Fineman: Is Edwards moving TOO FAST?

[LittleApple81]

It is a grudgingly admiring article by Fineman.... worth taking a read.
________________________

Is Edwards moving too fast?
If there's more to his story, GOP will find it
Kerry and Edwards embark on their first campaign trip as running mates Wednesday.

snip....

last paragraphs:
The theory goes that Edwards has already been through the identity grinder, has been examined to the max. It’s not true. Yes, he was considered by Al Gore in 2000, and the “vetter” of that day, the distinguished lawyer Jim Hamilton (who happens to hail from North Carolina) did a thorough job. So, presumably, did the equally meticulous Jim Johnson, the Kerry vetter. Edwards also spent two years running for president, and was successful enough to have experienced — and survived — a frenzy or two.

But, in fact, Edwards never got the full investigative media treatment in the primary season — he never really won enough primaries to warrant it. He will get that kind of tough handling at some point now. One top Bush-Cheney “oppo” guy told me that BC04 wasn’t going to bother digging for and dishing stories about Edwards. They think Kerry is the far richer target, and Edwards the far more attractive campaigner. Why draw attention to Edwards? OK. But if there’s something to be found — if there is something more, and something less attractive, to the story of John Edwards — Karl Rove and his minions in the Republican Party will find it.

link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5386177/

[Bluzmann57]

1. They'll probably find something

whether it's true or not.

[trotsky]

2. Howard Fineman, always trying to out-whore himself.

And that's not easy to do.

[Lex]

3. If Bush/Cheney bashes Edwards too hard, they'll lose NC & SC

for sure.

The people here in NC & in SC won't stand for poor-homeboy-made-good Edwards to be trashed.

My repub grandmother in her 80's says she's voting for Kerry/Edwards because we have a local boy on the ticket now!

[Justice]

4. LOL

All Fineman cares about is scandal - even when there is none.

This is what our media has become.

[ibegurpard]

5. Fineman is the worst kind of pundit

not overt in his criticism but subtle enough to cause doubts in those not innoculated against his kind of viral "journalism." I don't know why influential people in power don't try to do something to discredit this particular vile mediawhore.

[finecraft]

6. And if they don't find anything, they will just make crap up.

They will put it out there, OxyRush and the other bottom feeders will repeat it and repeat it and repeat it....then when someone calls on them to prove it, they will say they mis-spoke. Been there, done that.

[AP]

7. He's forgetting the Faircloth race. He's also ignoring the fact that all

summer long it must have looked like Edwards was going to be a serious threat to Bush and they would have been doing oppo research on him from the start, if not from 2000 or even earlier.

In the Hunting of the President, Conason and Lyons say that Bush I sent his first team of oppo researchers down to Arkansas in 89 (IIRC) when they said it was obvious that he was going to end up on the ticket someday -- and the results were obvious: they got the Flowers stuff in the press before NH.

If the RW had anythign on Edwards, they would have used it by now. They wouldn't have let him grow his appeal to the point where whatever they have would be less effective.

I also don't know how Fineman can presume that Gore didn't give Edwards a close enough look.

[JayS]

8. Edwards only has two modes. Stop and Fast. He doesn't...

...know how to use the Stop mode but he thinks fast enough to stay in the Fast mode without any problem.