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[usregimechange]

I have met many people who said they didn't like Kerry but would have voted for Edwards. Is there a draft Edwards web site? What has he been doing lately? Let's discuss these and other Edwards news here...

[deadparrot]

1. There's a John Edwards DU group...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=257

[ChiciB1]

8. I Think He's Really Great!

And I would vote for him anytime! He's more to the right than I am, but hey I saw him in person and LOVED it!

[latteromden]

2. Hahaha, oh, how typical.

You know, I actually picked up that hand gesture (in the picture) from watching him speak so many times. :silly:

[President Jesus]

4. ...and he stole that from Clinton

It was Bill that made that gesture famous in the 92 campaign.

[latteromden]

6. It's catchy! But I'm back to my "waving arms eratically in huge circles"

sort of hand gestures, now. ;)

[DemDogs]

9. You knew Edwards before?

What in the world makes you think that Edwards stole it from Clinton? It's like when someone puts their hands in the pockets and someone says they stole it from John Kennedy. If you knew him before and he didn't make that gesture, fine, but he seems like a genuine guy to me.

[President Jesus]

33. Jesus, lighten up.

[Califooyah Operative]

39. hehe, it really is a good move,

i find my self doing it any time i'm making a point now. It really should stop ::gestures with right hand::

[President Jesus]

3. good luck with that...

Absolute Zero Ticket 2008: Edwards/Bayh

and, uhh...people DID have the opportunity to vote for Edwards over Kerry just a few months ago. They didn't. Overwhelmingly.

[Clarkie1]

5. He's not looking so good anymore n/t

[muse]

14. No way! That's not possible.

Cute as ever.

[FreedomAngel82]

20. I love Edwards and Kerry together

Edwards is the cutie and Kerry is the handsome smart one. :) I thought they were such a great team. *sigh*

[FrenchieCat]

7. Yeah...

The media's guy until after he was selected as Veep...then it was downhill from there. Guess they will be prop him up again when the time comes.

[DemDogs]

10. Big surprise here: Clark supporters down on Edwards

And no wonder. A real Southerner who beat your guy. Get over it.

[Clarkie1]

13. Actually, Clark did better than Edwards in the primaries

And I'm not down on Edwards, but I do think a lot of his appeal had to do with perceived charm and looks. Not saying he's not a good guy.

But Edwards never won a state, and Clark did.

Clark also did much better than Edwards in New England states.

It's true Clark withdrew before Edwards, but that was because Clark wasn't in it for any future ambition and wanted to support Kerry and help unite the party when it become obvious Kerry was going to be the nominee.

[AP]

23. Edwards won two states and got 20% of the votes in the primaries and

came in second 21 primaries, and 2nd in at least one caucus. After Edwards, Dean was next best winning 2 primaries and coming in second in 2 other primaries (not sure about caucuses) and got 5.7% of the votes. Clark won one and came in second in another (not sure about caucuses) and ended up with the 6 most votes at 3.5% (behind "others" at 3.6%).

More importantly, in states like LA, FL and a few others, exit polls were showing that 50% of voters wanted Edwards to be VP. Clark may have dropped out, but he wasn't doing well at all in that contest. And Edwards was getting 50% to Landrieau's 20% in LA, and to both FL Senators' 15% in FL.

As for NE:

CT: Edwards came in 2nd with 31K votes, Clark 7th with 1.5K
MA: Edwards 2nd with 108k votes, Clark 8th with 3k votes (behind uncommitted in 7th place)
NH Edwards 4th with 26.5k, Clark 3rd with 27.3k
ME:Edwards 4th with .2K, Clark 5th with .1k
RI: Edwards 2nd with 6.6k, Clark 7th with .2K
VT: Edwards 3rd with 5k, Clark 5th with 2.7k

So, in New England, Edwards beat Clark in every state except one, in which Clark only beat him by 800 votes, and overall Edwards got about 140K more votes than Clark in NE.

[Clarkie1]

25. Clark did receive more votes than Edwards when they were both running

Clark defeated Edwards in NH, where people knew Clark best eventhough Edwards had just come off of a good showing in Iowa, and In the other states you cite the primaries were after Clark had thrown his support to Kerry, so of course Clark supporters voted for Kerry then. A comparison between Edward's and Clark's performance in those states is meaningless.

