The Edwards Effect by Paul Krugman, NY Times Editorial

February 1, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

So John Edwards has dropped out of the race for the presidency. By normal political standards, his campaign fell short.

But Mr. Edwards, far more than is usual in modern politics, ran a campaign based on ideas. And even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built.

To understand the extent of the Edwards effect, you have to think about what might have been.

At the beginning of 2007, it seemed likely that the Democratic nominee would run a cautious campaign, without strong, distinctive policy ideas. That, after all, is what John Kerry did in 2004.

If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit.

It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.

Before the Edwards plan was unveiled, advocates of universal health care had difficulty getting traction, in part because they were divided over how to get there. Some advocated a single-payer system — a k a Medicare for all — but this was dismissed as politically infeasible. Some advocated reform based on private insurers, but single-payer advocates, aware of the vast inefficiency of the private insurance system, recoiled at the prospect.

With no consensus about how to pursue health reform, and vivid memories of the failure of 1993-1994, Democratic politicians avoided the subject, treating universal care as a vague dream for the distant future.

But the Edwards plan squared the circle, giving people the choice of staying with private insurers, while also giving everyone the option of buying into government-offered, Medicare-type plans — a form of public-private competition that Mr. Edwards made clear might lead to a single-payer system over time. And he also broke the taboo against calling for tax increases to pay for reform.

Suddenly, universal health care became a possible dream for the next administration. In the months that
followed, the rival campaigns moved to assure the party’s base that it was a dream they shared, by emulating the Edwards plan. And there’s little question that if the next president really does achieve major health reform, it will transform the political landscape.

Similar if less dramatic examples of leadership followed on other key issues. For example, Mr. Edwards led the way last March by proposing a serious plan for responding to climate change, and at this point both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are offering far stronger measures to limit emissions of greenhouse gases than anyone would have expected to see on the table not long ago.

Unfortunately for Mr. Edwards, the willingness of his rivals to emulate his policy proposals made it hard for him to differentiate himself as a candidate; meanwhile, those rivals had far larger financial resources and received vastly more media attention. Even The Times’s own public editor chided the paper for giving Mr. Edwards so little coverage.

And so Mr. Edwards won the arguments but not the political war.

Where will Edwards supporters go now? The truth is that nobody knows.

Yes, Mr. Obama is also running as a “change” candidate. But he isn’t offering the same kind of change: Mr. Edwards ran an unabashedly populist campaign, while Mr. Obama portrays himself as a candidate who can transcend partisanship — and given the economic elitism of the modern Republican Party, populism is unavoidably partisan.

It’s true that Mr. Obama has tried to work some populist themes into his campaign, but he apparently isn’t all that convincing: the working-class voters Mr. Edwards attracted have tended to favor Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Obama.

Furthermore, to the extent that this remains a campaign of ideas, it remains true that on the key issue of health care, the Clinton plan is more or less identical to the Edwards plan. The Obama plan, which doesn’t actually achieve universal coverage, is considerably weaker.

One thing is clear, however: whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign.

Personal appeal won’t do the job: history shows that Republicans are very good at demonizing their opponents as individuals. Mrs. Clinton has already received the full treatment, while Mr. Obama hasn’t — yet. But if he gets the nod, watch how quickly conservative pundits who have praised him discover that he has deep character flaws.

If Democrats manage to get the focus on their substantive differences with the Republicans, however, polls on the issues suggest that they’ll have a big advantage. And they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.

John Edwards exits with honor, from Salon. Walter Shapiro

He sought to return the Democratic Party to its blue-collar roots. But a historic race ended his hopes for the presidency.

By Walter Shapiro

REUTERS/Lee Celano

Democrat John Edwards, flanked by his family and Habitat for Humanity volunteers Wednesday in New Orleans, announces he is withdrawing his candidacy for U.S. president.

Jan. 31, 2008 John Edwards declared his candidacy for president in the Katrina-ravaged Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans on Dec. 28, 2006. But, in hindsight, Edwards' hopes of winning the Democratic nomination probably died three months earlier, in mid-September 2006, when a non-candidate named Barack Obama electrified Iowa Democrats at Tom Harkin's annual steak fry, the signature political event in the must-win first caucus state. Edwards, who found himself unable to compete for air time and votes with two history-book candidates, bowed to the inevitable Wednesday afternoon back where it all began in the still ramshackle Lower 9th Ward.

Most losing presidential campaigns leave behind little more than bumper stickers, brochures and bruised egos. But Edwards' second run for the White House was different, because he had substituted boldness for blandness -- and ran as an unabashed heart-on-his-sleeve, union-windbreaker-on-his-back old-fashioned populist. As the most liberal (whoops, progressive) major Democratic presidential contender in more than two decades, Edwards walked the picket lines and spoke passionately of poverty and injustice.

