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Go Home Is Edwards This Year's Dick Gephardt?

NOVEMBER 7, 2007

Is Edwards This Year's Dick Gephardt?

BY NOAM SCHEIBER

Edwards strategist Joe Trippi, my favorite theoretician in the Democratic Party, has an interesting blog post up arguing that Iowa in 2008 will not by a reprise of Iowa in 2004, when John Kerry coasted to victory after what Joe has called a murder-suicide involving Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean. The post comes in response to questions about whether, by aggressively taking on Hillary, Edwards will hurt both her and himself, allowing Obama to claim the top spot. Joe makes a couple good points, one of which is that Obama is also mixing it up with Hillary--only not as effectively--so he's hardly an innocent in all this. (On the other hand, it's not as though Kerry never took shots at Dean.) Joe also points out that Edwards's strategy is a pretty authentic expression of who Edwards is, and of his experience as a trial lawyer in particular--something I agree with and am actually writing about for our next issue.

The thing I'd add is that I'm not convinced it was blowback from his attacks on Dean that did Gephardt in in 2004. If I remember correctly, Dean attacked Gephardt pretty aggressively in response, something that seemed effective at the time. (One Dean ad showed Gephardt in the Rose Garden with George W. Bush and Trent Lott after signing the Iraq war resolution, which he'd co-sponsored in the House.) So unless Hillary starts landing some body blows against Edwards in the next two months, I don't think you can expect Edwards to suffer Gephardt's precise fate. (She may choose to go that route, of course, but there's no indication of that so far.)

That's not to say Edwards is going to surge to victory in Iowa. Just that his get-tough strategy isn't necessarily flawed in its conception.

--Noam Scheiber 

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14 comments

The odd thing about this strategy in execution (at least judging from the web ads I've been seeing that portray Hillary as a serial and compulsive trimmer and "parser"...) is that while it clearly seeks to bring Hillary down, it stops there in a kind of generic, negative way.  It isn't followed by any pro-Edwards message.  And (judging from the media buzz) if Obama is getting more lift out the last week's various developments than Edwards is, and if Obama is looking more and more, in Iowa particularly, as the logical alternative to HIllary....then whatever brings Hillary down, raises Obama up.  

    And I kind of think, given the dynamics both of Iowa and of a competition with a female candidate, that in the end the velvet glove will be more effective than the boxing glove.  Which would give the edge to the guy who doesn't "do nasty", even as he reaps the benefits of the guy who does.

- vanwurs

November 7, 2007 at 4:29pm

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Since predictions are the bread and butter of punditry, the game to which all of us here at The Stump are in thrall, I'll go out on a limb and make mine.

The 2008 Democratic Party ticket: Edwards/Obama.

Yep.  You got it.  Obama has all but conceded he's gunning for the VP nod and nothing greater, only I think the candidate to whom he'll wind up attaching himself will be Edwards not HRC.

Why Edwards?  Because he's shaping up as the only viable alternative to Clinton, and despite what the polls are saying, I just don't think people like the lady.  

If I was Edwards, one question I'd ask HRC would be, "Senator Clinton, I wonder whether you could explain to us why you chose to move to New York following your years in the White House?" and a corollary "Would you have chosen New York for your residence had not Patrick Moynihan vacated his Senate seat in time for you to seek the Democratic nomination in his place?"

I mean, why didn't the Clintons move back to Arkansas?  Or to Chicago?  While she might answer (I doubt it) that Bill just wanted to be able to hang out with ultra-rich Upper East Siders and still be within walking distance of good fried chicken in Harlem, the New York move smacks of the kind of naked political ambition and, worse, presumptiveness--'I'm Hillary Rodham Clinton and I can walk into any state in the country and get elected Senator'--that many find distasteful and that ultimately, I believe, will lose her the nomination.

- aeromonas

November 7, 2007 at 4:42pm

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This 'Clinton's not corrupt but she's part of a corrupt system' line of Edwards's has teeth, for aesthetic as well as factual reasons.  Fair or not, the wife-of-the-president-becoming-president thing carries overtones of seedy, authoritarian regimes such as Juan and Evita Peron's and Ferdinand Marcos's.  (I know, Imelda never held office, but she's remembered more clearly by most Americans than her hubby.)

