By Ezra
Des Moines is a very charming town, with some truly fantastic steakhouses. That's particularly if some of your fellow reporters are feeling generous with expense accounts. But I digress.
I spent much of yesterday in Iowa watching Edwards do the Townhall thing. And believe me: The boy got skillz. Speaking to a room of a 1,000+ people (the campaign estimated 2,500; the papers 1,000), Edwards easily outdid his announcement speech from the morning, going far deeper into the policy and at far longer length. And it was an impressive performance, particularly compared to his relative insecurity when discussing such issues in 2004. Afterwards, I couldn't find a member of the crowd -- not that there were none, just that I couldn't find him -- who wasn't now supporting Edwards in 2008. As I said, an impressive performance, But Nick's post on the deficit reminded me of a fairly remarkable exchange from the Q&A that I want to transcribe here. Do follow below the fold, it's worth it:
