Longtime Edwards supporters...You were right!

[cally]

I'm impressed by Edwards. He is a terrific candidate and I'm glad Kerry selected him as his running mate. The more I see and hear him, the more I like him. Congrats on being right!

(And no. I'm not implying anything negative about other potential VP picks.)

[Carolinian]

1. What brought you around to our way of thinking? Just

curious. I've been a supporter of Sen. Edwards since he ran for the Senate in 1998. I find that many people refuse to look beyond his appearance and label him as "young" and "light-weight" immediately. I think his ability to translate complex issues into simple terms adds to this misconception. I've spent years trying to convince my co-workers to take a closer look, with very little success. So, please, what opened your eyes?

[cally]

2. I've always been impressed by Edwards political skill

and intelligence. I'm impressed by his advocacy of Kerry and willingness to take the heat for the Dem ticket. One of the many reasons I hated Lieberman was that he wanted to be Mr. Nice and made Gore voice the criticisms. A VP must be the attack dog so that the Pres. candidate can appear kinder. Edwards is doing that superbly with his smile. He's deadly. I thought he was too conservative before, but he has been pretty liberal (for a national candidate) in his positions.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

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[Protected]

3. Complex issues into simple terms

That's the problem. When I have somebody, like the President or Vice President, explaining a complex issue, I don't want them to dumb it down to some MTV headline for the folks who have attention deficit disorder. Bush and his crew already does that and I don't need more of it.

[aden_nak]

5. Sadly, that's what we need to win.

That's what voters can udnerstand and have time to hear. If Edwards takes the 20 minutes it would really take to explore an issue, that won't fit into a news clip and it won't make it on the air. Or else it will be a fragment, taken out of context, to make him sound bad.

Bush makes the media's job easy. He has one or two messages, they are each about a sentence long, and he says them over and over again. The lazy-ass media can listen to any 5 minutes of any speech, pluck out a phrase, and it's on message.

As long as I know the candidate really does understand the issues, I don't care if he has to dumb them down for the general public. I don't give a flittering shit about "fairness" this time around. Our voters clearly don't. I care about marketing to win. It's too damn important not to. That's what scares the opposition so much about Edwards. He knows how to talk to win, and he can actually back it up if he has to.

[AP]

8. I don't think it's all that sad, in Edwards's case.Everyone's introduction

to every complicated idea they end up embracing begins with comprehending the idea in a sentence, and then a paragraph.

Edwards knows the sentences and the paragraphs that lead people to embracing book-length arguments.

That's not sad. That's how you do it.

I suspect every liberal here didn't, for example, suddenly embrace the idea of, say, meat inspections only after reading the Jungle from cover to cover. It probably began with a parent or someone just saying once, "boy, I'm glad the government funds the FDA because you can't count on food producers to regulate themselves." Short sentences are the pathway red pills to the truth.

[flpoljunkie]

12. Favorite Edwards line...I say Amen, John Edwards! It appeals to all.

"Come November, the American people are going to reject this tired old hateful negative politics of the past. - John Edwards


AP Photo/J. Mark Kegans

[AP]

15. Nice pic. I that Iowa, this morning?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. Yes. Check the image address. nt

[DjTj]

6. That's the way the world works.

...and not just for MTV.

You cannot possibly understand every facet of every important political issue. There are simply not enough hours in the day. Even if you spent all day watching C-SPAN, you could not possibly understand everything that's going on. Every Senator and Representative has a large staff behind them where experts know the nuances of each particular issue - the politicians themselves get a distilled version that they can understand.

A good leader needs to be able to break down issues and sell them to a public that can not possibly spend all their time paying attention to politics. This is even more important if you're trying to fight for the underprivileged and the overworked.

This is not "dumbing it down," it's explaining things to your audience. If all a professor could do is explain things to fellow Ph.D.'s, nobody would ever learn anything. Communicating your ideas to people with different backgrounds is absolutely essential to any profession, but it's especially important for politics.

An elected official's job is to serve people who do not have the time to serve themselves. Constituents may very well not have the time to understand every issue either - if they did, why would we even bother to elect people?