- aeromonas

November 7, 2007 at 4:50pm

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vanwurs, my first post overlapped yours, hence the response now.

Do you really think the presence of a female candidate favors a soft approach?  I don't know much about the relative poling numbers between Edwards and Obama--I'm living abroad and I get basically all my election news here and at NYTimes--but I can't see anyone thinking the less of Edwards for beating up on the poor defenseless girl, 'cause that's precisely what she ain't.

- aeromonas

November 7, 2007 at 5:08pm

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aromonas.....

    I think nobody knows how this one plays out.  This is real uncharted territory, with the dynamics and cross dynamics of race and gender and Bill Clinton pulling and pushing back and forth.

    I do know that the reason Hillary is ebbing and flowing somewhere between twenty and thirty points ahead of her closest rival is the sisters.  The sisters make up 60% of a Democratic primary electorate, and she is getting them.  Still.  And although she took some hits and lost some ground in  the debate last week, she played that gender card for all it was worth, and the sisters largely bought it.  (Bullshit, pardon my french, though it was....)

   Iowans are not fond of negative campaigning.  (All those high minded Good Government types....)

and it has it's share of sisters.   (I'm just hearing Chris Matthews in the background reporting the movement in the various polls toward Obama in the wake of the debate and failure of Edwards to move..... Corroboration?)

    Hillary needed to be hit, but whoever hits her gets the fury of the women scorned.  Barack remains gracious, even as he clarifies the differences betwen him and her.  I think he's got to be the beneficiary here of Hillary's sudden "vulnerability",  and the polls and media "noise" seems to bear that out.

   Buy maybe that's wishful thinking.

- vanwurs

November 7, 2007 at 7:09pm

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pardon me,

aeromonas.

damn keyboard!

- vanwurs

November 7, 2007 at 7:18pm

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aeromonas -- "Obama has all but conceded he's gunning for the VP nod and nothing greater ...."

<-- ?

- J.J. Gould

November 8, 2007 at 12:05am

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We need a new course.

The image of USA is suffering justifiably.

There are too many caricature like citizens and politicians on the stage.

The wife of a former president can be a presidential candidate only in a banana republic.

Edwards seemingly possesses a right mix to run for the presidency, and has been shown a decent attitude to end our caricature image at home and overseas.

He is calling for modest methods to end the crisis. I would like to hear the word of crisis more often from him, and another call for a plain secular moral renewal. Work hard and live simply. A theory of justice has to be worked out to stay an enlightened people for the future.

- s4200

November 8, 2007 at 9:25am

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I think Noam and Joe Trippi are both right that 2008 is not 2004--and that John Edwards won&#39;t be

- Anonymous

November 8, 2007 at 10:02am

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"Obama has all but conceded he's gunning for the VP nod and nothing greater"

What the heck are you talking about?

First of all, Edwards is done. Done, done, done, done, done. This is desperation - much like the public financing gambit. That's the way the media is reporting it, and that's the way the voters see it. Go to pollster.com. Look at his trendlines in Iowa. They are bad. Very bad.

What about Obama's actions makes you think he's in this for VP? VP is the lowest form of life - a lap dog chosen for his/her vague sense of ticket balance. This is not what a man like Obama aspires for.

Finally - Obama is tied in Iowa and gaining in NH. These are really theonly states that matter. If he's "gunning for VP", it would sure be a shame if he accidentally were nominated!

- virginiacentrist

November 8, 2007 at 10:40am

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"VP is the lowest form of life".

And Barack Obama is not so naive as to imagine that he would ever be selected as a VP candidate, especially if the presidential nominee is a woman.

- wmsberry

November 8, 2007 at 8:25pm

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I agree with E.J. Dionne --I think Edwards takes second in Iowa. My thinking is this: Clinton and Obama

- Anonymous

December 4, 2007 at 1:09pm

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Over at the Real Clear Politics blog, Steven Stark lays out a theory I&#39;ve heard batted around a bit

- Anonymous

December 5, 2007 at 4:58pm

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I&#39;ll be spending most of today with Romney and Huckabee--and I promise I&#39;ll be posting from the

- Anonymous

December 29, 2007 at 10:07am

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