Walt Goes To A John Edwards Rally

Just as he saw Hillary Clinton in November, Walt went to see John Edwards in Aiken, South Carolina on Saturday, January 12th:

Presidential candidate Senator John Edwards spoke in Aiken yesterday, and I went to see him. He was not the first candidate to visit Aiken – Obama, Hillary, McCain, and Thompson have also been here. I saw Hillary when she came in November. Edwards’ event was held at the USC-Aiken auditorium, but he did not speak in the auditorium itself; he spoke in the lobby. There were not enough people to fill the 1000+ seat auditorium.

I got there an hour early. Most of the volunteers who handed out stickers and petitions were college kids. There were only 50 seats set up, all taken. So I went hunting around the building, found a chair, brought it to the lobby, and then scoped out the audience. There were about 250 people present by the time Edwards arrived. This compares to 1200 in Aiken for Hillary, and 600 for Obama (pre-Oprah). An interesting feature was the lack of black support. Blacks make up 30% of the population in Aiken County, and perhaps 50 or 60% of the Democratic Party, but only 3% of the Edwards audience was black, compared with 10% for the Hillary audience. As it happened, I sat next to one of the only black folks, a guy in his 60s, and had a conversation with him. He was born here, but went north to find work after high school, and worked for Ford in Michigan for 30 years before retiring back home. He will vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination, but he has read a lot of the Bible, and Genesis says that Man should rule over Woman. So he is OK with either Obama or Edwards, but does not really want a woman president. Above everything, however, he will not vote for a Republican: when Democrats are in office, the economy is good, but recessions occur when Republicans rule. I guess Democrats have more business-friendly policies than Republicans. He (the black guy) also knows that foreign cars are better than US cars, but out of loyalty to Ford, always buys American. Nevertheless, he admits that Ford cars of today do not have the quality that they used to. His brother, who is ex-military, is a Republican, and they are always fighting about politics.

An interesting thing about blacks, which I never realized before I began working with them in 1992, is that there are a fair number of blacks – those with military or college backgrounds – who are swing voters, and occasionally vote for the GOP. They don’t exactly advertise it, and of course neither the Media nor black leaders want anyone to know, but a significant percentage of my black coworkers have at least once or twice voted for a Bush, or for Strom Thurmond.

On stage, there was room for about 15-20 people to stand behind Edwards. While I was in the sixth row speaking to the black guy, the organizer of the stage group worked his way over to us and asked the black guy if he would be willing to stand up on the stage. They put him in the front row of the people on stage, in the exact center. I have no idea why they singled him out. A little kid on stage was holding a sign reading “Steelworkers for Edwards”. After awhile, an adult traded signs with him – perhaps he didn’t believe the kid was really a steelworker. The guy who took up the Steelworker sign is the Assistant Principal at an elementary school in Graniteville, outside Aiken. There aren’t any steel foundries in South Carolina.

To my left was a retired couple in their 70s, transplanted northerners like me. They were originally from Michigan, and the man talked with familiarity about Michigan labor unions – he knew the names of union leaders. The woman said that this was the first Presidential Candidate speech they had gone to in 40 years! They were motivated then because of Vietnam, and this time because of Iraq. The man found it incomprehensible that most South Carolinians are Republicans. They have been brainwashed into thinking that Democrats raise taxes! A similar theme was echoed by another guy I spoke with, a young man of about 30, a nursing student at USC-Aiken. He can’t understand why most southerners are Republicans. Republicans only want to help the rich, and southerners aren’t rich. According to him, it doesn’t make any sense at all for a southerner to vote Republican. I told both of these men that in this election, I was a swing voter, and could possibly see myself voting either way. Neither one was curious about why I might consider voting Republican.

