Edwards "Policy Speech" Turns Into Process Speech
As student Ambassador, Ben Grazier, strode to the podium to introduce John Edwards, an Edwards aide dashed to the stage and plopped down a manhandled speech barely hanging together by a staple. Grazier then went on to introduce the former Senator to the fifty or so students, locals, and reporters at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics. The awkward ten-yard dash by the aide, and following wrinkled speech/ baton transfer, was quite telling of the event.
Edwards began reading the crafted speech by bringing the audience to Elizabeth Edwards’s hospital bed, where the decision to continue running for President was made. Edwards managed to mention his wife a number of times. Another woman seemed to edge her way into Edwards’s speech, and that was Hillary Clinton. John contrasted himself to Hillary all throughout the speech by noting where her money came from and where his money came from. He has rejected to take dollar number one from Washington lobbyists while Clinton has welcomed the help. He told everyone that it was “time to tell the truth, and the truth is the system in Washington is broken.” If it was time to tell the truth, then Edwards’s half-truths weren’t going to cut it. One of my favorite spins was when Edwards told everyone that Hillary had accepted more lobbyist dollars than Romney, Giuliani, and Obama combined. While Edwards’s facts are right, his presentation was skewed. He had very cleverly led the audience to believe that Obama was taking lobbyist dollars when Barack has taken the same pledge as Edwards to not accept any money from lobbyists or PACs.
Overall, the speech was stale and left a plastic taste in my mouth. It was like Edwards was going through the motions. He was devoid of any real passion, and any type of pause or emphasis in his speech seemed like it was callously planned like a stage direction. He was an empty suit selling the audience like he would sell a client to a jury. The only glimpses of the old John Edwards that I had come to admire was when he ditched the speech for a brief minute and went off on a tangent. That was the only time when the cagey Edwards ever looked like he could be President.
When John was done with is reading, he oddly ended his speech and calmly walked out. The abrupt move left the audience puzzled. Then, as the masses leaked out of the auditorium, a surprise Q & A arose out of nowhere. With cameras repositioned, Edwards answered a few questions before he was hit with a hardball that would have struck out half of the World Champion Red Sox. (I had to throw my shout out in there.) The question regarded his connection to a Michigan Democratic plot to move up their primary to blow up New Hampshire’s primary. Edwards was quick to defend, and got testy. His answer was best summed up by “I go where the party tells me to go.”
If Edwards was trying to sell himself, no one really seemed to be buying it.