Wednesday, December 27th, 2006...7:14 pm
John Edwards to Announce Tommorrow…Oh, Wait, He Did? Wait, He Didn’t.
John Edwards was hoping to put off his presidential announcement until tommorrow, but apparently today his website became hot for a while and then was taken down.
No matter, really. I mean, who thought he wasn’t going to run?
He has made two excellent speeches in Tucson during the 2006 campaign. The speeches were not standard issue, “Ain’t Tucson great, I love the Wildcats, vote for Mark Manoil” rhetorical drivel. These were definitely presidential campaign speeches. Not only that, they revolved almost entirely around the issues of poverty and the working class. These are the sorts of issues that Edwards hopes to highlight in the most powerfully symbolic way in his announcement tommorrow, which will be from New Orleans’s Ninth Ward.
This will be the first announcement by a candidate who can actually get the Democratic nomination. Sorry Tom and Dennis.
Way back in 2002 (so long ago, eh?), a friend asked me what I thought of the then gelling presidential field. I went through the folks I thought I would run, and my friend said, “What about John Edwards?”
I said, “Nice haircut, but I don’t see the heft there.”
I didn’t realize that she was close to some Edwards staffers. Big mistake.
At the time, I thought he was just a political climber. I see a lot more to him now that I’ve seen him speak on a number of occasions and seen the issues he’s chosen to associate himself with. Heck, what standard issue politico would use precious media face time to talk about Uganda?
As for the political field: Edwards came to Arizona on a couple of occasions to campaign for candidates, and this may mean some organizational advantages here. Raúl Grijalva was worked heavilly by Edwards’s campaign in 2004, but the issue of the war was foremost in his mind and he went for Howard Dean. The layout is a bit different now, and Grijalva has grown close to Edwards. Edwards campagned for Gabrielle Giffords along with other Democratic candidates, but another possible candidate, Bill Richardson, came out to campaign for Giffords as well.
Getting early commitments does not always lead to victory. In 2004, with our early primary, Joe Lieberman worked members of the legislature heavily. He got a pretty impressive slate of endorsements early on. Many of these unendorsed him as it became obvious that his campaign was going nowhere. The result? Lieberman dropped out the day of the Arizona primary before the polls had even closed.
I happened upon a Draft John Edwards site. The guy has essentially been running for president for four years now (even his Vice Presidential run could be seen as a dry run for an eventual try at the top job), doesn’t he need to show some reluctance for there to be a draft movement? Yes, I was part of the effort to draft Wesley Clark a couple of years ago, but geez, at least he wasn’t actually campaigning at the time.
NB - Yes, I know, as a dedicated Tar Heel fan, Edwards would never say “I love the Widcats.” I was just illustrating. However, he did famously say “I hate Duke basketball,” in the middle of his 2004 run (a common sentiment, but maybe that’s why he didn’t win his home state primary?), so I guess he roots for Lute and the boys when they are up against the Blue Devils.
4 Comments
December 28th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Tedski,
Its interesting how you manage to connect the name of “Gabrielle Giffords” to a large number of your posts when there is obviously no reason to do so. Why don’t you wait until she actually does something to write about her?
December 28th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
Liza-
Well…I mentioned her along with the other congressman from Southern Arizona. Just because you don’t like her doesn’t mean I should pretend that she doesn’t exist and won’t be a player in Southern Arizona Politics.
A while back, I wrote a post about the lame Time “Man of the Year” issue and you and Tuttle are the ones who brought Gabby’s name up, not me, but this was given as more evidence of my supposed obsession (this came complete with a tasteful masturbation joke from Tuttle…classy, that.) This leads me to wonder who is the one obsessed.
December 28th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Well, Tedski, I haven’t much control over GT’s jokes and I can assure you that I’m not obsessed with Ms. Giffords. I happen to think that where she went to high school and what she reads and whatever else you seem to inject in your posts about her tends to reduce the quality of some of your posts. However, its your blog, amigo, do what you want.
December 29th, 2006 at 9:27 am
well theres another reason bill came to campaign for Gabby and it has less to do with her campaign “assets” and more to do with other assets she has.
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