Once Talking Points is through writing this merciless piece on the alleged epidemic of voter fraud in the United States he’ll return to more frequent posts. But for the moment let me set the record straight on John Edwards.
In his online column today Wlady Pleszczynski, editor of American Spectator Online says I seem “prepared to attack [Edwards] as not reliably liberal enough, a rather strange way to think about a product of the Democratic Party’s potent trial lawyer wing.”
Now before proceeding let me say that there are, by definition, no bad links to Talking Points. Some are more accurate than others. But they’re all good and appreciated. Especially when they’re coupled with good buzz-inducing phrases like “rising liberal political writer.” Frankly, who cares about the ‘liberal political writer.’ But ‘rising’ is definitely on-message with the larger Talking Points PR strategy.
In any case, back to business.
I don’t think I’ve ever said Edwards isn’t reliably liberal enough. And if I did say it, I don’t think it’s true.
What I’m saying is this: Much of the Edwards mania is premised on the belief that Democratic presidential contenders have to come from states that seldom vote Democratic for president. Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, etc. Or to put it more baldly, that they have to come from states that belonged to the Confederacy. For a number of reasons, which I’ll discuss in a later post, I don’t think that’s true.
I also think that Edwards took certain positions in his 1998 Senate campaign which won’t work well in national Democratic politics — particularly, if I remember correctly, supporting right-to-work laws.
And for reasons which again I’ll get to later I’m still not convinced Edwards is all he’s cracked up to be. Not unwilling to be convinced, just not convinced yet. But that’ll wait for another post.
