises somewhere along the line, but that's just false. Edwards did exactly what he said he would do in the Senate. This is perfectly consistent with the idea that he would have done what he said would do as President as well.

I've seen several members of Edwards' online posse make the point that presidents generally govern as they campaigned. That isn't exactly right, but it's in the ballpark. Lots of presidents have broken specific campaign promises over the years (George W. saying he would have a humble foreign policy, for example), but presidents do NOT break with constituencies who were central to delivering success to their campaigns. The "humble foreign policy" thing was just something Bush said in a general election debate. The "humble foreign policy" constituency was not a crucial part of his campaign effort.

Whether Obama or Edwards is more personally liberal in their heart of hearts is basically irrelevant. Edwards would have been the more liberal president because Edwards bound himself to liberal constituencies in his campaign. If he had won, those constituencies would have given him that victory, and he would have had to remain loyal to them if he planned on ever being reelected. If Obama wins, he'll be free to do whatever he sees fit to do under the circumstances before him at any given time, and for that reason, he can't be trusted no matter what's in his heart. That's how politicians work, and Obama is no different from any other politician in that regard.

This statement sums up how Edwards supporters view politics and Obama supporters:

"If Obama wins, he'll be free to do whatever he sees fit to do under the circumstances before him at any given time, and for that reason, he can't be trusted no matter what's in his heart. That's how politicians work, and Obama is no different from any other politician in that regard."

The difference is who brung you to the ball, and what that means for the straight jacket of how you can govern. Obama could have been a former communist (extreme to make a point), and yet if he were voted into office by conservatives, to whom would he be beholden in terms of how he governs? The argue for Edwards was actually an argument about moving away from individuals toward focusing on policy and agenda. SOmething our party has lost in favor of what we have now. It was , at least for me, never about Edwards per se- it was about the underlying values. Frankly, Obama can still win me and others over if he starts to get this. As Kerry said of his faith- he can believe one thing personally and govern differently. The same is true here- Obama can be a progressive, and still due the circumstances not govern as such. I don't think (and maybe this is American thing now) people appreciate how its both the ability of the person to lead, and the environment in which he or she is leading. This , again at least to me, has been the core debate. Not about black or white. Man or woman. Poor or wealthy, but getting the complex of what one is addressing.

I love the racism in Dilan's post.

Don't be silly. It isn't racist to point out that the political traditions that Obama and Edwards come out of are quite different. And race is relevant here, because we are affected by the social construction of race-- or do you think that Edwards could have swayed so many juries in the Carolinas as a BLACK trial lawyer?

I really hope that Obama becomes president, just to watch Dilan Esper realises what it means to have Austan Goolsbee directing economic policy.

Hint: it's ain't a progressive outcome...

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