Des Moines Register: Don't Write Off Edwards Just Yet
Edwards has been campaigning in Iowa just like Obama and Hillary and Richardson. In fact, I remember seeing that all of these candidates have visited the state a significant number of days this year.
Edwards has also been campaigning throughout the country (we've seen him three times already in California), even in states that some Democratic frontrunners wouldn't bother visiting because they would never even stand a chance of winning there. States that have Democratic governors but would go Republican before they would vote for Hillary.
According to this Des Moines Register column on October 18, 2007 by David Yepsen, "To some in American politics, John Edwards is toast."
But watching him work in the sweaty auditorium of a Waukee elementary school Tuesday night, one gets a different feeling: Iowa Democrats may still give this guy a new lease on political life.
Why? John Edwards is tenacious and still in the hunt for first place. While the latest Iowa Poll shows Clinton at 29 percent, Edwards slipping to 23 percent and Obama at 22 percent, it's also important to remember that both Clinton and Obama have dropped millions on television commercials in the state. Edwards has yet to make his big media buy.
...While Obama and Clinton have only recently discovered the fact that 49 percent of Iowa's Democratic caucus-goers live in rural and small-town Iowa, Edwards has been mining those tiny lodes for years.
For example, his schedule for Wednesday called for him to spend the day in far-northwest Iowa, where Democrats are ordinarily found only on endangered-species lists. (I know Democrats running for governor who don't make it to Rock Rapids.) Yet Edwards was to campaign there, and end his day on a hog farm near Cylinder, population 110.
While he didn't get a rock star's crowd in Waukee this week, he did get 257 local Democrats to show up: Retirees. Farmers. Teachers. Working folks. A few suburbanites In short, he attracted a crowd that looked exactly like the types of people who actually show up at a Democratic caucus in January. (Or December.)
...Perhaps the best argument for Edwards' candidacy is his potential for electability. While Clinton and Obama make the case they could attract new voters, like women and minorities, in a general-election fight the case for Edwards is that he's not as risky. He doesn't have the polarizing negatives Clinton has and is a more seasoned candidate than Obama, though some of his positions smack of class war. His campaign believes he would help congressional Democratic candidates.
Edwards has argued he could attract votes just about anywhere in the country. And as y'all know, Democrats historically don't win the White House without a Southerner on the ticket.
Changed 8:11 am October 26, 2007