tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-713335158755695351.post4354255209261090628..comments2022-12-02T19:51:52.756-05:00Comments on The Latest Outrage: Baracking The Vote for Obama in South CarolinaErikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13724369148446520867noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-713335158755695351.post-78047011737091975362008-01-11T14:32:00.000-05:002008-01-11T14:32:00.000-05:00Hi Eddie,Sure, I remember you from 2004, and it’s ...Hi Eddie,<BR/><BR/>Sure, I remember you from 2004, and it’s good to hear from you. I was a big Edwards fan then, mostly because I thought he could beat Bush, and of course, it was the first time a credible national presidential campaign has been based in the Triangle, let alone North Carolina.<BR/><BR/>So I volunteered for him early that year. The day after Edwards won the South Carolina primary, I was answering phones at his campaign’s reception desk, furiously scribbling down tens of thousands of dollars in hand-written credit card donations because the campaign website had crashed that morning from an overload of traffic. <BR/><BR/>Lots of <A HREF="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x774833" REL="nofollow">folks supporting Edwards loved that story</A> in Salon, but at the time I wrote it, I wasn’t really backing any candidate. I figured any of the three frontrunners could beat the Republicans, and I was upset Edwards was getting a raw deal over, what seemed to me at the time, a haircut-non issue. But as the year progressed, I watched him stumble through more and more mistakes on the campaign trail, most of them of his own making, and began to have doubts about his ability to go the distance. Battling two historic candidates like Hillary and Obama, it would be tough for someone who was on the losing ticket the last time around to win a second chance at the nomination even if he did everything right. <BR/> <BR/>Certainly, the progressive platform Edwards is running on this year is a lot closer to my own philosophy than Hillary’s. But I’ve observed his career since he first ran for office in ’98, saw the cautious, moderate stances and votes he took on issue after issue during his Senate term, and the new, improved, John Edwards version ’08 just doesn’t ring true to me. Especially since it burst into full flower only after Joe Trippi signed onto his campaign, guru to both Jerry Brown and Howard Dean’s failed anti-establishment runs.<BR/><BR/>But those are only (some of) the reasons I decided not to support Edwards. What swung me to Obama were a combination of things. Like a growing realization that his support was much broader than the media or his opponents estimated, which explained why he had been able to re-create the sort of people-powered, on-line fundraising juggernaut that the Dean campaign first channeled in ’04. And seeing poll after poll result that he might do better against Republicans than his rivals (despite the Edwards’ campaign’s constant attempts to promote cherrypicked poll data that touted Edwards as the more “electable” Democrat).<BR/><BR/>Plus being fed a steady dose of information about Obama's back story and political career from my wife, who was behind him almost from the time he announced.<BR/><BR/>I especially liked that Obama was following the Gantt-Helms Senate race in 1990, while still in law school at Harvard, and organizing a big voter registration drive in Chicago during the 1992 race, because I was doing the exact same things during that period, except I wasn’t in law school, and the voters I was registering were in North Carolina.<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, despite already being a rich, successful lawyer with lots of resources at his disposal, and seven years older than Obama, John Edwards wasn’t involved at all in politics back then. His explanation is that he was busy building his law practice. But he didn’t even vote in either of those two elections. <BR/><BR/>How could someone who was even marginally interested in politics not have not voted in the 1990 Gantt-Helms Senate race? That makes no sense to me. There’s <A HREF="http://www.unctv.org/senatorno" REL="nofollow">a new documentary about Jesse Helms</A> (Senator “NO”) that’s airing next Tuesday, January 15 on WUNC-TV, check it out if you want to get a sense of how important and compelling that election was (or a reminder, if you were in N.C. at that time).<BR/><BR/>Edwards also failed to vote in the ’94 race when David Price lost his congressional seat to former Raleigh police chief Fred Heineman, and the Newt Gingrich Republicans took control of Congress. I realize this stuff is all ancient history, but you know what? I care a lot about politics, I think voting and paying attention to politics is really important, I work hard for the candidates I support, and I want to know they care about these things, too, and that they’ve demonstrated commitment over a long period of time.<BR/><BR/>Finally, seeing Obama speak in person when he came to Durham in early November and in Columbia, S.C. when we drove down for the Oprah-Obama rally in December sealed the deal. Bottom line, he’s a phenomenal candidate, his appeal is undeniable, he’s got the ability to expand the Democratic electorate in a general election by attracting a lot of independent voters, and he’s bringing a wave of young people into the political process that will give the Democratic party a huge boost for the future.<BR/><BR/>So that’s the short answer. :)Erikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13724369148446520867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-713335158755695351.post-66042929103510299562008-01-11T12:33:00.000-05:002008-01-11T12:33:00.000-05:00Hi Erik, you may remember I was a Durham volunteer...Hi Erik, you may remember I was a Durham volunteer in 2004. I support Edwards in the primaries this year. I am curious as to why you support Obama rather than Edwards after reading <A HREF="http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/04/27/edwards/" REL="nofollow">your post about Edwards at Salon.com</A> last year. Good luck and have fun.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com