Reply #100: I supported him in the '04 primary after Dean imploded.

[Occam Bandage]

I didn't think he was a progressive, a populist, or anything of the sort then. After all, he didn't pretend to be one at that point. I thought he was a moderate Democrat who could advance progressive political frames while remaining centrist enough on policy to draw wide public support in the South and Midwest. That was why I supported Dean, incidentally: Dean was a centrist who could defend the liberal aspects of his policies*. That isn't to say I support centrists in general, but I thought '04 was a year we would have to play defense as well as offense. Anyway, when Kerry won, I thought Edwards would be a good addition to a ticket for those same reasons.

Then he went AWOL during the '04 campaign, deciding not to use the lines and speeches Kerry gave him, and spending all his time arcing around small towns away from cameras and generally being a useless hunk of dead weight. Which was, of course, reflected in the fact that Edwards didn't deliver a single state for Kerry.

I was irritated enough at the fact that he completely failed to deliver in '04. I didn't want him anywhere near a Presidential race; in my eyes he had blown his chance completely, and should retire to the cocktail-party circuit. When he suddenly decided to apologize for his entire goddamn Senate career and act like a populist firebrand, it just irritated me, especially in how nakedly cynical the shift was.

He didn't become Mr. Progressive until Clinton had fully locked up the party establishment. It was only when it became evident that he couldn't get the party establishment financing this time around that he tried to run a populist insurgent campaign. And doubly galling was the fact that so many people actually believed he was progressive. When the majority of DUers began attacking Obama and Clinton for not being as "progressive" as the most centrist Democrat in the running, it was simply offensive.


*I have since realized that my 2004 beliefs in how to approach politics were a bit wrong-way-around. Of course, I'm not alone in that; 2004 was an ongoing lesson to Democrats in What Not To Do.