Posted on 07/07/2004 6:44:38 AM PDT by OpusatFR
It didn’t take long.
Minutes after John Kerry picked John Edwards for this fall’s Democratic ticket, the sharp knives were unsheathed Tuesday.
“Who is John Edwards?” The Republican National Committee responded. “A disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers.”
Politics are politics, but we hope remarks like those aren’t a sign of things to come during the next four months.
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Email this Page Print this Page Get Email Newsletters We fear they are, and we fear that an already debased political discourse will head further into the gutter.
If he brings nothing else to the Democratic ticket, the sunny disposition of the North Carolina senator provides the sometimes dour Kerry with an optimistic foil.
His stump speech during the primaries was largely about his hopes for America, even as he was lamenting the creation of a nation divided into haves and have-nots.
The son of a millworker brings to the campaign a passion for the plight of unemployed factory workers, for Americans without health insurance, for children in poverty.
But more than that, he brings a sense of hope:
“Those of you who cast your votes for me cast your votes for a new kind of politics,” he said, in a speech announcing his March withdrawal from the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. “You wanted a positive campaign and you got one for a change.”
His second-place showing suggests that many Americans are hungry for Edwards’ brand of inspiration. It’s the kind of buoyant message that reached its pinnacle in Ronald Reagan’s successful races for the White House.
As November approaches, we wonder whether such high-minded sentiment can withstand the heat of this presidential summer.
Things don’t look good. When the sitting vice president uses locker-room language to tell a Democratic senator, on the floor of that august chamber, to commit an anatomically impossible act, we wonder whether civility has any chance at all.
Still, we remain hopeful. We have no choice. America, and no less its politics, is about the possible, about the future.
Politicians need to remember that an America that endured 9/11, that sent its sons and daughters off to two wars, is a fundamentally different nation from the one that elected a president four years ago.
With the stakes so high, we can no longer tolerate the politics of personal destruction that dominated pre-9/11 elections.
We expect more from ourselves now. We expect more, too, from our leaders.
I don't want Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm a heartbeat away from the presidency. I want a seasoned man who can take the reins of this Wartime Presidency in case of the Presidents death!
"When the sitting vice president uses locker-room language to tell a Democratic senator, on the floor of that august chamber, to commit an anatomically impossible act, we wonder whether civility has any chance at all."
Funny they do not mention the interview Kerry gave for Rolling Stone(er) magazine.
Boy, they're right. The Dems haven't been negative in the least in this campaign, outside of those pesky comparisons of Bush to Hitler.
Heh heh..
people that hope like this probably look for quarters under their pillows from the tooth fairy.
The RNC said it best when they said "Edwards delivers his pessimism with a smile".
"The son of a millworker"
You will be sick of that line very very soon.
Ah, the advantages of a highly selective memory. The fact that John Edwards appears to be a "sunny messager" will disappear like flatulences in a wind tunnel. Civility was out the window a long time ago, before the election of 2000 was decided. Bush maintained the fiction that it could be restored, but there was never any reciprocity from the Democrats. Not once. Not ever.
We may expect Edwards to be one of the less civil campaigners out there.
It remains to be seen if he'll still be smiling after a debate with VP Cheney!
Politics are politics, but we hope remarks like those aren’t a sign of things to come during the next four months.
I agree with them: The RNC forgot to say "baby-killer."
You can't kill 45 million babies and have "civility" in public life.
Yeah, whoever said "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm", LOL!! It's all very well to be "hopefull" and have a "passion for the plight of unemployed factory workers, for Americans without health insurance, for children in poverty", but what the heck are you going to do about it?!?! A little light on the specifics, aren't you John (and John?)?!
Meanwhile, back on C-Span, one of the members of this party of hope and compassion actually called in and said "I hope when Cheney hears this news, he has his fifth heart attack". Appalling.
Oh what the Cheney-ever. Cheney all of them--- where the sun don't shine.
I hope is IS a sign of things to come. The Republicans NEED to point out the lie that these two are NOT 'for the middle class', they're only our for their votes and will leave them in the dust if they get elected.
The Democrats seem to be able to say any ugly thing they want about Bush and Cheney and the media piles on, but the Republicans can't say what THEY want? No media bias there, no, not any! /sarcasm
Oh my gosh! Those darn Republicans are being partisan. How dare they!
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