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Edwards Says He's Most Electable, but... | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - October 25, 2007
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Edwards Says He's Most Electable, but...
By Peter Wallsten
The Los Angeles Times
The North Carolina Democrat treads gently in order to avoid
giving impressions that his message is sexist or racist.
Washington - For many Democrats, the 2008 presidential
campaign is a celebration of those who once only dreamed
of gaining power, with "you go, girl" cheers for Hillary
Rodham Clinton and black pride in Barack Obama.
But as the top two candidates tap the excitement among
Democrats over the prospects of a female or black
president, a difficult question is confronting the field's
No. 3 contender, John Edwards: What is a white man to do?
Edwards' status as a Southern white male - characteristics
that helped propel Democrats Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy
Carter and Bill Clinton to the White House - has this
year offered some limitations, to the frustration of his
campaign.
"We can't make John black. We can't make him a woman,"
Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, told an interviewer in one moment
of discontent this summer. "Those things get you a lot of
press."
Now, as Edwards lays out the closing argument of his
primary election campaign - that he is the most electable
candidate and the most able to help fellow Democrats in
conservative states - race and gender are forcing him to
tread lightly.
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Edwards' claims are sensitive, given that he is asserting
that he has more appeal to voters nationwide than do the
front-runners, a white woman and a black man.
"He may not be saying it, but he's putting the argument
out there that white male rural voters won't vote for a
black guy or a woman," Taylor Marsh, a Democratic blogger
and radio talk-show host, said in an interview. Marsh also
recently raised the race and gender questions in a blog
posting about Edwards' electability claims.
Garnet Coleman, an African American state lawmaker from
Texas, said that Edwards was sending a subtle message
about the risks of nominating someone who would be vulner-
able to racism and sexism among the broader electorate.
"He's trying to make sure that when Democrats make a
selection, they realize that the world is not perfect and
they have to consider the long haul," said Coleman, who
has endorsed Edwards in part based on his electability in
the South.
"He has to be diplomatic," Coleman added. "He doesn't want
to make it seem like he believes that an African American
or a woman couldn't govern the country. It'd be real easy
for someone to come out and say he's being insensitive to
women and African Americans."
Coming from Edwards, who has campaigned to the left of
Obama and Clinton, the electability claim is particularly
eye-catching because it seems to violate the traditional
rule that the most-electable Democrats are centrists. Some
also find it to be uncomfortably reminiscent of the coded
language that was honed by the same Jesse Helms political
machine that Edwards, a former senator, defeated in North
Carolina.
Edwards' advisors reject any suggestion that the elect-
ability claim is a special appeal to white voters, or a
statement that the nation would reject a woman or black
man as president. Instead, they say, Edwards is claiming
that he is less divisive than Clinton and more experienced
than Obama.
And they argue that Edwards, thanks to his working-class
roots in tiny Robbins, N.C., is more in tune with the
culture of rural voters. Moreover, they say Edwards is
pushing a populist agenda that wins in the South.
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Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, an Edwards strategist who special-
izes in attracting rural voters, argues that New York Sen.
Clinton would bring "toxic coattails" and doom lower-level
Democratic candidates in conservative areas. "It's not
about women. It's about that woman," he said.
Speaking in Los Angeles on Friday, Edwards chided those who
might argue that electability stems from strong fundraising
and Washington connections. "I think the most-electable
candidate is the one with the best ideas who can go to
every corner of America and tell the truth about how badly
Washington is broken," he said.
In recent days, Edwards has argued that his candidacy could
help Democrats win a "supermajority" in Congress, thanks
to an ability to campaign in so-called red states that he
demonstrated with his 1998 victory in North Carolina.
"I know what you have to do to win in battleground states,
and to win in tough, tough congressional districts, and
what you have to do to put out your message that works
in those kind of places," he told NBC's "Meet the Press,"
adding later: "I am the strongest candidate on the
Democratic side in these battleground areas."
A preview of the electability argument came earlier this
month with a campaign stop in conservative, rural Columbus,
Ky., where he drew a crowd four times the size of the
town's population of 229.
Edwards recalled feeling like a "hick in the big city" when
he left home to attend college, and he told those in the
crowd that he could relate to their struggles.
"You will never have a voice unless and until the Democrats
have a candidate who understands your lives - the Democrats
have a candidate who will campaign everywhere in America,
who won't give up on your part of America," Edwards said.
He said his campaign "will not be limited to New York and
Los Angeles and Chicago."
The crowd that day was overwhelmingly white, as were those
last week when Edwards led a tour of rural Western Iowa
designed to showcase his small-town appeal.
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Campaign aides acknowledge that the claim to be the most
electable in the general election - a routine argument from
candidates trying to win a party nomination - carries an
overlay of sensitivities concerning race and gender.
"The Clinton people talk about her strength with women, and
Obama has talked about how there would be record African
American turnout if he were the candidate," said Harrison
Hickman, Edwards' pollster. "So, is race a factor? Is
gender a factor? Yes, probably all the way around. Each of
the candidates does seem to do better than the others among
some racial or sex groups."
Clinton has embraced women's talk shows such as "The View"
and declared: "If you want a winner ... I'm your girl."
Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, has written about his
mixed-race heritage and says his candidacy stands "on the
shoulders" of the civil-rights movement.
Ben Jones, a former Georgia congressman who played the
character Cooter in television's "The Dukes of Hazzard"
and spent last week campaigning for Edwards in Iowa,
expressed frustration that as he sees it, some Democrats
are more interested in making history than in winning the
general election.
"Political correctness is the bane of the Democratic
Party," he said in an interview. "Let's pick the best
candidate that can be elected, rather than picking a
nominee who just makes everyone feel good."
Campaign strategists said they did not intend to limit the
electability argument to rural white regions. Edwards
addressed it on Friday in Los Angeles at a meeting of the
state's Service Employees International Union, a heavily
black and Latino organization that has endorsed the former
senator.
Edwards, who launched his presidential campaign with a
speech from the heavily black 9th Ward of New Orleans,
devastated during Hurricane Katrina, often goes out of
his way to squelch any impression that he might be cater-
ing to racist or sexist voters. "Anybody who's considering
not voting for Sen. Obama because he's black or for Sen.
Clinton because she's a woman, I don't want their vote,"
he said during a CNN/YouTube debate in July.
Some dismiss Edwards' claim that he is the most electable.
In hypothetical general election matchups, a new Quinnipiac
University study found both Clinton and Edwards outpolling
GOP front-runner Rudolph W. Giuliani in Ohio. But in
Florida, only Clinton was ahead of Giuliani.
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