What Edwards offered -- through all the debilitating and often irrelevant flaps over haircuts, hedge funds and humongous houses -- was an opportunity to return the Democratic Party to its blue-collar roots. As he put it with characteristic fervor Wednesday, "I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat."

Despite unverified rumors (vehemently denied by those close to Edwards) that promises of future Cabinet posts like attorney general had been floated, Edwards requested only one thing when he telephoned Obama and Hillary Clinton Tuesday night to confide that he was considering withdrawing before the Feb. 5 primaries. What Edwards asked for and received was a commitment from his erstwhile rivals that they make the eradication of poverty a central theme in their campaigns.

There was also another motif to the campaign that had nothing to do with poverty or policy. With sometimes raw and wrenching emotion, the Edwards crusade was also about living with cancer -- about embracing the future and facing one's own mortality at the same time. Elizabeth Edwards' candor and courage in confronting a diagnosis of incurable breast cancer may have been one of those events in public life that transform attitudes, much as Betty Ford's mastectomy in 1974 brought the disease beyond whispered voices in hospital corridors.

If there is a verdict on the Edwards campaign, it is that the candidate and his advisors played a weak hand well. Short of money and with no natural fundraising base other than trial lawyers, Edwards knew from the beginning that he had to win Iowa, a state where he had finished a surprisingly close second to John Kerry in the 2004 caucuses. Only victory would have given Edwards the press coverage and the TV time that he craved to compete with Clinton and Obama.

The 2004 vice presidential nominee was the perfect foil for Clinton in Iowa -- and some Edwards advisors believe, even now, that he would have beaten her nationally in a two-candidate race. But Obama's unexpected candidacy roiled all the careful Edwards calculations. Suddenly there were two White House candidates running on the change ticket (at times Clinton tried to make it three) and two outsiders railing against lobbyists. It did not matter that Edwards was first out of the box with a healthcare plan that mandated universal coverage, a bold position that Clinton (but not Obama) later matched. For no matter what Edwards did, he was constantly shoved out of the limelight. Obama described it accurately in the South Carolina debate when he talked about "a race where you've got an African-American and a woman ... and John."

Even after barely beating Clinton for second in the Iowa caucuses and then coming in a weak third everywhere else, Edwards did not have to abandon the campaign trail. Thanks to a late gusher of Internet fundraising, the money was holding up. His vote totals in South Carolina (18 percent) and Florida (14 percent) suggested that he could continue in many states to score above the threshold (15 percent) for accumulating delegates. His top campaign advisors even held a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon to lay out their campaign plans for the Feb. 5 states. And Edwards himself spoke to a raucous campaign rally in St. Paul, Minn., Tuesday night.

But by that point, the candidate was already facing the inevitable. He flew home to North Carolina on Sunday night to talk with Elizabeth -- his closest and often only confidant -- who had been off the campaign trail with a bad cold. (She was, however, in New Orleans on Wednesday). As a close friend of Elizabeth's put it, "She had hit a wall with the campaign, and it had nothing to do with her health. She just couldn't see a path to the nomination."

John Moylan -- a South Carolina lawyer who headed the campaign in that state's primary and traveled with Edwards constantly in recent weeks -- said, "I don't know if John himself knew that the decision was coming right after South Carolina. It came upon him gradually." And top strategist Joe Trippi explained the timing of the decision like this: "It became increasingly clear on Sunday and Monday that we were totally blocked out of the news story. John Edwards didn't want to play politics. He didn't want to stay in the race to be a kingmaker or a spoiler. There was just not a clear shot at the nomination."

For all the glib TV talk about a forthcoming Obama endorsement, there is a sense in the Edwards camp that any decision on where he will throw his support and direct his 50 delegates will be made deliberately -- and there is no guarantee that he will pick a candidate to bless. As Moylan said, "I think he will do nothing for the immediate future and just let it all settle in."

It is difficult in politics, as in life, to watch a dream die. John and Elizabeth Edwards have banked the last six years and maybe longer on seeing him in the White House. But there is also honor in having run a high-minded race for president on long-neglected Democratic issues, even if you fail. By that standard, Edwards is a success story even as he leaves the political stage to Clinton and Obama.

Responding to Recession

Note from Greetings: As usual, Paul Krugman gets it right in reminding us to look at the candidates stands on issues - not what they are saying about each other, nor what the press is saying about their looks or mannerism. Sage advice for a country that needs someone with ideas.