Edwards' ability to explain complex issues in simple terms makes our democracy stronger. It brings more people into the political process because they are able to understand what is really going on, and they can do it without sacrificing their livelihood. When done honestly, it can empower the people far more than any level of detail or nuance.

[katieforeman]

13. What Edwards does is the exact opposite of Bush.

Explaining complex issues in a way people can understand actually requires great intelligence. It requires the synthesis of information from multiple sources, critical thinking skills to evaluate the relative merits of competing arguments, insight to get to the heart of the matter, organized thinking, and the ability to see things from the perspective of the people you are trying to communicate with. The ability to communicate complex ideas clearly by politicians like Clinton and Edwards is a sign of intelligence and it furthers the democratic discourse by increasing understanding of the issues by the electorate.

This is exactly the opposite of what Bush does. When Bush is off-script he rambles incoherently. When he is on script and on message he gives simplistic slogans. This is not the same as explaining complex issues clearly. It is utterly failing to grasp the complexity of the subject in the first place.

[Darkamber]

4. let's hope that others will see this too...

I was impressed with Edwards by the issues from back when I first heard him on the radio. I had no ideal what he looked like. It was that every problem and question that was asked of him, he had an answer and a plan and it wasn't just an attack against Bush, but a well conceived and financially supported plan that would solve the problems. I found myself agreeing with everything that he said.

I find it funny that the GOP is trying to paint a huge "L" liberal all over Edwards to scare it's base back home. He's actually rather conservative and even hawkish on some issues, but liberal on other issues. In other words, he's more of a moderate.

He's a great candidate though...if people will just listen to him and Kerry then we can win this thing.

[JohnKleeb]

7. I agree with ya

I didnt pay much attention to Edwards until the days leading up to the Iowa primaries, I must say though the man impressed me, he went from being unranked my list of presidential candiates to being number three after Kucinich and Kerry in the end of things. Great man, I regret not buying his book at lunch today, trouble was though, it was pricey and I'd prefer paperback to hardback. I think Edwards was a great choice for VP, and I think he'll make a fine president after 8 years of Kerry.

[spooky3]

11. If Kucinich and Kerry both like him, he must have something goin' on!

[katieforeman]

9. thank you

He's a hard guy not to like. Even conservative pundits like Brooks and Buchanan seem to like him in spite of themselves.

I became a staunch Edwards supporter dutring the primaries when I was back in OH and heard an OH swing voter tell me, "you know who I kind of like, John Edwards."

[spooky3]

10. I sidled up when I read "Let's Keep Doctors in Business"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13116-2003May19

and jumped on board when I heard Elizabeth Edwards introduce him the day he announced in Sept.

As many said during the primary, we have an embarrassment of riches this year. I would have been happy with several of the other candidates, but am so happy Kerry made this decision, and I am glad others are playing such important and active roles.

[katieforeman]

17. Thanks for that link.

Great article by John Edwards. I love the way he explains the issue of malpractice premiums instead of running away from his unpopular profession. It was the right thing to do and it was also the politically smart thing to do.

I remember the Elizabeth Edwards announcement. I loved the way she joked that much to her chagrin her husband still looks exactly the same as when she met him all those years ago in law school.

You're right. Far from being the 9 Dwarves- the Democratic field was exceptionally strong. There were many stong candidates and I supported most of them at one point in time before finally settling on Edwards.

[Aunt Anti-bush]

14. Told you so!

I am so glad he was chosen. I think he's just what Kerry needs to send him over the top! :)

[tjdee]

19. I think we all win with Edwards.

Which is why I'm all but convinced that Cheney will drop out.

[spooky3]

20. Let's hope that hubris prevents that, as today's reports seem to

indicate. He's dragging down the Repug. ticket.

You may be interested in Rep. Jim McDermott's website reporting a July 13 session of the House of Reps, discussing Cheney and Halliburton (it's in a thread somewhere here at DU). Amazing.

[DjTj]

21. I told you so!

I knew I was right:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/19_edwards.html

Well, not as right as PeteNYC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/19_kerry.html

[ngGale]

22. Thank you and I believe Kerry-Edwards can and will...

take back the White House. We will fight for the right to be free and make a better tomorrow for us and our children.