John Edwards in New Hampshire

John Edwards town hall in Portsmouth, NH: review by Timothy Horrigan

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John Edwards in Portsmouth, NH; December 29, 2006
by Timothy Horrigan

The 2008 Presidential election is a long way away... it's still 2006, and the mid-term elections were only a few weeks ago.  But the New Hampshire primary season  is already in full swing, as anyone who went near the Little Harbour School on Friday afternoon can attest.

The John Edwards  campaign was evidently hoping for a crowd of a few hundred people at their event in the school gym.  Over 2,000 citizens showed up: about half of them made it into the gym.  The rest stood outside on one of the coldest afternoon of the winter so far (which admittedly is not saying much, since this has been one of the warmest winters ever recorded here in New Hampshire.)

This is an auspicious moment for a candidate like John Edwards, since the Democrats won the midterm election largely because  many Republicans abandoned their party after six years of George W. Bush's radical (and grossly incompetent) rule.  Edwards represented a conservative state, North Carolina, and he is a fairly conservative and traditional person like himself.  But at the same time, his conservative ideals have led him to take some very progressive positions, especially on economic issues.  (I suppose it may be silly to say this, since the Republicans are always smearing Democrats as Marxists, but some of Edwards' ideas do echo those of Marx, Engels, etc.  This is probably not because he is a Marxist, but rather because of Marx's indirect influence on the political tradition which Edwards is trying to revive, i.e., the optimistic liberalism which ruled our country from the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt through that of Richard M. Nixon.)

A big banner on the side of the Little Harbour Gym (which was also festooned with all manner of motivational banners permanently installed by the faculty and staff of the school,  some of which were incomprhensible to outsiders like myself)  read "Tomorrow Begins Today."  This slogan is a conscious echo of Bill Clinton's favorite pop-song chorus "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."  (Another echo of Bill Clinton was his "body man": Edwards was followed closely at all times by a young male staffer who bore an eerie resemblance to President Clinton.)

The slogan is more than a slogan: his message was relentlessly forward-looking, and in addition to his own campaign he promoted his group OneCorps, which is devoted to grassroots projects designed to build a better future locally.

The event began rather chaotically, for myself at least.  My father, Jim Horrigan, and I had Blue Tickets, which ostensibly had priority over the White Tickets.  However, the door to the school was locked for a while before the fire marshall decided to let a few more people in.  (There was plenty of floor space  inside the 1960s-vintage facility, but there was a shortage of fire exits.) Edwards decided to come out and address  the throng outside, but he was inaudible without a microphone.  While his sound man scrambled around getting a wireless mike working (there were speakers outside) my dad and I were allowed inside.  

When we got inside we were stick behind the TV camera riser.  We could hear Edwards but we couldn't see the stage (which he was in any case not yet standing on, since he was still outside.)  He gave a brief rundown of his main talking points, which ended abruptly. During the awkward pause which followed, my father decided to walk home and give up his spot inside to another citizen.

Edwards then came inside and spoke for an hour.  (I was able to find a spot where I could actually see him.)  The Senator's main themes were bringing the troops home from Iraq, universal health care, ending poverty, creating a more just socioeconomic system, and restoring America's leadership position in the world.  He was at time almost too thoughtful for his own good-- when asked about social security and health care he undercut himself a little by referring to proprosals  and plans which he hasn't  finished putting together yet.  A less thoughtful candidate could have tried to get away with covering these issues in vague generalities.  He only went off topic once: he  fielded a question about gay marriage which he had to obfuscate, because he is in fact against gay marriage (at least against gay marriage under the name of "marriage.")

All in all, it was a strong performance, and if he continues like this, he has a great chance of in fact becoming what he was called as he entered the gym, i.e., the "Next President of the United States."