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Who will suffer most from
the Edwards train wreck?
of TheColumnists.com
Now that John Edwards’s political career has become a train wreck, the question becomes: Who benefits? Who doesn’t?
A glib and superficial analysis would tell us that Edwards’ chicanery hurts Barack Obama more than it does John McCain. Obama has made idealism and hope a central theme of his campaign. In speech after speech, Obama has declared that he represents a new kind of politics that pays attention to the less fortunate and that will clean out the immorality of politics as usual in Washington. “I’m someone new and refreshing and different.” You know, the kind of thing that Edwards stressed during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
By this reasoning--and remember, glib and superficial analyses are not always wrong--the danger to Obama is that voters will transfer their disgust with idealist Edwards to idealist Obama. They might cease to believe Obama’s call to our better selves. There may be reinforcement of the view that no matter how politicians sound on the stump, they are basically all the same breed of con men, secretly laughing at the gullibility of voters. Edwards stressed political reform and hope for the less fortunate. So does Obama. Birds of a feather. Vote for McCain.
John McCain, on the other hand, has never sought to pass himself off as the embodiment of a new and idealistic variety of politics. His is a campaign stressing toughness and resolve against America’s enemies, with an undergirding of belief in free enterprise and self-reliance. That helps immunize him against any fallout from l’affaire Edwards.
Edwards’s fall from grace is merely another example of the wide gulf that separates politicians from voters. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Not too long ago, there was a proposal before a congressional committee that would have put tighter controls on raising and spending campaign money. In the face of considerable pressure to approve the bill, the committee killed it.
“We weren’t going to be intimidated,” a committee member said afterward.
There you have it. The public wanted the bill, the lawmakers did not, and they regarded public pressure to do the right thing as “intimidation.”
It follows, then, that while Main street is always shocked and horrified when an elected official is caught doing something he or she shouldn’t be doing, most politicians are not. “How could he?” the voters ask. “There but for the grace of God…” the politicians mutter to themselves.
If you spend enough time on Capitol Hill, or any major state capital, you are seduced by the customs and prerogatives to such an extent that you regard those outside the world of Congress, the legislature and lobbyists as outsiders. Not your constituents, the people who pinned their hopes to you and sent you there. No. “Outsiders” who are not going to be permitted to “intimidate” you into departing from the world you like so much.
To his credit, Edwards apparently never became a good ol’ boy among senators, going along with the tribal rites. But as he himself has said, he was seduced by another world remote from the day-to-day concerns of the ordinary person. He suffered from campaign-itis, where you are sealed inside a traveling capsule, exposed day after day to the adoring crowds that your advance man has arranged for you. It goes to your head. You think you are superman, able to do anything.
You may be sure that as you read this, there are meetings going on in Chicago, Washington, and perhaps Arizona, pondering what the Edwards scandal might do to the Republican and Democratic campaigns. Can we Republicans roll out some television spots subtly linking Edwards and Obama? After all, there is some excellent footage of them embracing one another when Edwards announced he was endorsing Obama. What can we Obama political operatives do by way of damage control? Do we really need damage control? Can we wait to find out?
It may be telling that Edwards’ confession was expertly timed to coincide with the opening of the summer Olympics. There could be a calculation by Edwards or the Obama people that the Beijing coverage would suck all the air out of the Edwards story. If so, it didn’t work.
Meanwhile, from San Francisco to Boston and parts in between, Edwards supporters and contributors are feeling betrayed. I hope they don’t allow that feeling of betrayal to overrule their idealism. While it may be in short supply in the real world of politics, it’s still the only thing that shoves us ahead, inch by inch, to a better world.
©2008 by Charles M. McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. The photos are the official government photo of John Edwards and a digitally-modified version of the same photo. This column first posted Aug. 18, 2008.
TO ACCESS CHUCK McFADDEN'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: McFADDEN ARCHIVE.
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