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NORTH CAROLINA SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS
Senator Kerry of Massachusetts has made the best selection that he could have made. John Edwards will put North Carolina’s electoral votes in play. With 15, NC has as many as New Jersey and more than “battleground” states Washington (11), Missouri (11), Minnesota (10) and Oregon (7). The rap on him is that not only can he not help the ticket carry North Carolina; he couldn’t even have won reelection to the Senate. I live in North Carolina, and just never agreed with this assessment. Sure, he didn’t have a big lead in polls, but I think that his national exposure, his uniformly warm coverage from local North Carolina media would have carried significant weight with the North Carolina swing voter. And now, the coverage that we should see of our home town boy campaigning across the country will continue to influence North Carolina swing voters. Local boy makes good. John Edwards will benefit from the Clay Aiken effect – another Raleigh boy made good who is beloved in North Carolina. Heck, maybe even Clay will campaign for his party’s ticket.

Edwards is also a smart choice because he has been identified by the media as a moderate. The Republicans will attack Edwards and tar him with the liberal label, and they will be correct to do so. Edwards’s ratings by the American Conservative Union and American’s for Democratic Action confirm that he is one of the Senate’s more reliably liberal votes. Conservatives can hold out hope that John Edward’s is not as liberal as his voting, under the theory that any first term Senator is going to be required to toe the liberal line laid out by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. But his “Two Americas” mantra is just prettied up class warfare language, which worked pretty well for Al Gore (he did win the popular vote).

As a first term Senator with no prior political experience, the Republicans will paint him as unqualified to be President, and will have some help from Kerry’s primary era attacks on Edwards. While its reasonable to point to particular experience that may be lacking (what has he done on foreign policy, does he have any experience as a leader of anything larger than a Raleigh law firm), I’ve also thought the experience requirement is a myopic and simplistic view of the way the White House works. Any President is going to be surrounded by an experienced staff. At George W. Bush’s election to the Presidency he only had 6 years in elective office, although he’d been around the Presidency years before.

If John Edwards becomes the Democrat hatchet man, he should be successful. Of course, this assumes he makes no major gaffes, which is not unlikely considering his limited experience in government and under the eye of the national media. Despite being liberal, the media loves nothing more than to tear people down. But without gaffes, John Edwards will deliver his attacks with a smile, appearing as the opposite of the angry and addled Al Gore or Howard Dean. While on substance his “Two Americas” argument is offensive to me he delivers it in a non-offensive manner. He doesn’t sound to be blaming so much as worried about those in that second America. I grew up in that second America, in a small North Carolina town where college was a rare possibility for my family and grad school was unheard of, and through hard work, like John Edwards, I moved up. “Two Americas” assumes some people are incapable or hard work and dedication and require government help and a transfer of wealth from the first America. It also seems to assume that those who have succeeded only did so because of luck or some kind of general assistance from some old boy network, which is really a group of folks more intent on competing with you than giving you a hand up.

I hope that Republican attacks focus on specifics about John Kerry and John Edwards, and why their policy proposals and approach to government are inferior to those of Bush/Cheney. I expect those attacks will be as limited to substantive issues as the attacks of Kerry/Edwards on Bush/Cheney.

There are valid reasons to attack John Edwards, to specifically question his experience, expertise, his ability to address issues of importance to the American people, and we’ll do that here at Federal Review. But we’ll continue to try to avoid the cheap shots, and not always with success. In the meantime, we’ll be content to welcome John Edwards to the fight, hope that he fights honorably, and, if he elected, that he serves successfully.