The Announcement

By Ezra

Yesterday, John Edwards spent the day shoveling, flattening, and recreating Orelia Tyler's yard.  Today, outside that same yard, at 8:03 in the morning, he announced for president.  The speech was more casual than most in the announcement genre, at least in my experience.  Edwards was dressed in blue jeans, and a plain white undershirt peeked out behind his unbuttoned collar.  The address didn't soar or sing; standing atop the wreckage of the second America, he appeared uninterested talking about it.  Instead he focused on what you -- not he, not the president -- could do about it. 

That was the theme of the entire speech, in fact: How much could be done without public office, without winning primaries, without legislation.  "This campaign," Edwards promised," will be a grassroots, ground-up campaign where we ask the people to take action."  As part of that, there'll be monthly Days of Action, the first on January 27th, which will exhort volunteers and supporters to enter their communities and work on a particular issue.  "Americans," Edwards kept saying," have to be patriotic about something besides war," and that means taking individual initiative to ease poverty, conserve energy, and create the Good Society even without holding office. 

The announcement was striking for sounding less like a campaign for the presidency and more like a telethon. His campaign would certainly like to lead in the polls, but Edwards seemed more interested in leading a movement. The virtue of the message is obvious, but its magnetism, urgency, and electoral efficacy are less so.  It'll be interesting to see if he's any more explicitly political in Iowa later today.  A few other disconnected thoughts:

• The announcement used race in a rather explicit way.  The site was found by the NAACP, the homeowner is a middle-aged black woman, and the smiling children behind Edwards were all African-American.  The city (New Orleans) and the subject (poverty) are both racially charged as well.  It occurred to me that Barack Obama, a black man, couldn't run such a campaign, while Edwards, a white man, can. 

• Edwards explicitly condemned the "surge" plan for Iraq.  But he didn't call it the surge.  "It is a mistake," he said, "for America to escalate the war in Iraq."  That's the term the blogs have adopted as well, and its prominent placement, used before he mentioned the word "surge," struck me as a possible dog whistle to the left. 

• I can't shake the impression that very little was said about poverty or the Two Americas in this announcement, and that was, in some essential way, odd.  The theme was civic action, a verb, not a noun.  It's an interesting organizing strategy, but it didn't sound, even here, like a message.  And that's fine, it may not be.  This announcement, so far removed from primary voters, appeared more intent on creating a national base of engaged, involved, supporters than articulating a sharp-edged political theme. It'll be interesting to see if his focus at the Iowa townhall is significantly different.  For now, though, Edwards is doing a better job explaining why you should volunteer with him than vote for him.