January 14, 2008
By Paul Krugman , Op-Ed Columnist , NY Times

Suddenly, the economic consensus seems to be that the implosion of the housing market will indeed push the U.S. economy into a recession, and that it’s quite possible that we’re already in one. As a result, over the next few weeks we’ll be hearing a lot about plans for economic stimulus.

Since this is an election year, the debate over how to stimulate the economy is inevitably tied up with politics. And here’s a modest suggestion for political reporters. Instead of trying to divine the candidates’ characters by scrutinizing their tone of voice and facial expressions, why not pay attention to what they say about economic policy?

In fact, recent statements by the candidates and their surrogates about the economy are quite revealing.

Take, for example, John McCain’s admission that economics isn’t his thing. “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” he says. “I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

His self-deprecating humor is attractive, as always. But shouldn’t we worry about a candidate who’s so out of touch that he regards Mr. Bubble, the man who refused to regulate subprime lending and assured us that there was at most some “froth” in the housing market, as a source of sage advice?

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani wants us to go for broke, literally: his answer to the economy’s short-run problems is a huge permanent tax cut, which he claims would pay for itself. It wouldn’t.

About Mike Huckabee — well, what can you say about a candidate who talks populist while proposing to raise taxes on the middle class and cut them for the rich?

And then there’s the curious case of Mitt Romney. I’m told that he actually does know a fair bit about economics, and he has some big-name Republican economists supporting his campaign. Fears of recession might have offered him a chance to distinguish himself from the G.O.P. field, by offering an economic proposal that actually responded to the gathering economic storm.

I mean, even the Bush administration seems to be coming around to the view that lobbying for long-term tax cuts isn’t enough, that the economy needs some immediate help. “Time is of the essence,” declared Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, last week.

But Mr. Romney, who really needs to take chances at this point, apparently can’t break the habit of telling Republicans only what he thinks they want to hear. He’s still offering nothing but standard-issue G.O.P. pablum about low taxes and a pro-business environment.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards, although never the front-runner, has been driving his party’s policy agenda. He’s done it again on economic stimulus: last month, before the economic consensus turned as negative as it now has, he proposed a stimulus package including aid to unemployed workers, aid to cash-strapped state and local governments, public investment in alternative energy, and other measures.

Last week Hillary Clinton offered a broadly similar but somewhat larger proposal. (It also includes aid to families having trouble paying heating bills, which seems like a clever way to put cash in the hands of people likely to spend it.) The Edwards and Clinton proposals both contain provisions for bigger stimulus if the economy worsens.

And you have to say that Mrs. Clinton seems comfortable with and knowledgeable about economic policy. I’m sure the Hillary-haters will find some reason that’s a bad thing, but there’s something to be said for presidents who know what they’re talking about.

The Obama campaign’s initial response to the latest wave of bad economic news was, I’m sorry to say, disreputable: Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser claimed that the long-term tax-cut plan the candidate announced months ago is just what we need to keep the slump from “morphing into a drastic decline in consumer spending.” Hmm: claiming that the candidate is all-seeing, and that a tax cut originally proposed for other reasons is also a recession-fighting measure — doesn’t that sound familiar?

Anyway, on Sunday Mr. Obama came out with a real stimulus plan. As was the case with his health care plan, which fell short of universal coverage, his stimulus proposal is similar to those of the other Democratic candidates, but tilted to the right.

For example, the Obama plan appears to contain none of the alternative energy initiatives that are in both the Edwards and Clinton proposals, and emphasizes across-the-board tax cuts over both aid to the hardest-hit families and help for state and local governments. I know that Mr. Obama’s supporters hate to hear this, but he really is less progressive than his rivals on matters of domestic policy.

In short, the stimulus debate offers a pretty good portrait of the men and woman who would be president. And I haven’t said a word about their hairstyles.

Rating Bush, on a scale of 1 to 10

Note from Greetings: More nuggets of wisdom from Dan Froomkin. This time in Nieman Watchdog. Why DOESN'T the press ask the Republican candidates what they think about Bush's policies... why didn't they oppose them at the time... did they vote for them, etc? I believe they need to answer now for their actions and inactions over the last 8 years. And why is the press afraid to ask these questions? It doesn't seem to have come up in any of the debates...articles...or anywhere. Was Bush a ghost?

ASK THIS December 13, 2007 Dan Froomkin, www.NiemanWatchdog.org
Republican presidential candidates avoid talking about President Bush, for obvious reasons. But journalists should press them to say what they think of Bush's legacy, which elements of his presidency they would emulate, and which they would reject.

