Kevin Sullivan

Here’s Johnny?

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A question for all 2 1/2 of my commentators and my PoliGazette colleagues.  Well, two. 

Where is John Edwards?  Couldn’t he ostensibly end this thing right now?

Apply Gloss Liberally

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Paul Krugman with the hagiography:

One thing is clear, however: whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign.

Personal appeal won’t do the job: history shows that Republicans are very good at demonizing their opponents as individuals. Mrs. Clinton has already received the full treatment, while Mr. Obama hasn’t — yet. But if he gets the nod, watch how quickly conservative pundits who have praised him discover that he has deep character flaws.

If Democrats manage to get the focus on their substantive differences with the Republicans, however, polls on the issues suggest that they’ll have a big advantage. And they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.

This argument–that John Edwards moved the conversation to the Left–doesn’t hold much water with me.  Hillary Clinton has been an advocate for universal coverage for over a decade, and to assume that her plan would’ve been devoid of it without Edwards is mere speculation.  Furthermore, had she come out with compulsory coverage or not, you’d still probably have the Obama plan you have now (as Krugman basically argues).  In a speech from last may, Clinton called universal coverage a “moral imperative.”  That message hasn’t changed.

Moving the conversation is fine and good, but moving warm bodies to the voting booth is more important.  For Edwards, despite the rhetorical shift to the Left, the same voters who he “moved” in 2004 came out in 2008–disgruntled white men.  Lou Dobbs voters.  He took this demographic in South Carolina and grabbed about a quarter of them in Florida.  Edwards–who spent four years reinventing himself and camping out in Iowa–couldn’t do better than third in the two states where his Dobbsian vote was most in play.  Truth be told, these voters will coalesce around either Clinton or Obama.  This isn’t a bloc vote, and they will filter out.  The Edwards influence is grossly overstated. 

But the meme is on the march from the far, far, far Left.  We owe John Edwards.  Why, without him placing third in every single primary contest, the far superior candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama just wouldn’t be the same. 

Perhaps then we should pay our respects proportionally.  I’d like to thank Joe Biden for reminding us why we shouldn’t vote for Joe Biden.  I’d like to thank Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich for representing the UFO/conspiracy theorist vote, and last but not least, thanks to Mike Gravel for the “rock” video.

Now, can we let the campaigns that actually won stuff decide their own policies?

More at memeorandum. 

“Suspending”

Posted by Kevin Sullivan under Uncategorized

 Is Edwards really done?  Read the transcript:

Now, I’ve spoken to both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. They have both pledged to me and more importantly through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency.

And more importantly, they have pledged to me that as President of the United States they will make ending poverty and economic inequality central to their Presidency. This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause.

—

Today, I am suspending my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.

But I want to say this to everyone: with Elizabeth, with my family, with my friends, with all of you and all of your support, this son of a millworker’s gonna be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine.

Suspending?  Suspension is not withdrawal.  It’s not dropping out.  As Donna Brazile noted today on CNN, this could allow him to sit back, not endorse and see what happens on February 5.  If he can still chip away at some delegates, and the race between Hillary and Obama tightens, he may still get to play kingmaker at the convention. 

Trippi says that they’re “banging down the doors” for an Edwards endorsement.  I’m sure the are.

I think Edwards is giving himself this week, so let’s see if he endorses.

Ding Dong

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The bid is dead!

I obviously haven’t been the biggest Edwards fan, so my view on the matter is not for the inconsolable.  While I agreed with a good deal of the senator’s economic policies, I simply couldn’t bring myself to support a candidate with such an irresponsible global outlook.  Like Richardson and Biden before him, the attempt to out-Iraq the other candidates left a lot to be desired.  Stylistically, Edwards also bugged me.  As Russ Feingold put it, “he uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.”  He wanted to rebuild the working class, yet he voted for an atrosious bankruptcy bill in 2001.  He, to me, represents everything that is wrong with electoral politics.  He’s a wonderful piece of clay for a strategist or manager to mold, but he’s bad news for America.

It’ll be fascinating to see how this alters the nomination.  Edwards apparently isn’t planning to endorse yet, but that may not matter as far as February 5 is concerned.  Voters in these late and larger states will want to cast a decisive vote, so it seems likely that Edwards’ supporters will filter out to either Clinton or Obama.  Claudia believes this will help Clinton, but I’m not so sure.  I think Edwards supporters make for good Obama supporters, and the Edwards difference just might tighten matters up in Alabama, Arizona, California and other close Super Tuesday states.  It could be the difference in places like Connecticut, which would be a huge coup for Obama.
 

UPDATE: Big Tent Dem has an interesting post on the spoils of withdrawal. 

UPDATE II: Michael weighs in on Edwards voters, and Dana Goldstein has a nice piece on the Edwards non-base.

More at memeorandum.   

AG Edwards

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I could live with this.  After all, as Charles Krauthammer reminded us yesterday, John Edwards is not nearly as ideological as he would like the Democratic base to believe.  He’s an opportunist longing for position, and once he got that position, I foresee him being somewhat innocuous in the role. 

We need to rethink Justice in the first place, and what the role of the AG should be.  Maybe Edwards could bring enough spit and vinegar to shake the department up a bit.  Having a guy in the office who ran against the president could also prevent the the AG from reverting to lapdoggery.

UPDATE:

Michael questions my logic here, but my primary point is this: I don’t think Edwards would rock the boat all that much as AG, since I think his partisanship ends at the ballot box.  His message contradicts his limited record.  He’s running as Russ Feingold, minus the actual progressive record.  He did a lot to innocluate himself from such charges following 2004, but those gestures–such as his union work with SEIU in the hotel industry–were as obvious as a mack truck coming down an empty highway.

