I got to the Edwards rally in Lebanon today a few minutes after it began. The gym was half-full, people were milling about, basically un-engaged. I felt bad for Edwards. The momentum was gone, the energy ended. Then I was told it hadn't started yet. And I was in the overflow gym.The main room was packed, and Edwards was as good as I've seen him. I've not heard his stump since it took its final leap into full-throated populism, but it's tight. For my money, it's the best of the race. As I argued yesterday, Obama speaks beautifully of narrative, but when he talks policy, the energy dips. He's better at articulating ideas and concepts than speaking of policies and people. Hillary, by contrast, speaks fluently of governance and white papers, but her tone is one of workmanlike dedication. But Edwards talks of policies and people with passion. His agenda is firmly rooted in the ongoing struggle for its passage, the long battle for social justice and economic fairness, the enduring confrontation between those who hold power and those who would more broadly distribute it. And it works. At least in the crowd I saw. The audience was rapt throughout his stump, silent and attentive. He didn't allow for applause lines, didn't take the breath that allows the audience to swell up in adulation. It more a closing argument than a speech. All build, no release. The tension was enormous, heavy, even exhausting. The release, in Edwards' past, was presumably supposed to come in the jury room, when they could deliver the judgment in his favor. Now it's supposed to come when the voter enters the ballot box. Will it be enough? That's hard to imagine. An Edwards town hall is much smaller than an Obama rally. And the momentum is not with him. The new poll has him 14 points behind Obama, 10 behind Hillary. But knowing that was not, in that room, watching that crowd, the same as feeling it. THE EDWARDS RALLY.
I got to the Edwards rally in Lebanon today a few minutes after it began. The gym was half-full, people were milling about, basically un-engaged. I felt bad for Edwards. The momentum was gone, the energy ended. Then I was told it hadn't started yet. And I was in the overflow gym.The main room was packed, and Edwards was as good as I've seen him. I've not heard his stump since it took its final leap into full-throated populism, but it's tight. For my money, it's the best of the race. As I argued yesterday, Obama speaks beautifully of narrative, but when he talks policy, the energy dips. He's better at articulating ideas and concepts than speaking of policies and people. Hillary, by contrast, speaks fluently of governance and white papers, but her tone is one of workmanlike dedication. But Edwards talks of policies and people with passion. His agenda is firmly rooted in the ongoing struggle for its passage, the long battle for social justice and economic fairness, the enduring confrontation between those who hold power and those who would more broadly distribute it. And it works. At least in the crowd I saw. The audience was rapt throughout his stump, silent and attentive. He didn't allow for applause lines, didn't take the breath that allows the audience to swell up in adulation. It more a closing argument than a speech. All build, no release. The tension was enormous, heavy, even exhausting. The release, in Edwards' past, was presumably supposed to come in the jury room, when they could deliver the judgment in his favor. Now it's supposed to come when the voter enters the ballot box. Will it be enough? That's hard to imagine. An Edwards town hall is much smaller than an Obama rally. And the momentum is not with him. The new poll has him 14 points behind Obama, 10 behind Hillary. But knowing that was not, in that room, watching that crowd, the same as feeling it. 
