“Ever?”
The other day, The Telegraph, a major newspaper in Great Britain, linked to a blog entry here about John Edwards, a largely negative post questioning his dizzyingly wild swing on iraq between 2003 and 2007 while at the same time expressing dismay at the media fixation on his expensive haircuts. The link pushed my technorati rating up a couple of points, as well pushed my ranking down by 100,000 or thereabouts — something that I don’t really care about but find mildly interesting to note, and I pass this along .
The question from Tom Harden was “John Edwards: The Worst Presidential Candidate Ever?”, and before he clarified the meaning with
It got me wondering (wandering and wondering – I can multi-task) whether John Edwards might be the worst presidential candidate ever. I don’t mean the most inept campaigner – he’s not. I mean, intrinsically the worst candidate: the phoniest, slickest, most disingenuous, least electable.
I was already stalled with that ever omnipresent word “EVER”, which trails behind “OF ALL TIME” for probable ahistorical reference points. Unless I see a discussion about John Edwards in comparison with, I don’t know — the 1940 Thomas Dewey campaign (picked entirely arbitrarily and without any concern for whatever Thomas Dewey was actually up to in 1940, which I am not at liberty to peg one way or another), the question is not going to really be answered.
I can say that Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign rhetoric for the 1928 presidential bid of Alfred Smith was off base with his campaign rhetoric for his 1932 campaign which was again off base with what he war running on in 1936.
But this does not particularly excuse John Edwards.
Meantime, John McCain’s campaign implosion includes diatribes against “gay sweaters”, which strikes me as a more meaningful superficial image problem. Mitt Romney, who I think is John Edwards’s soul mate for the “Phoniness” “Image Consciousness” problem, has gone from campaigning against his Republican affiliation for the benefit of Democratic dominated Massachusetts to campaigning against his Massachusetts affiliation for the benefit of his Republican Party primary base, and I hold him as more problematic than Edwards. Now I need to figure out and understand what is up with this — which does not beggar for anything less than an authoritarian presidency.
July 20th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Edwards is a small fish in a big pond, he is definitely out of his element in pursuing the presidency. I cannot say that he is a bad politician but he does not have what it takes to lead this nation.
McCain was a force of nature some years ago but the poor guy is simply too old and beat up now to ever hope to win a presidential nomination. He is a war hero and now it is time for him to step down from politics and live out his life in quiet, peaceful retirement.
Hilary, regardless of what you have been brainwashed to believe, is the best chance we have as a nation to recover and move towards a brighter future. She is not the messiah, but she certainly has the savvy and vision needed.
But if the rest of you want to go on to elect another, old white man, do it. Plunge us deeper into darkness.