However, I think Justice needs to be turned upside down and shaken a bit anyway.  So if he did enter into the role as a reformer–or an activist–the Liberal in me sees this as a potentially positive thing, too.    

Others Blogging It:

Power Line
Donklephant
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John Edwards: The Movie

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Go National

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I rarely, if ever, agree with The Stollerist.  But credit belongs where it’s due, and I think he’s right about this:

Bush is about to get his number one priority through Congress, a move that could be stopped by Edwards, Obama, or Clinton, especially the latter two.  This is the move to implement retroactive immunity for telecom companies who spy on Americans and violate core constitutional principles.

All that is required to fight this is for Clinton or Obama to put the glare of the Presidential spotlight in the Senate.  To, you know, lead.  All three campaigns are well-aware of this fight, and at least Clinton and Obama have been completely unresponsive.

South Carolina is probably locked up for Obama, and since the fight now is over swing liberals and the campaign is about to move national, this would be a smart political move.  You get more national attention by confronting Bush in DC in a dramatic filibuster than you do with bland paid media.  PT Barnum said if you want to attract a crowd, pick a fight, and Democrats who vote in Democratic primaries like people who fight Bush.  Hell, everyone likes people who fight Bush.

I don’t think telecom resonates with most Americans, but yes, a fight on the senate floor with the president would be great exposure for Obama and Clinton.  It would also, coincidentally, be the right thing to do.   

“Our” John Edwards

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Creepy. 

This reminds me of the 2002 New York State gubernatorial race.  Upstate millionaire Tom Golisano was fond of saying during the campaign that “special-interest spending” was keeping taxes high for New Yorkers, and that his third party bid was the only way to liberate New Yorkers from such interests.  Eventually, Golisano’s opponents had to remind him that he was the special interest.

All that aside, I do agree with much of Edwards’ proposed tax reforms.  I’m a sucker for middle class messaging mixed with a dash of Huey Long populism.  The rhetoric, however, is potentially harmful.  Declaring “war” on tax havens creates a funny mental image, but kind of makes Jonah Goldberg sound right.    

“Our Guys Should Talk.”

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There doesn’t seem to be much to this story (or photo), just CNN doing some scandal mongering.  It does remind me however of the recorded conversation between these two from July, where they essentially commiserated over their mutual frustration with having to share the stage with less “serious” candidates.

Of course these two–one the assumptive and entitled candidate, the other the party’s #2 in 2004–would feel this way, and build a bond on it.  This is why, despite my feeling that both Clinton and Obama would both be solid candidates, I tend to lean towards Senator Obama.  No one owns the Democratic Party, yet there are certain elements within it who feel a sense of ownership over it.  Certainly, an Obama nomination would in a sense be a “skipping over” of Senator Clinton, something no ambitious person would take lightly.  Constantly we are reminded–in subtle gestures and jabs at Obama–that the nomination process isn’t a popularity contest.  Well, sure.  But it shouldn’t be a seniority contest either.  Exposure to public life doesn’t mean you belong in public life, and political oligarchies leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Others Blogging It:

Outside The Beltway
Melissa McEwan
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Faux Populism (Updated)

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I can’t imagine George Will and I would ever agree on a whole lot.  While I respect his knowledge and somewhat distinct conservative voice, I simply see more of a role for government in the everyday lives of Americans than he does. 

With that said, I appreciate this sentiment:

The way to achieve Edwards’ and Huckabee’s populist goal of reducing the role of “special interests,” meaning money, in government is to reduce the role of government in distributing money. But populists want to sharply increase that role by expanding the regulatory state’s reach and enlarging its agenda of determining the distribution of wealth. Populists, who are slow learners, cannot comprehend this iron law: Concentrate power in Washington and you increase the power of interests whose representatives are concentrated there.

Barack Obama, who might be mercifully closing the Clinton parenthesis in presidential history, is refreshingly cerebral amid this recrudescence of the paranoid style in American politics. He is the un-Edwards and un-Huckabee — an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic “fights” against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country.

Ouch.

I’m not a fan of the phony baloney style of populism Edwards and his ilk espouse.  Will’s point is well taken–you can’t treat the electorate as an insurgency and then advocate for more and more power in Washington.  The idea that a Big Government crusader will rein in on the Evil Corporations and foster legitimate change is somewhat fanciful.  Even the New Deal–perhaps the blueprint for American Liberalism–cooperated at various turns with the business community.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, embraced Roosevelt’s plan for allowing price stabilization within certain trade sectors.  Hoover’s administration ignored these deflationary measures, as they would’ve violated anti-trust regulations imposed by the federal government.  Roosevelt, as history would soon inform, had little concern for such trifles.  Government and business mustn’t be on par at all times, and Liberals understand that government must regulate in order to maintain fairness.  However, they also know that government shouldn’t always be in the business of replacing business. 

There are a few candidates who get this.  John Edwards is not one of them. 
UPDATE:

With this issue, I’d say it’s important to distinguish policy from approach.  Most of us understand that John Edwards and Barack Obama are closer on the issues than Huckabee and the former.  I’m sure George Will would agree, too.   

But for those who would like to see ”a clean energy economy, a strong safety net for the sick, a progressive tax code, and a government that respects privacy,” I’d recommend a quick and cursory review of how legislation gets passed in America.  Check out some of the more seminal pieces of legislation from throughout the 20th Century.  The government is built for compromise, with the senate especially suited as a way to curb the whims and impulses of a fickle populous.  Whipping up outrage and exaggerated divisions works well in campaigns and direct mail, but it doesn’t really resemble governing.  That was Will’s point.           

Style and form are important in a power sharing relationship.