AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO ALL JOHN EDWARDS' SUPPORTERS: Please, please, please do not accuse me of writing a hit piece. Because that is not my intent. I am unaffiated with any candidate for President in 2008, having neither given money nor volunteer time to any candidate. I actually write this to have people help me with a quandary I have with Sen. Edwards that has been gnawing at me for some time, and to determine if I can support him in the primaries.
Whew...all that being said, let's move on.
I supported John Edwards for President in 2004. My initial support was for Dean, but I knew that he wasn't going to go places after his third place finish in Iowa. (I could have cared less about the "Dean scream", BTW). I voted for Edwards in my primary, because I thought he would have been a stronger candidate that John Kerry.
So initially, when Edwards announced for President, I was actually excited at the propsect. I really liked the guy, liked what he had ran on in '04. My only minor concern was the need for some foreign policy seasoning. I even signed up to get his campaign updates via e-mail. I was actually very close to declaring my full support for him early on.
Then...I started to see changes in Edwards. Changes in his rhetoric from who he was before. Not to say that the changes were BAD, per se. To the contrary, they seemed to be line with what I generally would support. But the nagging question for me was "Why is he changing now?"
I talked with friends and supporters of Edwards, including those from North Carolina. I was told he was one of the most genuine people you'd ever meet. (I was somewhat skeptical of that claim, because I myself had met Edwards, and he'd seemed like a decent sort...but not necessarily genuine.) But I'll give my friends the benefit of the doubt on that one.
It just makes me wonder about him, because now he is going around admitting that he made a series of "mistakes" while Senator. The big one, of course, is Iraq. I can live with his apology on that. But recently, on This Week with George Stephanopolous, he was confronted with other votes that he has run away from: No Child Left Behind, free trade with China, bankruptcy reform. And Edwards' only explanation seemed to be, "That was then, this is now. People need to believe me for what I'm running on now."
Well, I'm sorry to say, that leaves me a little cold, and more than a little skeptical. Because I don't know what transformative change he's gone through personally or as a candidate to suddenly believe him when he's running further to the left... especially when he, and surely his campaign advisors, know that running to the left will help him win a primary.
It is also disturbing to me how a former Senator with ideals aligned with the DLC could suddenly become someone wed to the idea of very large amounts of government spending. Something just doesn't seem right about that, either.
See, with Obama I get it. I understand why he uses the rhetoric of concilliation and working together, because it is who he is. It's his background as a community organizer, to seek compromise, but also the struggle he has had with his own identity for years.
I also get it with Hillary. Her husband was a master of the political game, and of triangulation, and she knows how to play it well...maybe even better than Bill.
But Edwards? I don't know. He's never really explained why the change has occurred, other than to say he was wrong about some things. Did he look inside himself? What is it?
The only thing I'm left with is his personal background...as both a Senator and a trial lawyer. Trial law is something I know a little about. And Edwards is one of the best. He is an advocate for his client, and he can argue forcefully with the best of them.
But being a trial lawyer sometimes requires you to put aside yourself and think only of your client's interests. And I have a feeling Edwards has done that more than once.
It's not to say he isn't the person he says he is now, it's just that I, and others I know, have a problem believing it. While others think it is geunine, even more Democratic activists I know think it is a little phony.
So help me out here, Edwards' supporters. Why do you believe him? And what is it about him that makes you think what he's about now is more geunine than what he was about then? And what's the proof in the pudding, so to speak? What was that transformative process to get him to where he is today?
Because I'm still on the fence, and Edwards has not moved me off it yet.