This Time article on Edwards is an interesting document, painting Edwards as something near to an insurgent candidate, the underdog behind the campaigns of Obama and Clinton. This, too, is an important point:
For 30 years, Democratic contenders have hugged the political center and avoided such talk because they believed that populism scares away middle-class voters. But Edwards thinks those rules are finally changing, that voters everywhere are ready for a sharp critique of what's gone wrong. And he has one advantage his opponents lack: a sweet-tea voice that makes his tough talk go down easy. He isn't ranting; he's twanging like a bluegrass banjo, rolling along in full control—outraged on behalf of people who have lost their jobs or pensions to corporate restructuring, people who watch their children go off to "this mess of a war in Iraq."[...]
Edwards joins us on the bus, and soon he's musing on electability too. "I think most journalists would agree that I'm the most progressive, Senator Obama next, and Senator Clinton closest to the center. But I'd be willing to bet that if you ask most Americans the same question, they'd reverse it." That's not only, he says, because "she's a woman and he's an African American and Ah talk lahk thee-is. It's simple geography. Ask Middle Americans: You've got three Democratic candidates. One's from New York, one's from Chicago and one's from rural North Carolina. Who do you think is most like you?"
Edwards' ability to speak populism with an accent and tone that's mentally associated with common sense moderation is a significant advantage, one that allows a left-leaning run the other candidates can't replicate. An interesting sidenote to these comments is that Edwards made a similar argument to me when I interviewed him for my profile. But it was off-the-record. That he's making this appeal more publicly and explicitly shows his frustration with the hammerlock Obama and Clinton have on the media coverage, and his own frustration that the ideological differences between the candidates aren't being sussed out.
