John Edwards hit up New Hampshire over the weekend pushing his message on universal health care for all Americans, and I have to tell you this is like the only consistent news piece over the past month. The manufactured blog scandal came and went within a week, while another attempt at making scandals instead of breaking them -- this one regarding a month old statement on Israel -- has so far failed to get any attraction. I guess it wasn't sexy or dirty enough.
This is a problem, not just for John Edwards, but for all the candidates from both sides. There just aren't a whole hell of a lot of facets to presidential campaigns, not enough to stretch out for this length of time. The primaries don't start for another 10 months, and there are like two messages out there: Iraq bad, health care good! Not cutting it.
I can report on things like this whenever Edwards makes a stop someplace to campaign, and give you the inevitable quotes on the same old story like this.
"Honestly, if you don't bring up Iraq, I'll bring it up," the former North Carolina senator told about 150 people gathered in a state senator's living room and kitchen.
That's all well and great, except there is about a .001% chance that it won't be brought up by someone, no matter where he goes. The failed war gets worse almost on a daily basis, like today when I just heard that a failed assassination attempt on the Iraqi VP killed 20 and injured another 40. You wouldn't know it though, since the talking heads are obsessed with Anna Nicole, who wouldn't have commanded five seconds until she died mysteriously.
Was it even a mystery though? Not a good one. Her son just died from drug abuse, and they found a ton of drugs in her room. Some mystery that is. But now that I've been drawn off-track..
Edwards also brought his health care plan, which would require health insurance for everyone but also provide subsidies to help lower-income families afford it. He also touted proposals to cut energy subsidies to the energy industry, reduce global warming and address homelessness.
Edwards' work on anti-poverty causes since his last run brought Pat Harris to the event. She said she sees a bit of her political hero in Edwards.
"He's a Jimmy Carter-kind of guy," said Harris, who housed 20 John Kerry volunteers in 2004 but hasn't decided who will get her support in 2008. "I'm very impressed. I had questions. But the questions I had, he answered."
I'd like to see concrete plans for doing more than just reducing the deficit. Don't get me wrong, reducing the deficit and maybe even creating a budget surplus is fantastic progress that this country has only seen during Bill Clinton's presidency, but it's kind of like spending 12 years promising everyone that you are going to stop getting fatter. Good, but what about all the junk you've collected in your arse since before you learned how to do math?
We've racked up something like $8,774,000,000,000 in debt so far. The only thing gained by balancing the budget will be us not making it any bigger, and that's not good enough. What the hell is everyones plan to eliminate the eight trillion dollar national debt? Still waiting for that one, Mr. Senator.
In recent visits, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who top the polls, have held auditorium-sized events attended by sign-toting crowds and bookended by abbreviated glad-handing. They've talked in generalities about a new direction for the nation and of their desire to have "conversations" with the voters.
Yesterday, there was no campaign music or "town hall" discussion. There was no podium. Just John Edwards in a button-up shirt, squeezing through a packed living room in Nashua, standing on a chair to see over a crowd in a Concord home and talking in front of a Salem fireplace to people sitting cross-legged on the rug about the policy initiatives he's honed since he began his campaign in 2003.
"This is what New Hampshire campaigning is supposed to be about," he said at each place.
This is the difference, this is what killed Howard Dean. He had the people on the 'net which paved the way for everyone else, but he didn't have the people on the ground. If you ask people to vote for you with an e-mail and a smile, you'll get coin flips or people making decisions for retarded reasons like "well he's a farmer and I'm a farmer and we can trust our own."
Give me a break.
While it's probably true that most of the people that attend these house parties are Dem's that are going to vote for Edwards anyway, that isn't always the case, and the point isn't always to turn the crowd. If you can energize the people you already have, you can turn them into vote turners by pumping them up on the message and showing them that you care as much as they do. If any of these people go to work on Monday and turn just one or two people onto the message, that's powerful stuff. That's how you get votes in this country, you get off the throne that Bush is crapping on and you talk to them about what matters the most.
About the donor dust-up between Clinton and Obama, come on guys, you are embarrassing us. You'd think this was an Internet fight or something.
