Reply #111: We didn't. [View All]

[ventvon]

The same media that played to Bush and "moral" issues, played to Kerry and even filled his primary campaign with cash because Karl Rove and the GOP expected Kerry from the beginning, got a little side-tracked and anxious with their Howard Dean "too good to be true for us" fantasy, and then got terrified once John Edwards emerged as a serious contender for the nomination, and then did all that they could to make sure that Kerry got the nomination instead of Edwards.

I mean, go back and look at the videos from the night of the Iowa caucuses on CNN and MSNBC.

They tried to write off John Edwards that night and give Kerry the nomination.

Chris Matthews said: "IS THIS THE TICKET!!! KERRY-EDWARDS, IS THIS THE TICKET?"

Hello, John Edwards just finished strongly in Iowa. Shouldn't it have been, "Are these the two guys who are going to battle for the nomination? Can Dean recover?"

But no, he said, "Is this the ticket?" Inside message: Kerry is the nominee forget about Edwards.

On CNN, they were talking to Carville and Begala or Novak and Carlson as well, and a few of them were saying, "I think this is going to be the ticket."

The media promoted Kerry and dismissed Edwards because the GOP didn't want Edwards who they called, "Clinton without the scandal...JFK from the south."

So, I repeat. We didn't pick Kerry. The media mobilized support for Kerry after Iowa, and especially after NH which Edwards wasn't expected to win anyway although they called him a failure after NH, which is ironic because they didn't call him a success after Iowa.

Who were the people pumping up Edwards? The same people who would have been on his campaign from the beginning, and almost helped Kerry to reach the promised land. Former Clinton staff:

Joe Lockhard: One Capital Report he said, "I don't hear anyone talking about John Edwards who almost beat Kerry in Iowa despite being outspent by Kerry 4-to-1." Kerry won Iowa because he flooded the airways over the last few weeks with ads as a result of opting out of public financing, which Edwards did not do.

John Podesta: In Time magazine he said, "of all of the candidates out there" John Edwards has the best stuff (his proposes and message).

The female Clinton staffer named "Cookie" or something like that who was on the Hardball election show also spoke very highly of John Edwards during the primaries when everyone else in the media was chanting Kerry.

Carville mentioned Edwards on one Hardball show during the NH primary and went off into a daze with this goo-goo look and smile on his face.

The memories. The Clinton guys know talent when they see it.

My worry about Edwards being chosen as Kerry's running mate were not whether he could help Kerry or not, because he couldn't hurt him, it was whether Kerry would ruin his chances of a future. Kerry turned out better than I thought as a candidate, but I don't think the union helped John Edwards much.