By Dan Froomkinfroomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

The Republican candidates for president rarely mention their party’s deeply unpopular standard-bearer these days, particularly in their debates. In Harry Potter-speak, President Bush has become He Who Must Not Be Named for Republicans.

Bush’s name was uttered only twice during the GOP’s two-hour-long CNN/YouTube debate on Nov. 8. CNN correspondent Carol Costello observed: "It sure seems like Bush has become a four letter word you don't want to mention if you're a Republican running for office. They've taken to talking about him in code -- not daring to say Bush, but not shy about promoting his agenda.”

At the Dec. 9 Univision debate in Miami, the name Bush was mentioned once, by Sen. John McCain. And McCain was referring to the president’s brother Jeb, the former governor of Florida.

At yesterday’s Des Moines Register debate, the Bush name again came up only once. This time, it was former governor Mitt Romney talking about the current president's dad.

The reasoning is obvious. Publicly identifying with Bush is a losing proposition overall, given his dismal job-approval ratings. But attacking the president risks upsetting the Bush loyalists who, while few in number, make up a good chunk of Republican primary voters.

Furthermore, keen political observers have noted that Republicans are very eager not to make 2008 a referendum on Bush, because on those terms, there is little doubt they would lose.

And yet, what the GOP candidates think of the Bush presidency – what they consider its strengths and weaknesses, which elements they would emulate, which they would reject – is crucial information for anyone trying to figure out what they would be like as president themselves. In fact, it’s hard to imagine what could be more important.

As it happens, there is one way to get the candidates to address the Bush legacy in their debates or elsewhere.

And that’s to ask them. Here are some possible questions:
Q. Do you approve of disapprove of the job President Bush is doing?
Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Bush as president?
Q. What would you consider some of Bush’s greatest successes?
Q. What would you consider some of Bush’s greatest failures?
Q. Had you been president, would you have invaded Iraq?
Q. If you had to give President Bush a grade for how he managed the war in Iraq, would it be an A, B, C, D or F?
Q. What decisions if any would you have made differently if you had been in charge these past seven years?
Q. How would you assess President Bush’s credibility? High? Low?
Q. Do you approve of the job Vice President Cheney is doing?
Q. Historically, the vice president has been in a more subordinate role. Do you think Bush was overly influenced by his vice president? Would you expect your vice president to serve a similar function?
Q. Historically, a main job of national security adviser has been to serve as an honest broker between other parties, to make sure the president was making decisions based on accurate information, and to present the president with alternative options and dissenting views. By most accounts, Condoleezza Rice was not that sort of national security adviser. Do you think Condoleezza Rice did a good job as national security adviser? Would you expect your national security adviser to operate differently?
Q. Do you feel President Bush has been operating in too much of a bubble?
Q. President Bush rarely ventures out in public, and almost always talks to invitation-only audiences. Historically, presidents have appeared at events that were open to the public, at least in part to make it clear that they had been chosen to represent the whole country, not just those who voted for them. Would you return to this tradition?
Q. Would you continue President Bush’s practice of using signing statements to quietly assert his right to ignore legislation passed by Congress?
Q. President Bush’s lawyers have asserted that there are few Constitutional checks on a wartime president. Do you agree? And would you consider yourself a wartime president?
Q. Do you think President Bush is within his rights to assert executive privilege to block the testimony of White House aides in the investigation of the politically-motivated firings of U.S. Attorneys? Would you do likewise in similar circumstances?
Q. Some critics have accused the Bush White House of being dominated by politics, at the expense of policy. Do you think Bush got the balance between campaigning and governing about right?

Colbert Files for Presidential Primary

Thu Nov 1, 2:04 PM EDT

Stephen Colbert's fanciful White House bid took a real step Thursday. It's up to South Carolina Democrats to decide whether to take him seriously.

Colbert, who poses as a conservative talk-show host on the Comedy Central cable network, filed to get on the ballot as a Democratic candidate in his native South Carolina. His campaign paid a $2,500 filing fee just before the noon deadline, said state Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler.

Whether he'll appear on the ballot will be decided by party officials later Thursday.

The host of "The Colbert Report" doesn't appear to meet the party's viable candidate qualification. And it's unclear if he would meet the requirement that candidates actively campaign in the state.

Colbert did appear Sunday at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, telling several hundred fans he would, if elected, "crush the state of Georgia." He also received a key to the capital city and the mayor declared him South Carolina's "favorite son."

When Colbert announced his candidacy on his show last month, he said he would run only in this key primary state. He said then he planned to run as a Democrat and a Republican _ so he could lose twice.

The GOP filing fee is $35,000; the deadline was Thursday afternoon. (Democratic filing fee, $2500)