By David Hogberg on 3.3.04 @ 12:05AM
John Edwards didn't have to be so nice ... though who's to say he would have been loved anyway.
There is one basic reason why Senator John Edwards will do the
inevitable later today. He's just too darn nice. It's hard to
believe that someone who made a fortune as a trial lawyer can't
seem to find his "inner attack dog." Yet, he seems to have a
serious aversion to going on the offensive.
The CW from Sunday's debate was that John Edwards finally got
serious about going after Senator John Kerry. "Dems Take Off
Gloves" read one headline from the New York Daily News.
Well, if that's their idea of the gloves coming off, remind me
never to put them in my corner during a fight. Consider an absolute
softball question that Dan Rather lobbed at Edwards: "But we know
that likability…is very important to the campaign --
charisma, whatever you want to call it. Does Senator Kerry have
enough Elvis to beat George Bush, enough excitement factor, enough
charisma, enough likability?" Given an easy chance to knock one out
of the park, Edwards whiffed: "I know John Kerry. I like him very
much…I don't think this is a personality contest."
Nor could he maximize another big opening, when he was permitted
to ask Kerry a question. In an attempt to emphasize that Kerry was
more of a Washington insider, Edwards asked, "My question is, do
you believe we're going to change this country out of Washington,
D.C.?" Kerry dismissed it without effort: "Yes, because that's
where the Congress of the United States is, and that's where 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue is. And the answer is, we're going to need a
president who has the experience and the proven ability -- proven
ability -- to be able to stand up and take on tough fights." One
wonders how Kerry might have handled the question if Edwards had
phrased it, "Insiders in Washington have given us bad trade deals,
tax breaks for millionaires, and failed to help Americans get
health care. Senator Kerry, you've been a Washington insider for 19
years. How can you, as a Washington insider, be expected to change
this country?" Alas, it just wasn't in Edwards.
Indeed, Edwards' niceness is so deeply ingrained that he could
barely bring himself to attack President Bush. Reviewing one of his
Iowa stump speeches, I noticed that Edwards only mentioned Bush's
name about a dozen times. And many of those instances were not
attacks on Bush, but rather spiels about how he voted for George
Bush's policies less than any other senator and that coming from
the South gave him the best chance to defeat Bush in November.
This was further evidenced in an exchange that Edwards and Kerry
had on Sunday over Haiti. Edwards criticized Bush because he
"ignored Haiti the same way he's ignored most of the countries in
this hemisphere." By contrast, Kerry barked, "This administration
empowered the insurgents" in Haiti. It's one thing to ignore a
problem, quite another to empower it. You don't need to do a focus
group to know which one better appeals to the average Democrat
voter.
Edwards' niceness did him in for two reasons. First, a candidate
had to attack the frontrunner to overtake the frontrunner in this
year's primaries. That's how Kerry managed to overtake Howard Dean
in Iowa. The time for Edwards to go on the offensive was right
after Kerry won the New Hampshire primary. On Sunday Edwards showed
he couldn't even do it at the eleventh hour.
Second, the Democratic base was clearly looking for a candidate
willing to fire away at President Bush. That's what led to Dean's
initial rise and, when it became apparent that Dean had far too
loose a lip, what led to the rise of Kerry. Edwards' inability to
be tough on Bush was a fatal flaw.
There are surely elections in which being a nice guy is a big
asset. Unfortunately for Edwards, this is the year in which nice
guys …
topics:
Trade, Health Care, Law, NATO
