I've just come back from what was ambiguously billed as a Policy Address by John Edwards, and which was revealed, halfway through his speech, to be on trade and jobs specifically. But as is often the case with these events, especially this election cycle, the speech contained quite a bit of stump, and rather little policy. Here's my take on Edwards, rallies in general, and the prospects of populism.
The John Edwards policy address refered to is the Feb 19 speech at Columbia University.
(eminently skippable background: I'm a Dean supporter that got into him back at the asterisk phase who largely missed the boat on the enthusiasm of the Summer Surge. My second choice had been Kerry, but I'm now doing some shopping around to make sure.)
The venue is changed at least once to accomodate the significantly larger than expected response. There's at least several hundred people packed in, and the national media are out in force, apparently Fox is broadcasting it live. I've come to the conclusion that rallies the country over play the same music, and the playlist isn't nearly long enough. We're well into the third loop by the time the Senator shows up, and by that time I've realized that to the organizers the audience is only a nice backdrop for the press, almost everything is stage managed for their benefit (we've been asked not to hold signs up to give the camera's a clear shot from the back of the room), and as a result Edwards' entry, which no doubt looks magnificent on television, is rather less impressive in person, as the crowd of camera men standing on stage around the podiem block off all view of him until he's actually standing at it. Admittedly this is part and parcel of campaigns these days, but I'm still waiting for the day that a politician puts the press in something other than a front row seat.
Finally he's arrived, and gets a good few minutes of standing ovation, his face must hurt like hell at the end of the day from grinning like that, it's as if that's now the permanent resting position of his face. At last the crowd quiets and the man begins.
The opening lines are about Wisconsin, and prove that this will indeed be the year of inside baseball, just as Dean originally stumped on the design of his organization, and Kerry has stumped on his electability, now Edwards stumps on the benefits of a continuing debate, and how the voters of Wisconsin have spoken for a continued debate. I don't know about the rest of the audience, but voting for a man to ensure that there's more than one name on the ballot seems a bit of a paltry reason, I would have thought that was a right we could expect without paying for it with our votes.
Fortunately, the process stories are mercifully brief, and he moves into his regular stump and the Two Americas. Edwards has localized his speech significatly, and throughout the first half of the speech, the Two Americas part, he draws repeated connections to New York City. I suspect he's come to the same conclusions as many of us, that making it to NY and getting a win will be a big victory, and that it now just might be possible. He makes references to the proximity of wealth and poverty in the City, and uses Wall Street as his demon for the moment, which leads to a nice line about Bush governing for one street as opposed to all streets. He also makes a quick, and welcome, remark about the Republican convention and it's timing in relation to 9/11 which draws a good response from the crowd.
It's about here that Edwards finally mentions the policy topic he's supposed to be talking about and we move into trade. Outsourcing has become the new big issue and Edwards tries to play it without coming off as an extreme protectionist, and for the most part it works. He puts a moral spin on it, emphasizing aspects like child labor, poverty, and environmental standards, though there's a line about other countries dragging our environmental standard down which hit me as unintentionally funny. He also makes a nice connection between the intellectual property safeguards we require in trade agreements to the environmental, labor rights, and human rights safeguards that he's proposing. He also does a quick riff on keeping the technological and education edge here (a pet issue of mine) and declares that anyone willing to work part time should be able to go to college.
Now he abandon's the Two America's device and moves on to poverty. To me, this is where I finally start see the charisma that everyone talks about and that's never come across to me. This comes across well, the clear moral imperative that a country as rich as ours cannot in good conscience allow the levels of poverty we have. Finally there's some passion, and the speech flows well leading to the goal that no one willing to work full time should live in poverty.
The speech runs downhill from this, the obligatory "Son of a Mill Worker" story follows, interesting only in its interruption by a group of students with the World AIDS Campaign (I think, I may have the specific AIDS campaign wrong), and again Edwards shows that, yes, he is in some ways very talented, he handles the interruption well, gets the audience on his side and forces the activists back to their seats in a non-aggressive way, the trial lawyer showing through. He finishes the story, and then address the AIDS point quickly, and the speech makes another small peak as he's quick enough to draw AIDS back into the general moral imperative on poverty and human rights that he mentioned earlier. He also speaks quickly on foreign policy, perhaps indicating a certain lack of depth in that area, describing only a vague concept of making America respected again in the eyes of the world.
There are no more peaks after this, and the talk winds down into platitudes about winning and restoring power to ordinary Americans.
My main conclusion about the speech is that, at least for me, the Two Americas doesn't work. Perhaps I don't identify well enough with either America, I'm not getting the tax breaks of the rich, but I definitely feel excluded from the America that John Edwards needs me to feel a part of. This effect is so pronounced, that the same moral language that impressed me so much during the latter half of the speech struck me as heavy handed and oppressive in the first half when it was placed in the context of the Two Americas.
In some ways I see this as a significant failing for Edwards, in a lot of ways I should be a prime candidate to become a supporter, I agree with him on a number of issues, and I quite like the moral language with which he puts it, but the populism rubs me the wrong way and I suspect is marginalizing both me and others.
I'm struck by two comparisons. First is the remark that Edwards has a Clintonian charisma. It's interesting comparing the two, as I was fortunate enough to see Clinton semi-live (rebroadcast live in an overflow room) only a week or two ago speaking on Brown v. Board of Education. I notice both of them hit a point in their speech where it finally clicked and everything came together, when that happens they are both excellent and Edwards was probably every bit as good as Clinton. Unfortunately for Edwards, that moment came late, and didn't last, and I suspect Clinton is better at playing to areas where he knows he can speak strongest.
The other comparison was one that struck me while listening to Edwards, during the lines on trade the thought struck me, "I've heard this before". For great chunks of the speech it sounded like Edwards was reading from the Dean playbook, though I think Edwards adds an important moral component that Dean lacked to make the points stronger. However, I haven't payed Edwards that much attention in the past, so I was wondering if any Edwards watchers out there might enlighten me if this is a new occurance or if the two of them have just been that similar for a while.
In the end I'm now happier with the prospect of an Edwards nomination than I was, but I'm still not convinced. His Iraq vote, and his defense of it jar with the moral tones he uses on other topics, betraying either a dishonesty or a naivete that I'm not sure I could stand. I'm in some ways reminded of Nye Bevan's quote regarding the Suez "If he knew, he's too wicked to be Prime Minister, and if he didn't know, he's too stupid to be Prime Minister." which I can't help mentally applying to the current situation, unfortunately it fits equally well to Kerry. Also, I suspect the populism will wear on me, I'm all for getting rid of special treatment and giving equality of opportunity, but Edwards strain of populism comes across to me as more aggressive than that.
In the end, after an hour of listening to Edwards speak, the thing I took from it was a renewed sadness that we've gotten rid of Dean to clear the road for a choice between these two who are equally good at so many things, and equally bad at such important ones.