Reply #92: I think BIll Clinton did a better job of showing his roots

[XemaSab]

IIRC, he didn't talk a lot about his upbringing other than to say that he came from a place called Hope, which was understood as code for having grown up poor. And you KNOW Bill grew up as a member of the lower/lower middle class. Playing saxophone, eating at McDonald's... all these things resonated with people and were understood as sort of a camaraderie with the people. Especially following the patrician elitism of Bush pere.

When Bill first busted onto the scene, did people think he was that slick? Or was it only after a few years in office that even Dems started using the tag "Slick Willie?"

I think all Edwards sells is his rhetoric, and people are wary of that, myself included. I feel like I'm the only person who remembers that Edwards campaigned as a whole different person in 2004. Some here would argue that he's since had a great political awakening with his wife's illness, but here's my problem with that:

If having grown up the son of a millworker didn't imbue him with a progressive ethos, then he's a morally shallow person.

If having been duped by the BFEE didn't imbue him with a progressive ethos, then he's a morally shallow person.

Tacky as it may be to say, if his son's death didn't imbue him with a progressive ethos, then he's a morally shallow person.

I think he's shown himself to be a person who has routinely shown bad judgment in office, and even a great moral awakening in the last four years doesn't change that.