I will concede I had forgotten that Edwards did manage to win South and North Carolina, but that's his home state and the state he was a senator so in my book doesn't count for much. Clark won Oklahoma. I'm sure Clark would have won Arkansas, but I like I said he did what was best for the party when it became obvious Kerry was going to be the nominee.

Stating that "Edwards won 20% of the primary vote" is somewhat misleading unless put in the context that for much of that 20% he was the only serious candidate who had not endorsed Kerry, the obvious nominee at that point.

[AP]

27. Pick your cut-off date and tell me what the vote difference was.

I believe Edwards beat Clark by more votes than Clark had in total in just VA.

Clark came in 2nd in AZ and got a bunch of votes, but Edwards pulled even quickly and then blew Clark away in total votes by Feb 2(?) (by over 80K votes in TN+VA on Feb 10, and 110K in SC).

Clark had campaigned for a month in NH and was up with Dean in first place in the polls in early January and only beat Edwards by 800 votes. In fact, Clark was losing to Edwards into the last hour or so of counting.

[Clarkie1]

31. There are so many factors that who did "better" is a matter of

interpretation beyond the vote count at this or that point in time. And really, it doesn't matter. Clark managed to do well without starting in Iowa. Those 110K votes in SC were Edward's home state (what would Clark have gotten in his?) You have your interpretation and I have mine.

[AP]

36. But what isn't a matter of interpretation are statements like:

"Edwards didn't win any states" and "Clark did better than Edwards in New England."

I'm willing to concede that Clark might have done better than he did had he started in Iowa. However, I think there are two things which are impossible to deny:

(1) The results of the Stanford-PBS deliberative poll show that the more people knew about all the candidates, the more they liked Edwards, and

(2) On March 9 in FL and LA, states where Kerry was coming in first with over 70% of the vote and Edwards was coming in second with, respectively 10 and 16 percent of the vote, around 50% of voters were saying they wanted Edwards on the ticket as VP. I don't know if this was an open poll question, but those are very large numbers. Now, most of the press leading up to March 9 was trying to undermine Edwards's presidential run by selling him as a VP, but still, when 1 in 2 Democrats are saying they want him as VP you can't say that he didn't run a great primary race and that people didn't like him a great deal. He clearly cam in second in the primaries, and was never perceived as a loser, and was on the up-slope the entire time, as people learned more and more about him.

[Clarkie1]

41. again, we agree to disagree in our interpretation

I agree Edwards did well in the primaries and many people liked him. I still believe Clark did the best in New England of any of the non-new England candidates, and yes that is a matter of interpretation based on NH, not states which held their primaries after Clark endorsed Kerry.

Again, yes, Edwards did very well in the primaries.

[AP]

42. Clark was going down in the polls in NH over the course of January

and Edwards doubled his numbers in NH in just the last three days.

If Clark did better, it was because the primary wasn't one day later. And that's basically the story of the campaign. Some candidates did better as more people got hear them, and some went down.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Just citing the facts....

The media went into overtime promoting Edwards...from Iowa till the day that he was announced as the Veep choice. After that, it was "where's Edwards?".

Whether that's down or up on the guy....these are facts.

[AP]

26. Too bad they pretty much ignored him before IA, and then spent a week

talking about Dean's scream before NH.

Mediatenor.org had media studies throughout the primaries. Edwards got no coverage before Iowa -- seriously. He came in last in every category. He got positive "personality" coverage after Iowa, but almost no coverage on the issues (which is what the deliberative poll by Stanford & PBS was exposing people to, which is where he was coming in first place, beating Clark and Kerry and everyone else).

He certainly didn't get bad coverage (except for the NYT's shameless pieces on brain damaged baby cases) because there's not much bad you can say about him. And anyway, saying bad things about him was Faircloth's mistake. Faircloth was winning that race by 10% with a week to go when he attacked Edwards's trial lawyer career. That's how Edwards won.

Anyway, Edwards didn't get the kind of good coverage that would have helped him, and that good coverage was only in the context of "Kerry's sealed it up." So what good was it then?

If the media wanted Edwards to win, they would have talked about him and his issues before Iowa, because, as the deliberative Stanford/PBS poll shows, it would have worked.

