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CONTINUITY. I tend to disagree with Jason Zengerle about various things (today, he finds this John Kerry quote funny and pathetic, but it seems kinda sorta correct to me), but I think his new and fairly positive profile of John Edwards is a good piece, and worth a look. One gets the impression from Zengerle's account that Edwards's latter-day labor-populist outlook has been honestly come by and reflects sincere conviction and interest. If I have a quibble, it's with this early passage, which works in part to set up Zengerle's thesis that Edwards's gloves-off combativeness (in both substance and style) came about largely as a response to the 2004 loss:
...Edwards's persona for the 2008 campaign--that of a combative champion of the working class--seems a strange fit. Although Edwards ran for president in 2004 as a populist, he did so as a sunny one--a disposition that appeared a natural extension of his congenitally cheerful personality. He dubbed his political organization the "New American Optimists" and presented himself as the "son of a millworker" whose later success as a lawyer and a senator was a hopeful story about American possibility. His stump speech, which called attention to the "Two Americas," was less an airing of grievances than a buoyant pledge to bridge the divide between rich and poor. And his policy proposals -- including incremental reform of health care and micro-initiatives to help the poor -- were fiscally friendly as well, showing that his populist heart was governed by a New Democrat brain. [emphasis added]It seems very odd to categorize the Two Americas speech as typical of the old-model New Democrat-ish Edwards. That stump speech got lots of attention at the time for being genuinely surprising (and rather different from Edwards's prevailing Ken Doll, non-ideological persona) in its explicit focus on class and poverty. The Two Americas speech, indeed, would seem to offer evidence that Edwards's interest in these issues has been present for a good deal longer than two years.
--Sam Rosenfeld
