Edwards Brings Fighting Words

[Purveyor]

By Sasha Issenberg
Globe Staff / January 1, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Iowa - John Edwards tells Iowans that he learned all he needs to know about effecting political change when his father taught him to "never walk away from a fight." In the stemwinder of a speech he began delivering last week, Edwards uses a version of the word fight dozens of times - along with a few struggles and a battle or two - in a depiction of America filled with violent imagery.

"This corporate greed is killing the middle class, killing American jobs, and it is stealing your children's future," Edwards told crowds in towns across the state.

Edwards's rhetoric - and the passionate response it is engendering from his loyalists in the days before the caucus - might be the most fervid by a major presidential candidate in many decades, according to historians.

"What's surprising is that he has made the calculated decision to return to this unvarnished populist message that's unfiltered, unrestrained, and recalls the legacy of earlier Democratic campaigns," said Stephen M. Gillon, a University of Oklahoma historian. "The question is whether the world has changed so much in the past 40 years that the language can still work."

With few programmatic differences among the Democratic candidates, the top three are distinguished from one another largely by their readings of the national condition. Senator Hillary Clinton of New York has emerged as the field's realist, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois as its idealist, and former senator Edwards of North Carolina as its cynic, beseeching Americans to realize they are victims of a corporate conspiracy.

---EOE---

SOURCE: BOSTON GLOBE

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/01/edwards_brings_fighting_words/

[smokey nj]

1. K&R!

[saracat]

2. And John has proven he has what it takes to WIN. NO negotiating with the corporate scum.

He will take no prisioners and give us our country back! I don't want a president that works "with" them. I want a president that fights for the people and gives us back our nation! If Johnny Edwards fights for us as he did his clients we will be assured of victory!

[jgraz]

3. "he has made the calculated decision"

Of course there's no possibility that he could actually believe what he says. :eyes:

Also this: "Senator Hillary Clinton of New York has emerged as the field's realist, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois as its idealist, and former senator Edwards of North Carolina as its cynic, beseeching Americans to realize they are victims of a corporate conspiracy."

Translation: Must. Crush. Non-Corporate. Candidate.

Fuck that.

[ChiciB1]

4. All I Can Say Is That John Edwards Is Speaking To Me & For Me...

and I don't find it "calculating" at all. But I do know what is at work here. I've said it before many times, it's been said on National TV by important journalists too... D.C. Elites "hate" Edwards because he actually WANTS to give "we the people" our voice back!

Get RID OF CORPORATE GREED! There is NOTHING wrong with that, and he's never said there will be NO MORE corporations, he just wants a fair playing field!

When the CEO's of corporations make 10 to 20 times more than they used to and I don't know how much more than their workers, there is something SERIOUSLY WRONG!!

[laureloak]

5. That's my candidate!

[Flabbergasted]

6. kick