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Point taken, Shakka:
| quote: | September 16, 2004
Democrats Seek Louder Voice From Edwards
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ADAM NAGOURNEY
OMEROY, Ohio, Sept. 15 - Don Imus had a question for Senator John Kerry when the senator called in to Mr. Imus's morning televised radio program on Wednesday.
"Where's Edwards?" Mr. Imus demanded, referring to Mr. Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards. "I wondered if he was still on the ticket. We haven't heard from him."
Mr. Kerry assured Mr. Imus - the broadcasting personality who long ago endorsed Mr. Kerry - that Mr. Edwards was campaigning hard. But Mr. Imus is not the only person who is asking that question these days.
At a time when Vice President Dick Cheney has been mocking and pummeling Mr. Kerry across the country, reveling in the traditional fighting role of a vice-presidential nominee, Mr. Edwards has adopted a decidedly less belligerent and lower-profile stance as he campaigns through communities like this small town in southeast Ohio. Only in the last few days, with criticism percolating among Democrats, has he become louder in taking on the administration.
Mr. Kerry's advisers said Mr. Edwards was doing what they wanted, mixing attacks on President Bush and Mr. Cheney with the soft and smiling campaign style that became his hallmark during the Democratic primary battle - and which drew Mr. Kerry to him in the first place.
Mr. Edwards, in a brief interview in his bus by the side of the road near here on Wednesday, disputed the suggestion that he had kept a low profile or not energetically taken on Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney.
"When George Bush or Dick Cheney have said something that is outrageous - and they've done that a number of times - I responded strongly and quickly," he said. "When they've lied about John Kerry, I've responded strongly and quickly."
But with Mr. Kerry under such piercing assault from Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, some Democrats said they were concerned that Mr. Edwards seemed to be slipping to the side of the stage at the very time that Mr. Kerry needs him to do what Mr. Cheney is doing for Mr. Bush. Several drew comparisons with the soft-hitting vice-presidential campaign run by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman in 2000, and said they were concerned that Mr. Edwards, like Mr. Lieberman, would duck when it came down to the vice-presidential debate next month.
"He needs to put a little Tabasco in his message," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's campaign for president in 2000. "He needs to go out, and he needs to do the attack. There needs to be some sharper contrasts, and John Edwards can make that case."
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, a friend and an adviser to Mr. Kerry, criticized the tenor of Mr. Cheney's assaults on the Democrats but said that they were "probably helping the president."
"We've got to give him hell and tell the truth," Mr. Biden said, "and that requires laying out the obvious lies of Cheney and calling him on that. Somebody should be doing that."
Asked if it should be Mr. Edwards, Mr. Biden responded, "Theoretically, yes."
And Tony Coelho, a Democratic strategist who also, early on, ran the Gore campaign in 2000, said: "The Bush camp is using Cheney in a much more aggressive way than the Kerry camp is using Edwards. What they do with Cheney is go out there and be the hammer, when necessary, but also the validator."
"It doesn't seem that Edwards is in it all the time," Mr. Coehlo said, "They use him a little bit as a hammer, but not a lot. I don't understand it. They need it."
That Mr. Edwards finds his role being questioned by prominent Democrats reflects how the playing field has changed in the 10 weeks since Mr. Kerry turned to him. The choice was almost universally hailed by other Democrats in the party.
At the time, Mr. Edwards was seen as a young-looking and vibrant counterpart to Mr. Kerry - a moderate Southerner with an appeal to rural voters that seemed particularly valuable to Mr. Kerry, who is from Massachusetts. And in a campaign in which many undecided voters were independents who polls suggested recoiled at harsh-edged politics, Mr. Edwards, whose primary campaign appeal was his attack on attack campaigning, seemed a clear asset.
But as Mr. Kerry finds himself behind in polls and under such relenting assault by Mr. Cheney- the vice president suggested last week that the election of Mr. Kerry would invite more terrorist attacks - some Democrats are recalculating that equation.
"Vice-presidential candidates serve as attack dogs," said one Kerry adviser, who asked not to be identified. "Our vice-presidential candidate was picked for his sunny optimism. He self-consciously eschewed negativity during his own campaign. Consequently, he doesn't make for the most effective attack dog."
Part of the reason that Mr. Edwards might seem to some Democrats to have faded away is because Mr. Kerry's campaign has dispatched him, for the most part, to rural areas where he is not likely to draw much national attention. His aides say that he has received extensive, and usually glowing, notices from the newspapers and television stations in places where he has appeared.
In addition, former presidential candidates who become vice-presidential candidates invariably recede a bit. Some Democrats suggested that that was particularly true this year because Mr. Kerry is taller and broader than Mr. Edwards, diminishing his presence on stage, while Mr. Cheney's oratory overshadows even the harshest of the Edwards attacks.
Mr. Edwards's situation is also complicated because he has the equivalent of a political brand to protect for a future run, and he has made little secret of the fact that, no matter what happens this year, he wants to run for president again. In addition, some Democrats said he was wary of being remembered in this race in the same light as, say, Richard M. Nixon or Spiro T. Agnew.
Beyond that, although Mr. Edwards is a trial lawyer, the fact that he so assiduously avoided attack politics during the primary has left him without the tools he might need for this tough September.
"It's more difficult for him to play the hatchet man because he doesn't come that way naturally," said Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University and an expert on the vice presidency. "He doesn't have a lot of experience out there cutting people down."
Mr. Edwards was Mr. Kerry's last major opponent in the primaries, though he went to great lengths afterward to smooth over any tensions that might have existed between them. Not uncommon in this situation, Mr. Kerry's campaign made a point of surrounding Mr. Edwards with Kerry loyalists; much of Mr. Edwards's former senior staff has been placed in other parts of the campaign.
Mr. Kerry's aides said Mr. Edwards was not part of Mr. Kerry's close political circle, saying he was not involved, for example, in Mr. Kerry's recent decisions to shake up his campaign staff.
Still, in the interview, Mr. Edwards portrayed his relationship with Mr. Kerry as close, saying they speak every day, sharing advice and insights about speeches and the presidential and vice-presidential debates.
"Every day, we talk about where the campaign is going," he said. "I think both of us feel like we're in a battle for our country and we're in this foxhole together."
And Mr. Edwards said he was campaigning tirelessly, spending at most one or two days a week at home in Washington with his wife and two young children.
"It's hard to know how you can do more campaigning," he said. "I'm campaigning six, seven days every week with long days. I have events, rallies and so forth where there are thousands and thousands of people. I get a great response."
Still, Mr. Edwards suggested in the interview that he had to adjust from being one Democrat in a field seeking his party's presidential nomination to running in a general election.
"This is night and day," he said. "It's a different thing to personally attack other Democrats who agree with you about so many things than talking about what this president and this administration have done to this country. I don't have the slightest hesitation about holding them responsible for it."
Mr. Edwards said that after a campaign that initially sought to offer "a positive vision for our country," it had now "evolved into more what you see today - which is aggressively making the case against this administration."
And on Wednesday, after Mr. Imus chastised Mr. Kerry on his program on MSNBC, Mr. Edwards seemed to be devoting a larger chunk of his stump speech to attacking the White House. When a questioner in Parkersburg, W.Va., asked why Mr. Bush had not been attacked regarding the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Mr. Edwards all but jumped at the question.
"Have you ever heard the president or vice president take any responsibility for what happened there?'' he demanded.
Randal C. Archibold reported from Pomeroy for this article, and Adam Nagourney from Washington.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/p...edwards.html?hp |
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Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...
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