Will John Edwards ever start fighting?

By Mark Grueter on Fri, Jan 4, 2008 2:48 pm

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At 7 am on Friday morning in Manchester, New Hampshire John Edwards again talked about how he will “fight” for the interests of the American people against corporate greed, etc. In fact, this morning, Edwards said pretty much the same exact things he’s been saying in Iowa: sound, passionate, populist stuff for what it’s worth but it wasn’t enough to win Iowa, so how can he possibly imagine it’ll be enough to help him catch up to Obama and Clinton in New Hampshire?

I like the newer, leftier John Edwards, his proposals and his message (I actually think his move to the left is heartfelt) but he doesn’t have a shot in hell in New Hampshire or anywhere else unless he starts criticizing his opponents or at the least starts explaining how or why Obama’s strategy for affecting “change” (one that focuses on reconciliation and “unity” in sharp contrast to Edwards’ blow up the system rhetoric) won’t work.

Edwards says, to change Washington, a President needs real “backbone” in order to fight against the vested interests there, but he doesn’t even have the backbone to go after his own opponents, the ones who are set to prevent him from waging his much vaunted war against DC. And now there’s almost no time remaining for Edwards. While he frequently alludes to his opponents and their supposed flaws, he fails to criticize the now frontrunner Barack Obama directly. He could easily say something like, ‘you can’t change this country simply by trying to make friends with everyone. That’s just not how it works. Politics is by nature a fight, a battle between competing interests.’ While perhaps adding, ‘My opponent Barach Obama is just preaching empty rhetoric’.

Edwards might also add that the Obama fuzzy feel-good strategy is no way to win a general election either. Listening to Obama this morning, I was struck by how much he sounded almost exactly like the failed Kerry/Edwards campaign of 2004. Just like the Kerry campaign did, Obama rails against “anger” and “partisanship” while promoting “unity” - but it’s completely unrealistic to think you can rectify, say, America’s economic and social injustices without a bit of anger and fight.