Newsweek
11-17-07
The Wrath of John
Trailing his rivals, Edwards has injected urgency into his bid.
By Holly Bailey
NEWSWEEK
There are some things about John Edwards that haven't changed in the four years since
he last ran for president. The man who was once featured in People's "Sexiest Man
Alive" issue still has that glossy, immaculate head of hair. His Tom Cruise megasmile is
still disarming. And if the reaction from a crowd packed into a town hall in Iowa last
week is any indication, Edwards's silky Southern drawl can still find its target. "Oh," one
elderly woman whispered after the former senator shook her hand. "He is a handsome
boy."
Edwards is even sounding the same "two Americas" theme he did last time around—
that the rich get richer while the poor and middle class get the shaft. But heading into
the primaries—and trailing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in national polls and the
money chase—there is an edge, and urgency, to Edwards that wasn't there in 2004.
The man who once fashioned himself as a sunny populist who refused to disparage
fellow Democrats—if it's attack politics you're looking for, he said in 2004, "I'm not your
guy"—now excoriates Clinton at every opportunity.
In Dubuque last week, Edwards stood before a United Auto Workers convention and
trashed Clinton as an insider beholden to big-dollar contributors. "The person who has
raised the most money from Washington lobbyists," he said, "is not a Republican. It's a
Democrat. The person who has raised the most money from the drug industry, from the
health-insurance industry … the defense industry … is Senator Clinton." His voice
rising, he said it is a "lie" that any Democrat will be a better leader than any Republican.
"It does not work to replace corporate Republicans with corporate Democrats!" At the
Las Vegas debate last Thursday, Edwards went after Clinton the moment he got the
mike. "I am surprised at just how angry John has become," Sen. Chris Dodd said in a
statement last week. "This is not the same John Edwards I once knew."
It isn't difficult to see why Edwards might choose to ditch light for heat. At the start of the
campaign, he was leading in all-important Iowa, where he took a surprise second place
in 2004. But over the summer, Clinton and Obama caught up and most polls now have
the three essentially tied, with Edwards in close second or third place. To stand out, he
is returning to the skills that made him rich and celebrated. Edwards made a fortune
wooing juries with emotional courtroom performances that depicted his clients as
victims of money-grubbing corporations. He's now doing the same thing in the
campaign, turning the country into a courtroom and putting the front runners on trial.
"Ironically, the guy we are seeing today is probably the real John Edwards, because
you're not sweet and nice and positive when you're one of the most successful trial
lawyers in the country," says Steffen Schmidt, a Des Moines radio host and political
scientist at Iowa State University.
But asking if Edwards is, in fact, newly angry turns out to be the quickest way to make
his staff angry. "This is who he has always been," says deputy campaign manager
Jonathan Prince. "He's always been fighting against special interests and standing up
for the little guy." At the same time, Prince says the tone of this campaign is different,
something he attributes to the candidate's experiences running in 2004 and to his wife
Elizabeth's battle with cancer. "He's more passionate, more intense," he says, "but he's
not different."
Even so, Edwards is mindful of a backlash against his attacks. NEWSWEEK has
learned that his campaign quietly conducted internal polls to see how his new tone is
playing. (Aides say their numbers show it hasn't hurt him.) Bob Shrum, who managed
the John Kerry–Edwards campaign in 2004, says Edwards's efforts could backfire. Right
now, Obama and Edwards are splitting the anti-Clinton vote. But, Shrum says, if
Edwards "goes heavily on the attack he may end up hurting Hillary, hurting himself and
helping Obama."
If there's one person who knows the perils of running too hot, it's Joe Trippi. Four years
ago, he managed Howard Dean's angry-outsider campaign, which came to a
screeching stop in Iowa. This time, it's Edwards playing the anti-establishment Dean
role—and one of his top advisers is Trippi, who is once again urging his candidate not to
hold back. "After all he's been through," Trippi says, "he understands it's not worth
selling your soul to win an election." Trippi's experience with Dean also should have
taught him that there is a line a candidate has to be careful not to cross. On the
campaign trail, no one wants to hear you scream.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/70997
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