By Tim Redmond
Former Senator John Edwards can’t let Hillary and Barack show him up, so he has his own carefully staged entrance, surrounded by signs and supporters. He looks like a llittle Ken doll in the middle of the crowd, perfectly coiffed and impeccably dressed. But he’s got the right lines for this audience. “We are past the time for cautious, poll-driven politics,” he announces. He goes on to win loud cheers for the comment the directly separates him from Hillary Clinton: “I voted for this war, and I was wrong to vote for this war.”
Edwards affects a folksy manner, repeating aw-shucks phrases like “I don’t know if this is a good idea, but …” and “I don’t know if this is going to be popular, but …” To his credit, though, he actually mentions poverty — something the other major candidates haven’t discussed at all. “Thirty-seven million people wake up in poverty every day, and it’s wrong,” he says. “If my party can’t be the voice for the poor …. why do we exist?”
He’s very popular in a lot of Democratic circles for his willingness to talk about class issues, about the “two Americas.” And at a post-speech press conference, I push him on it.