The young man was wearing an Edwards sticker, and I asked why he supported Edwards, as opposed to Hillary or Obama. It’s because Edwards is anti-nuke. The guy is correct. Of the three big Democratic contenders, only Edwards explicitly rules out a nuclear future for the US. Bechtel Corp sends out a weekly newsletter to its employees. The last one had an article about the candidates’ positions on nuclear power, based on their statements in New Hampshire. According to Bechtel, all Republican candidates support nuclear power. On the Democrat side, Edwards is against it, and Hillary is evasive. I take that to mean that she will not veto pro-nuke legislation, and might even appoint pro-nuke people to cabinet positions. Obama actually said that nuclear power should be seriously considered as an option. When I read that, I thought “O, the times, they are a changin’!” Only ten years ago, no Democrat anywhere would allow for the possibility of building more nuclear plants.

Senator Edwards showed up exactly on time, not even one minute late! There was absolutely no security protection. No secret service men, and no local cops. He wore a navy blue sport jacket with a white dress shirt, but the shirt was unbuttoned and he did not wear a tie. He wore blue jeans which were precision aged so that they did not look new, but neither did they look worn or faded. Overall, a perfect mix of formality and laid-backness. I envy him his youthfulness; he is 54, but really does look 35. I do have one cost-saving suggestion for Edwards. My haircuts cost $12, but look just as good as his $400 cuts. He is wasting his supporters’ hard-earned money on those fancy barbers.

I’m going to compare his speech to Hillary’s, because I saw both of them here in Aiken. Edwards spoke for 25 minutes (Hillary spoke for 45). He is a good public speaker, and knew exactly what he wanted to say, and used appropriate inflections and gestures at all times. Compared to Hillary, Edwards has just about exactly the same goals (considering only what they said in Aiken). Subsidized health care for all Americans is number one priority. Second place is getting out of Iraq, but recognizing that American servicemen and women are heroes. We need to combat global warming, using carbon emission ceilings, carbon sequestration, and alternative energy sources (but not nuclear). Neither candidate mentioned any foreign policy goals at all, other than getting out of Iraq. He said nothing about homeland security, except that he would put a stop to covert surveillance of US citizens. I take that to mean that he would repeal the Patriot Act. He said nothing about controlling illegal immigration.

Edwards is a genuine rags-to-riches story. He talked about being born in a South Carolina textile mill, and how his father and both grandparents spent their whole careers as millworkers. In this respect – humble beginnings – he is like Reagan and Bill Clinton, but unlike the Bushes, Kerry, Gore, and Hillary. I like to see that in US politics.

Although Edwards and Hillary have pretty much the same policy goals, there were some stylistic differences. First, Hillary used some conservative Christian buzzwords when she spoke; Edwards did not. Second, although both want to combat global warming, Edwards seems to have given the issue some more careful thought than Hillary has. But the major difference was their attitude toward social programs. Hillary wanted more social programs because it is the right thing to do. Edwards wanted this too, but there was another element in his mind. Several times in his speech he contrasted the position of the “struggling middle class” with the exalted position of the rich fatcats. There are drug company fatcats, insurance company fatcats, banker fatcats, and oil company fatcats. He wants to encourage middle class and poor Americans into conscious conflict with wealthy Americans. There was no hint of this emotion when Hillary spoke. I guess this comes out of their backgrounds. Hillary was born rich, and Edwards only became rich after 20 years of litigating against rich corporations on behalf of employees and customers. After hundred of court cases where he encouraged juries to hate defendants, perhaps hatred of his fellow rich Americans is indelibly carved into his soul. Does he feel guilty for making all that money? I wonder.

After his 25-minute speech, he spent some time shaking hands, but did not take any questions from the audience. Not a single local Democratic officeholder was present to host his visit. The closest thing was a former Aiken County Democratic Party Chairman – but not the current Chairman. No city or county councilmen were there, no state senators, and no mayors. If I had to guess, based only on crowd size and degree of support by local Democratic leaders, I’d say that Edwards will finish 3rd in South Carolina. There is a special place in Dante’s Inferno for politicians who can’t win in their own home state.