I continue to worry about terminology and "framing", not just with Edwards, but with all of our candidates, just as I worry and wonder
why they would want to hire as consultants some of the same people who screwed things up in 2000 and 2004. Yet I do not include Joe Trippi in that except as follows.
I realize that John Edwards on the stump is quite good at explaining his career as a lawyer representing the little guy against the insurance companies and the big corporations. But why do he and his spokespeople,including Joe Trippi in a recent television interview and the candidate himself in the most recent debate, accept the terrminology? "Trial lawyer" is code for rich guy who pursues frivolous lawsuits that cause ordinary people's health care costs and costs of all products to go up.
Trippi was asked about taking money from "trial lawyers". He acquiesced in the term, did not challenge it as it should be challenged. What the GOP and the "liberal media" refer to as "trial lawyers" are those who represent the little guys against those special interests who have been stacking the deck against individuals. As for "frivolous lawsuits", the most frivolous are those filed by big business--like the Texas cattlemen who sued Oprah. Almost everyone knows about the McDonald's "hot coffee"
lawsuit--but not the facts about it. And lots of people know about that truly frivolous case against a dry cleaner, the true villain of which was a defense lawyer who apparently ran up a huge bill, since they get paid by the hour to push paper.
Trippi could have straightened out his interviewer and turned the discussion to what has happened in Washington in the last seven years, with big corporate lobbyists pushing bills to eliminate the legal remedies of those who have been harmed by corporate carelessness, cheating, and greed. When was the last time you heard any Democratic candidate refer to ENRON?
In the last debate, Kucinich challenged Edwards on NAFTA, as I recall, claiming that Edwards should know better about dangerous conditions in labor south of our borders. Or whatever. Kucinich actually called Edwards a "trial lawyer". Again, Edwards did not educate the public on this issue. Yet surely it is one of his biggest "negatives".
What I am seeing from the Edwards campaign reminds me of Gore 2000 and Kerry 2004. Gore started with some good themes--"don't turn back" was the best. It reminded people of Bush I. (And might be a good theme for Obama or Edwards now.) Somehow that was dropped. Kerry started early with a nice theme accusing Bush's campaign of "Fear and Smear"--which was basically all Bush had in 2004 (aside from Kerry's inexplicable inability to explain why he first voted for authorizing threat of force--not necessarily war--but changed his mind when it became clear that any war would be financed on a credit card.
The other thing that Edwards had going for him was his observation that another term the Democrats fail to challenge, the "War on Terror", is just a bumper sticker slogan. He ought to be able to challenge the nonsense coming out of the GOP camp on this issue, like fighting "them"
"over there" so we don't have to fight "them" here, as if "they" are a swarm of bees or a separate species that can be confined geopolitically.
Every time the public hears the term "War on Terror" it reinforces the GOP message of fear, just as "trial lawyers" reinforces the concept of rich sleazy lawyers shaking down honest businesses. Democrats should never repeat these terms, but should take every opportunity to turn the question around.
We did not start a "War on Terror" after Oklahoma City, where the perpetrator was caught by an alert policeman. The 9-11 hijackers did not come from Arabian deserts, and they would have been caught if the public had been alerted to warnings of hijackings. The whole plan might have been aborted if the public had been publicly warned, or if the airlines had bothered to employ security guards and been legally responsible for failure to do so.
Edwards and Obama and other Democratic candidates should take a look at what Ron Paul is saying about what causes terrorism, while they might also observe that Paul is the only GOP candidate who makes sense on this issue. I don't think Hillary is going to attract Paul supporters in the General, but Edwards or Obama might, just by saying a few nice things about Paul, such as that he is the only GOP candidate who opposes torture and supports restoring civil liberties.