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Edited on Tue Jun-19-07 01:19 PM by JohnLocke
q&a: david 'mudcat' saundersJohn Edwards's campaign adviser talks with Joe Hagan about rural Americans getting screwed by the GOP, why his candidate will win back the "Bubba" vote for the Dems, and how his good buddy Cooter from The Dukes of Hazzard sometimes calls on him for a little help. "Let me tell you," David Saunders says. "John Edwards is one tough son of a bitch." ---- David Saunders, a wiry, chain-smoking, 59-year-old adviser to Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards, is as bald and blunt as Edwards is coiffed and controlled. Known by his backwoods nickname, "Mudcat," he's a self-described "rural liaison" who is helping Edwards craft a populist message of economic equality for "Bubba," that catchall for the traditional white, male voter living in rural America. In real time, that means Saunders, a native of Roanoke County, Virginia, can put John Edwards on a stage next to bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley while reminding voters that Democrats like guns, too. With consultant Steve Jarding, Saunders co-authored the 2006 book Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out. Having helped Mark Warner get elected as Governor of Virginia in 2001 (in part by concocting a bluegrass jingle for his campaign), he used some of the same populist themes to aid Jim Webb's successful 2006 bid for senator. (...) MEN'S VOGUE: You picked John Edwards early while Mark Warner was still in the race. Why did you go with Edwards at that point? SAUNDERS: It's very simple. I am much, much more a rural advocate than I am a Democrat. And I'm plum fed up with the way rural America—56 million of us—have been screwed. What deregulation and these trade treaties, what corporate pirates have done to us is unconscionable. And Johnny Edwards is right where I am. He's plum fed up. You can go through the South now—you know where we were raised—and they all look the same now, like Sherman went through there and didn't burn anything. But nobody really wants to talk about economic fairness.
MEN'S VOGUE: What convinced you that Edwards meant it?
SAUNDERS: I know the guy. God, I've known him since December of 2001. Johnny's one of the most misportrayed people in the history of American politics.
MEN'S VOGUE: Why?
SAUNDERS: In 1980, one percent of the people made eight percent of the money, now one percent of the people makes more than 20 percent of the money. Disparity is at an all-time high. And it pisses me off that anytime anybody asks a question about John Edwards and his strong beliefs on economic fairness, everybody talks about how he isn't qualified to talk about it because he has a highfalutin haircut and lives in a high-powered house. What they're saying is only the uneducated can talk about education, only the sick can talk about health care. That's how ludicrous that whole mindset is.
MEN'S VOGUE: There's a debate about whether Democrats can make any headway in the South, where one of the challenges is getting white, working class people to vote on economic issues. But often they're voting on so-called moral issues.
MEN'S VOGUE: You know, we finally broke through on God.
MEN'S VOGUE: How is that?
SAUNDERS: Because Democrats are starting to stand up and say, "Wait a damn minute, the GOP doesn't stand for God's Only Party." God is neither Democrat nor Republican. He could care if you're a Democrat or a Republican. He's about the individual heart, not your party.
MEN'S VOGUE: But why do you think that Democrats now have some sort of credibility on that issue where before they didn't?
SAUNDERS: Maybe the Republicans haven't lived up to the buck. You know you can't take a confusing single issue like abortion, and continue to use that as evidence that you're continuing to do God's work when you destroy God's will in every other facet of what you do.
MEN'S VOGUE: Are you talking about the war? The environment?
SAUNDERS: No Child Left Behind—not funding it. You know, here are the Republicans, they could put a smart bomb down an elevator shaft in Baghdad from a ship out in the Mediterranean but they can't put a pill in the pocket of a damn World War II veteran? Give me a break. Gays—hell, they've had so many state amendments banning . I think people are sick of talking about gays. And see the racial wedges are definitely crumbling.
(...)
SAUNDERS: Let me give you an example. If you say the word poverty, what kind of people come to your mind?
MEN'S VOGUE: The inner cities, maybe.
SAUNDERS: I'd say! That's the first thing. Now when Bubba hears about poverty—now he's lost his job, his kid wants to go to college but he can't pay his tuition, so he's getting ready to send him off to the army so he can get some money off the G.I. Bill, he don't have any health insurance, he's got a little garden out there in his yard, and he just picks up odd jobs, throws some hay bails or something, and is just sitting there completely devastated. But if you tell him he's living in poverty, he'll fight you over it. And the reason is because of pride. He's broke but he isn't poor. You say, "Are you living in poverty?" He'll say, "Hell no, I'm not in poverty." But if you ask him if he's being treated unfairly, he'll say, "F---, yes."
(...)
SAUNDERS: Oh, I've gotten that for sure. It's like Harry Truman said, "The president of the United States is the lobbyist for the regular people." It drives me berserk when someone says that Johnny's a wuss or something. Let me tell you something, John Edwards is one tough son of a bitch.
(...)
SAUNDERS: No, I just know him. Look at his track record. He's born poor as a church mouse. And his dad works up a little bit so by the time he gets out of school, he's pretty much middle class even though he didn't have much. So he decides he's going to earn a football scholarship at Clemson University, so he goes down there and he's one of these Rudy guys and he gets the absolute dog crap beat out of him. The guy is quicker than a hiccup, he really is, but he weighed a hundred and nothing and they beat the hell out of him. And he did that for a year, and at the end of the year they said no scholarship is coming, so he transferred to NC State. Then he starts his career as a trial lawyer and he immediately takes on the biggest, toughest, baddest legal firms in America and whips their asses taking up for little people. You don't do that unless you're tough. And I will say this: I'd hate to fight him cause you'd have to kill him, because he would fight you to the last second. I want that toughness in my president, because we can't win on a freakin' haircut.
(...)
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