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Edited on Mon Mar-01-04 10:51 PM by DjTj
This weekend, I met Elizabeth Edwards at a house party, and I don't think I've ever been at an event where I agreed so much with what the speaker said. I'll admit that I am not 100% behind Edwards' policies (and I'm not 100% behind any of the candidates' platforms), but when it comes to the reasons Edwards is the best nominee for the Democratic Party, I agreed 100% with Mrs. Edwards.
The first thing she said, and the first thing I will say, is that John Kerry is a good man and would make a fine President. I will support him if he is the nominee.
However, there are a few reasons why Edwards is the better candidate to go against Bush. It is not because there is anything wrong with Kerry; it is simply about whom our opponent is.
George Bush did not beat Al Gore because people liked his platform better. George Bush did not beat Al Gore because he was more experienced, because he had a better grasp of policy, or because he was a better speaker or debater. There are certainly solid Republicans who voted for Bush in 2000 and will vote for him again in 2004, but the moderates and indepents who voted for Bush in 2000 generally did so because they thought he was a regular guy. Al Gore looked like an out-of-touch Washington insider while Bush was a Texas cowboy who liked baseball and watched NASCAR. Those voters *liked* Bush. In 2004, we need to change those voters minds. We are not starting from a blank slate here. The majority of voters in this election also voted in 2000, so we need people to change their votes.
How do we fight this image of Bush as a regular guy? How do we expose him for the New England aristocrat that he really is? Elizabeth Edwards said, "If you get a counterfeit $1 bill, you don't really notice until you put a real $1 bill right next to it." John Edwards is that real $1 bill. Edwards grew up in a real middle class working family. He went to public school. He worked his way through a public university. He has spent his whole life in the South. John Edwards is everything Bush pretends to be. If voters thought Bush was more like them, they will find the *real deal* in John Edwards.
This is related to a second major point, which is geography. Winning this election isn't about just getting more votes, it is about turning red states blue. Mrs. Edwards admitted that John Kerry has a better shot at swinging New Hampshire, which would have been enough to win in 2000. In 2004, New Hampshire would have been enough to win, but in 2008 it is not. The reapportionment has added electoral college votes to red states, so we'll need something bigger than New Hampshire. John Edwards is from the middle of red territory, and he has much better appeal in the rural and industrial towns where Republicans are generally strong. North Carolina would be all we need to win back the White House, and Edwards is already leading there in a recent poll while Kerry is behind.
People say that Edwards doesn't have enough experience and that we'll get hammered on that issue, but Bush isn't a candidate that runs on experience. That is not Bush's style and he doesn't exactly have a lot of great successes in his first term to stand on. Sure, Edwards doesn't have the foreign policy knowledge that Kerry does, but do you really think Bush is someone that can exploit that? I think Bush would be more likely to misstate a foreign policy detail than Edwards would. This simply will not be an election about experience and knowledge of policy. The Republicans would be stupid to run that way when their candidate is Bush.
The last major point she made was simply about the extreme partisanship in our country today. Democrats and Republicans are at each others throats. Massachusetts and California might as well be in different countries from Texas. Kerry will only feed into that. He is a Massachusetts liberal that Southern Republicans love to hate in the same way that George Bush is a brash Texan that liberals love to hate. At the end of a 2004 campaign between Kerry and Bush, we will still be a country deeply divided, but John Edwards can change that. He has already changed the primary season from a nasty negative battle before Iowa into a polite competition in the past month. Edwards does not inspire the kind of hate from the other side that Kerry does. An Edwards win would bring the country together at a time when we desperately need it.
Her final words were that, "People don't vote for a resume, they vote for a person." John Edwards inspires people across the political spectrum. He has been given little to no support from the Party establishment, whom dismissed him before Iowa and has been lining up behind Kerry since New Hampshire. Every vote for Edwards is a person that has been inspired to go against the bandwagon effect and is a vote that has been earned by the efforts of one man. John Edwards has worked hard for everything he has in this world - every dollar, every verdict, and every vote. He will work harder for the American people than any other candidate. I believe in him and you have seen many impassioned pleas from Edwards supporters from DU who are truly inspired. I think I speak for many of us when I say that it goes beyond just the issues; we support John Edwards with our hearts. We need a candidate with that kind of support in November, and we need a President with that kind of support in the White House. We need John Edwards.
(edited for spelling)
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