Edwards is the Tarheels' best gleaming
From The Left
by Joseph Waldman
24 October 2001

An astute reader (not Thomas Moore, by virtue of both noun and adjective) wrote in and pointed out that, in all 800 words of my last column, I neglected to say why I thought so many Senators would make good candidates for President. I hadn't thought about it, but the astute reader was right: the upper house hasn't sent anyone straight to the White House since 1960.

But I don't care. Sunday before last, I was taken. I have seen the oracle, and it has spoken: John Edwards is going to be our next President.

The story: the Ohio Democratic Party was holding its annual dinner down in Columbus, and a group of us intrepid College Democrats decided to go. Democrats throw wonderful parties, but we're not really known for our organizational skills, and the event was overbooked, with the result that all the College Democrats in attendance were going to have to watch the speech from the balcony and not get tables or dinner.

Now, if this had happened at a Republican event, they would have just booted the college students into the street--because who wants a group of intellectuals lousing up the GOP's thick-headed plans?--and the kids would have taken it gladly--because they're thick-headed larval Republicans. But Edwards saved the day. To make up for the lost dinner, he offered to come by the party headquarters about two hours before the event started and meet with the group.

A senator, for God's sake, taking time out of his busy schedule to come meet with a bunch of young ruffians. Can you imagine? I mean, when Jesse Helms shows up to speak at a Republican event, he doesn't mingle with the people, much less with the young (relative to him, that is) people. He just hacks up phlegm and complains about all the pesky Negroes who dare to show their faces in daylight in whatever city he happens to be in.

Granted, it was smart for Edwards to do this. Right now no one really knows what he's going to do in 2004, but it's strategic planning at its finest to recruit potential minions for a potential campaign. And I think he recruited about two dozen by doing what he did.

He showed up only about fifteen minutes late (his flight into Columbus had been delayed) and without much of an entourage, just one aide and a couple of local politicos who were playing host. Looked young--bio says he's forty-eight, but I'd have guessed at least a decade younger, no wrinkles or belly yet (or course, he's only been in Washington three years). I could see how he was very telegenic, but not in a fake, made-up sort of way--no frozen smile, no French cuffs, and a wristwatch that looked less formal than my ten-dollar Wal-mart knockoff.

The senator didn't talk down to us, even when someone asked a stupid question. At the same time, he didn't give anything away, whether he was talking about the current war or his plans for the future.

He'd been a very successful lawyer in North Carolina before he went to Washington, and it showed--he could dance his way around tricky subjects and leave the audience feeling satisfied, even though he hadn't actually said anything.

Which is, in a way, exactly what I want right now. I remember, a couple days after Sept. 11, hearing some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee talk to the press about their meeting that day. Orrin Hatch, who for reasons that escape me is held up as some sort of respectable statesman, shot his mouth off for five minutes with all sorts of information that should have been kept within the group. Then Edwards stepped up and, very coolly, shot down everything Hatch had just said. I'd like to be able to tell you more, he said, but there are bigger things at stake right now.

Indeed. There was a big portrait of President Kennedy hanging in the room, and I kept looking to it from the senator. It was eerie, the resemblance. Ted Kennedy may have the blood, but John Edwards has the spirit. Call me crazy, call me hypnotized, call me drunk on the free wine at the reception later that evening, but for the first time since my party shot itself in the foot with Bill Clinton and the New Democratic horde in 1992, I see some hope at the top.

If the Afghan war is done by then, we can win this thing with John Edwards. It's just a matter of making sure he runs; and I, for one, am going to do all I can to help.