Editorials

Here’s a really radical thought. How about voting for John Edwards in the presidential primary? 

Clouds of steam, as I write this, are rising above the Berkeley Hills, coming out of the ears of Dean supporters. From Baja Rockridge and Southside Berkeley, the shrieks of Kucinich’s people fill the air. Edwards, with that corn-pone accent and blow-dried hair? Even Kerry, with his patrician craggy face and somber mien, would be better than just another pretty face from the South. 

Naysayers might just take a look at Edwards’ official senatorial website. Here’s today’s release: 

“Senator John Edwards on Wednesday pressed President Bush to revoke a White House report that said sending American jobs overseas will somehow help the economy in the United States. 

‘What planet do they live on?’ Senator Edwards asked.” 

Good question. Previous releases were good stuff too: “SENATOR EDWARDS CALLS FOR HEARING ON FBI SURVEILLANCE”; “EDWARDS SLAMS PRIVATE-SCHOOL VOUCHER PLAN”—both from way back in November, when no one much was even listening to him. And these releases are on his Senate site, directed at the home folks back in North Carolina, not on his presidential site, presumably aimed at a national audience which might be more liberal. 

One good thing about Edwards is that he’s a very successful trial lawyer. That’s right, a trial lawyer. It’s fashionable in some circles these days to dis trial lawyers—aren’t they the guys who beat up on Dr. Kildare? If you happen to know anyone who’s been the victim of serious medical malpractice, as I do, that criticism rings a bit hollow. 

My old friend George Lakoff has been making a big stir in the academic/political crossover market with his suggestion that liberals would do a lot better if they learned to frame issues for popular consumption. For example, in a January interview on the Buzzflash website, George talks about the way the Bushies framed the debate on taxes by using the expression “tax relief.” He points out that the phrase evokes many things: “That taxation is an affliction that we have to get rid of, that it’s a heroic thing to do, that people who try to prevent this heroic thing are bad guys.” And bingo, liberals lose again.  

(For the purposes of today’s editorial, we will ignore those on the left who tried to re-frame “liberal” as a bad word, except to say shame on them.) 

Plaintiffs’ attorneys, especially very successful ones like John Edwards, must be masters of the framer’s art. Victims of corporate malfeasance can be made to look like liars and cheats by a skilled corporate defense attorney, and it’s the job of lawyers like Edwards to make sure that juries aren’t fooled. It’s no wonder he’s good at telling voters how Bush has been fooling Americans.  

And another reason Edwards is attractive: He’s never been anywhere near Yale. I know, there are now crackpots on the Internet who see a sinister conspiracy in the fact that John Kerry and George Bush both went to Yale. Right, but so did Howard Dean, and Bill and Hillary, not to mention KPFA’s own Larry Bensky, and make something of that if you can. But still. The semiotic significance of going to an elite college like Yale should not be discounted. People who go to such institutions spend a formative period of their lives in close contact with many fellow students who were born on third base and thought they hit a triple. It’s probably been good for John Edwards’ character that his undergraduate education was at North Carolina State (close to home, less expensive even than the University of North Carolina). Man of the people and all that—it still counts for something in an era where America is fast being divided into the haves and the have nots. 

“We live in a country where there are really two different Americas—one for all those families who have everything they need whenever they want it, and then one for everybody else,” Edwards has been saying in his stump speech. “It doesn't have to be that way. You and I can change that.” For those of us who still remember Michael Harrington’s earth-shaking 1962 book about poverty, The Other America, which was the genesis of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, this sounds like the old time religion.  

And if “everybody else” listens to that message and votes for Edwards, he might just be able to win the presidency, because “everybody else” is much more than 50 percent of the electorate. 

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Berkeley Daily Planet.