And the fact that they ignored him during the GE -- well what can you do? Put a crappy VP on the ticket so that the media will talk about how crappy he is? (Incidentally, mediatenor showed that Cheney got twice the campaign coverage that Edwards got, or something like that).

[Yupster]

11. I don't see it

I don't think he ended up adding anything to the ticket. Looking back, I think Gephardt would have been the better choice of the ones that supposedly were considered.

[JI7]

12. he looks so much like John Ritter

i always think "John Ritter" when i see him which is good in a way since i always liked John Ritter and was really sad when he died.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. Oh wow

Me, too. He's not a double but he's REALLY close. Especially on the old "Three Companies" show!

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

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[latteromden]

24. Oh, I KNOW! That was the first thing that drew me to him.

Now, I'm not so keen on Edwards anymore... but hey.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[NotHappyGal]

17. Next Demo President

Hillery and Boxer in 08.

[Catherine Vincent]

19. It's spelled Hillary.

[FreedomAngel82]

22. Hillary/Boxer would be cool

I'm down for that. Two women! Yay!

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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[LittleClarkie]

34. Welcome Not Happy Gal

Hope you will be happy soon.

Personally, I want Kerry, but we can add Boxer.

Either which way I'm not fighting primary battles yet. There is a Dem agenda to support first, and 2006 elections to get through.

I'm thinking things will be clearer after 2006 as far as who's running anyway. I will likely support whoever we nominate. But I would prefer Kerry. We shall see who comes out on top by then.

[Pam-Moby]

18. I think that he does not have enough experience

to be the president and by him coming back into the fray would not do him any good. Also where was he after him and Kerry said that they would stick around and make sure every vote counted? Not where he was needed in Ohio helping to push the lawsuit that had requested that the electoral vote of Ohio be temporarily stopped. Which could have allowed a recount that could have possibly been more correct if there had been some heavier weight placed on Ohio by one of the candidates that actually could have changed the outcome.

[MrSlayer]

28. Too bad Kerry got hosed else this would be true.

I can't see him doing much in the next Presidential race considering he's not currently holding any office and isn't likely to before then. I like Edwards but I don't consider him viable as a Presidential candidate for 2008. It's a damn shame he couldn't keep his Senate seat.

[Clarkie1]

32. I too sincerely wish Edwards had kept his senate seat

We need him there.

Thank God Kerry still has his.

[LittleClarkie]

35. I've met folks who said just the opposite, but then I'm in Freeperland

Some thought it was a good move to pick him, because of his Kennedy-like appeal. One or two RW pundits here were hatching bricks at the idea of running against him because they thought he could win.

But some thought he was WAY too liberal, and the RW has declared war on the lawyers in particular. Some I know said that they were less likely to vote for Kerry with Edwards on the ticket.

As for me, I thought they made a good team. I was thinking that if Cheney is Darth Vader, and Edwards was Luke Skywalker (as some portrayed them after the VP debate), then Kerry was Yoda. "Teach you I will, yes! Heh, heh."

[blm]

37. Really? You met people who didn't like the man who investigated and

exposed more government corruption than any lawmaker in modern history?

Were they fans of corrupt government? Did they resent Kerry's work? What were their reasons?

[Freddie Stubbs]

38. He certainly helped the ticket in North Carolina

[AP]

40. Gore and Kerry did same in NC while Kerry did 3% worse nationally, right.

And both those tickest were a NE'er plus a Southerner.

So, Edwards was worth something in NC. Not bad for not campaigning there. (Gore actually tried to appeal to southerners from the top of the ticket.)

Kerry-Edwards did win High Point, NC where Democrats haven't won in a long time. It was a blue collar, working class town where they've lost a lot of jobs.

I wonder what message they were responding to?

[lonestarnot]

43. Awh...first time I've seen this nice face in a week or couple of weeks...

Son of a mill worker... Makes me sad.:cry: He would make a FINE PRESIDENT!

[DemDogs]

44. Edwards, who had Cheney squirming and lying

That's what we need. He had their most experienced guy squirming, wringing his hands and finally resorting to a lie to deflect from Edwards' composed attacks. I think about the difference between the Lieberman debate and the Edwards debate, and I have to wonder what the people who say Edwards lacks experience. He had what it took. And his sensible plans laid out in the Dionne column suggest that he still does.