John Edwards: Too scripted?

John Edwards has a big problem. He's a serious candidate who will make Clinton and Obama sweat. But despite being a trial lawyer who often sounds scripted, he's trying to run as the candidate of authenticity. That's a mistake in a political culture that is obsessed with exposing hypocrisy and artifice. The way that Jason Zengerle savages Edwards in a New Republic profile is a preview of things to come:

Presidential candidates, of course, are given to pat answers--partly because they're so often asked the same questions, partly because being candid carries so many risks. But Edwards's exceptional guardedness seems strange for a candidate who now makes such a fetish of authenticity--for a candidate, in fact, who makes a pointed distinction between guarded, pabulum-spewing politicians and candid, truth-telling leaders. "What happens with politicians," he recently told a public radio interviewer, "is that you're conditioned not to be yourself. You're conditioned to say the same thing over and over and over, because that's the safe route. ... We need a leader, or leaders, who are willing to be themselves, who'll tell the truth as they see it." Or, as he complained to me about the last presidential campaign, during which he seems to think he acted more like a politician than a leader: "It was just plastic, there was a lot of plasticity to it. You know--young, Southern, dynamic, charismatic, beautiful family, all that. People need to see who I am, what my character is." Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like something Edwards says in a "behind the scenes" video his campaign recently posted on YouTube: "I actually want the country to see who I am, who I really am. ... I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll you put up in front of audiences."

About the only time Edwards seemed to switch off autopilot during the interview was when he talked about poverty. "You should cut me off on this," he warned, "because I spend a lot of time talking about this." And he did. He talked about his various ideas for fighting poverty--raising the minimum wage, strengthening unions, reforming public housing, creating one million federally funded "stepping stone" jobs at nonprofits or government agencies. He talked about just how much he still had to learn and how even he sometimes felt despair about the intractable nature of the problem. "The cultural component of poverty and what feeds the cycle of poverty--I don't think I ever really got it until, like, for the fifteenth time I'm sitting with a 33-year-old, 32-year-old mother who has a 14-year-old who's having the third child," he said. "And you hear that and it's just, 'How will they ever get out?' You know, it's 'What can you do?'" He seemed genuinely offended when I asked him whether he was surprised that Americans' post-Katrina concern about poverty had waned so rapidly. "I think it's very superficial to suggest that there was interest [and] it's gone," he said. "It's not gone. It's still there. It's just not on the surface. ... It's deeper down."

A few hours later, Edwards went to one of those places where the interest in poverty was anything but buried: the dinner banquet honoring local community activists... Edwards launched into a speech that followed, almost to the letter, the same trajectory as our interview: the same policy proposals, the same observations, even the same revelatory anecdotes. "One of the things that I've been struck by in the work that we've been doing over the last several years is that you sit with a mother, a single mom ... and her 14-year-old daughter is giving birth to the third child. And it just feeds this cycle of poverty." What had sounded so fresh and genuine to me only hours before already seemed stale and scripted.

At this point in the cycle, Edwards should be trying to address his weaknesses (lack of policy knowledge, not being as brilliant as his rivals), not reinforcing them. Zengerle's piece is going to reinforce the conventional wisdom among reporters, which could create a narrative that will doom Edwards.

Comments

[Anon]

Edwards is a wolf in sheep's clothing, plain and simple.

Stop for a minute, and consider what he's actually done, and not his talk.

While many members in congress wisely voted against the Iraq war, Edwards not only voted for it, he co-sponsored the disastrous resolution with neocon Joe Lieberman, that made it possible.

Edwards also co-sponsored and voted for the massive increase in H-1b visas, that dumped 195,000 foreign workers on the job market, destroying perhaps hundreds of thousands of American tech careers.

Edwards voted for normal trade relations with China, making American workers have to compete with Chinese labor standards, which of course they can't.

Edwards voted for the DREAM act, forcing states to give in-state tuition (a subsidy) to illegal aliens, when there are poor Americans in these states who can’t afford to send their kids to college, partially because illegal immigration drove down their wages. This act, of course only encourages more illegal immigration because it extends even further the taxpayers obligations to those who break our laws to come here.

But what about civil liberties? Here again, Edwards voted to the Patriot act, perhaps the greatest risk to civil liberties, ever.

Edwards supporters don’t want Edwards to be held accountable for these facts. Yet, Edwards made himself extremely wealthy holding others (such as doctors) accountable - while doctors malpractice premiums rose so much as to make many obstetricians leave their specialty. More illegal alien taxpayer payed births, and fewer obstetricians - could that be why health care costs are skyrocketing?

One simple question - 10 years ago, if you did your job, the way Edwards performed as Senator, do you think he would he advocate that you get a big promotion?

Or do you think he would he have sued you and taken you to the cleaners?

[PrarieDem]

"Savages" may be a bit strong. In the section of the TNR article immediately following what Nyhan excerpted, Zengerle goes on to describe the overwhelmingly positive reaction of the crowd to Edwards' speech, and says, "Although his words may be overly rehearsed, he's still saying things that no other candidate in this presidential race seems prepared to say--things that probably need to be said." He also offers a positive strategic spin, "That sometimes seems to be Edwards's signal gift--the ability to find the thread of emotional truth even in a line he's recited 20 times before. It's what made him a successful lawyer and makes him a formidable presidential candidate."

The article also speaks to what Nyhan characterizes as Edwards' weaknesses, describing how he has augmented his policy knowledge by familiarizing himself with academic research on poverty through his think tank at UNC and traveling the world to develop a better sense of America's role in the global community, as well as referring to the brilliance he displayed through his oratory as an attorney.

As supporter of Senator Edwards, I'll readily concede that I approached the article from something less than an unbiased perspective. That said, while it wasn't the most flattering portrait I've read, it was far from an attack piece. All things considered, being the subject of a cover story in TNR is a positive for his primary campaign, and reinforces the narrative that, as a candidate, he is positioned as well as anyone in the race, or anyone who might (very soon) enter it.

[Sean]

When certain segments of the media are ready to spuriousy misreport events (That a campaign worker went to Walmart on his behalf to get a Playstation 3, or his widely misunderstood performance at the 2003 Vice Presidential debate) or attack him or his family personally ("The Breck Girl", calling his wife fat), I can see the reason for a certain amount of coaching. How do you stay fresh when you have to fill the void of a 24 hour news cycle, and the media are just a bunch of tabloid hounds?

I predict Zengerle will some day defect to the same wasteland Christopher Hitches inhabits: angry at the left but nowhere to go but the bottle.