Nick Lemann piece on Edwards in New Yorker is best I've read...

[AP]

...and it's probably a good time to take another look at it.

The full text is available in this post at the Edwards blog:

http://blog.johnedwards2004.com/comments.pl?sid=2432&op=&newsid=04/02/22/2258208&threshold=0&commentsort=1&mode=nested&cid=100444

Here are some of the better parts:

Little-people status, defined the way Edwards defines it, does not preclude—indeed, it practically demands—individual ambition. "People in Robbins who worked in the mills with my dad lived for the chance that their kids could do better," he said at dinner. To Edwards, the main point of law and politics should be to change the balance of power in the favor of ordinary people, to remove the roadblocks in their way. "I didn't find my love as a lawyer until I started representing the people I grew up with," Edwards said. "The deck is stacked against these people. I remember working on legal cases and thinking, How can this possibly be?"

...

So what do people want—what would happen if powerful interests weren't in control? "Parents want their kids to do well," Edwards said. "It shouldn't be the lottery of birth that decides how well people do in this country. There should be opportunity. If you grow up in a ghetto, you don't have the same chance as other people. That's wrong. In this country, that's just wrong. When the forces inside Washington work against people—that's what's wrong with the system."

Elizabeth Edwards joined in. "Misallocation of resources," she said.

Her husband frowned slightly: wrong language. "That's just Washington gobbledygook for inequity," he said.

...

Edwards wants to run as a trial lawyer. If he did, and if his strategy worked, it would demonstrate that American politics had taken another of its surprising turns. The personal-injury lawsuit, a drama of individual injustice and recompense, would have become the metaphor that does the political work for liberalism.

...

Presidential campaigns are always presented as being about the larger-than-lifeness of the candidate, but they embody something going on in the society, too. Edwards is a political novice who aims at communicating to people one wouldn't ordinarily think of as populists—middle-class and lower-middle-class suburbanites—that he completely gets it ("it" being the way the big guys are messing with their lives), and that he's going to do something about it. As a candidate, he is placing a bet that there's much more aggrievement around in the lone superpower than most people think. No matter how his candidacy turns out, he may well be betting right.

[VOX]

1. Excellent article!

thanks for posting this!

Cheers -- :toast:

[maddezmom]

2. good article

:kick:

[spooky3]

3. thanks, AP!

[flpoljunkie]

4. Some of Edward's votes in Senate: populist rhetoric vs reality

l. Voted to send waste to Yucca Mountain, 7/9/02 (environmentally unsound)

2. Voted for the Energy Act of 2003, 7/31/03 (incredible giveaway to energy companies)

3. Voted against increasing reliance on renewable energy, 3/14/02

4. Voted to subsidize insurance to nuclear plants (billions of our taxpayer dollars)

5. Voted for the egregious bankruptcy bill of 3/15/01 (giveaway to banks and credit card companies)

6. Voted for fast track final passage, 5/23/02

7. Voted for the China Trade Deal, 9/19/00 (where most of US jobs have since gone)

Yet, John Edwards is now presenting himself as a raging populist who will look out for the "regular folks". With this voting record in the Senate, he looks like a "Johnny-come-lately."

[AP]

5. kic

[jenk]

6. great article!