I've had a lot of free time today. I've also been quite sober. The medicine and liquor cabinets have both been emptied. I've been spending my time licking my wounds, nursing this hangover, and following the carnage that has followed last night's returns from Florida. Casualties were enormous. Rudy and Edwards both realized the futility and capital needed to continue their campaigns. So they stopped.
As the presidential field has whittled down further, I noticed some stark contrasts between the two. According to the media I was reading and listening to, the proud Democrat John Edwards was serenaded as a trailblazer, a man of the people, a hero - while the moderate Republican Rudy Giuliani was mocked for "living an illusion."
While only a few news establishments were surprised by Giuliani's announcement (and subsequent endorsement of fellow moderate John McCain) after his distant third-place finish in Florida. Edwards' decision must have shocked at least one person -- New York Times reporter Julie Bosman, after her Tuesday story (Pops the NYTimes article) portraying Edwards as the Energizer Bunny, motoring on and becoming a possible kingmaker at the Democratic convention. Oops.
Edwards got sound bites. Edwards was put on a pedestal. A man choosing to step aside so that history could sweep through. In other words, a chick or Tiger Woods can top the party ticket. As if he really thought he was going to stop either of those two events happening? I suppose that by getting out of the way he did understand he wasn't going to stop one of those events from happening.
But when the "other" story of the day came about, it was a comedy piece. The story of his Dizzying Fall For Ex-Mayor, by the tag team of Michael Powell and Michael Cooper, that showed little respect for Giuliani. On NPR - the reporter took Rudy's Leadership Book-on-tape and played portions of it, mostly to mock the author. "Should have listened to page 40." "Had he re-read chapter 6..." and so forth. He attacked Rudy on every level. The reporter laughed at his strategy to out-smart the process by focusing on one winner-take-all state, and ignoring Iowa and Nevada. He was mocked for spending in New Hampshire, but abandoning it when his poll numbers changed. He was attacked for not gathering better advisors, and for accidentally sending out an email with his weaknesses. Overall the report was very demeaning, childish and it was an idea I was going to do here on Blasphemes a while back but never got around to looking at the book.
At one point the joke was that Giuliani had sold more books than he had earned votes.
My complaint isn't that the NPR guy was wrong, but that their "All Things Considered" didn't play fair. There should have been an equally satisfyingly hilarious look at how John Edwards still thinks and is convinced that poor people vote. Poor people don't vote! You'd think he would have figured that out the first time he ran for President - lost - and lost by being attached to John Kerry. There should have been a further kicking and punching once the man was down perhaps by mentioning that his "populist" campaign wasn't very effing popular!
There was no balance, or even attempt at balance.
Cap'n's Bottom Line? They both ran terrible games, and should be mocked equally!
Disagree.
ReplyDeleteWhile you are correct that it is a fool's game to court the underprivileged and those without voice it is a lunatic's game to court no one.
Edwards tried. The level of effectiveness is up for debate but there is no doubt that he tried and he did it the way that HE felt it should be done. He tried to change some of the tone and conversation around Washington. He campaigned hard, damn near moving to Iowa at one point.
I pray every candidate, whether I agree with their positions or not, would run a campaign that s/he believed in and that they thought would do as much good as Edwards thought he could do. It made it easy to judge where he stood on issues because he ANSWERED THE DAMN QUESTION something our remaining candidates could do a little more of.
On the other hand, Guilliani, is a lazy, selfish bum who thought it should be handed to him. He had something that Edwards never did - front runner status. But he pissed it away. The way he ran his campaign by default made him ineligible to be President. He took a crazy half thought of plan to start the campaign in the middle when he was the front runner. That is stupid.
I think the media is giving Edwards more credit (and rightfully so) because he TRIED. And in politics and the Special Olympics that is what matters.
The other side of that coin - is that Edward's ideas and his choice to court the underprivileged would have caught fire if he weren't running against two candidates from groups that historically can say- "hey White Boy, sit down. We trump you and your message."
ReplyDeleteBut assume that we assume. Not a bad plan in the US today but with the crazy lefties like me . . .
ReplyDelete