Edwards gets some celebrity help

Amid the perennial and much-publicized efforts by various presidential campaigns to attract young people to their banners, Democrat John Edwards is not neglecting the baby boomers.  He is hitting the road in Iowa (where else) with two members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who have long mixed their music with politics: Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt.

Browne, 59, and Raitt, 58, were campaigning today in Davenport, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids with their preferred -- and younger -- candidate (Edwards is 54).  On Tuesday, the trio are to appear in Grinnell and Des Moines.  According to Edwards' website, the events include performances by the two musicians.

We remain skeptical that celebrity endorsements translate into actual votes, even when entertainment is included.  But at the least, we suppose the Edwards camp may generate some goodwill for itself by offering a chance for Iowans closing in on retirement to briefly relive the halcyon days of their youth.

Also playing the celebrity card -- with a vengeance -- in Iowa these days is Mike Huckabee.  The Republican presidential contender earned a fair amount of attention when Chuck Norris signed up as a backer; now, the actor with the quintessential tough-guy persona is spotlighted in Huckabee's first television ad.

Huckabee has used humor as a major element in his bid to rise from a long shot to a top-tier candidate, and this ad is no exception.  It begins with Huckabee saying: "My plan is secure the border. Two words. Chuck Norris." (You can see the rest of it here.)

Huckabee was candid when asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether he thought the ad would boost his support.  "Oh, it probably doesn't convince anybody.  The spots we'll run next week will start doing that."  And he added: "What we want to do is to, first of all, show that running for president is serious business but that a person ought to have a little fun doing it. And so we're going to have some fun."

-- Don Frederick

Comments

[RichieF]

I'm a big fan of both Bonnie and Jackson but my candidate is Hillary.
I say let them have their fling - they'll go with the real winner in January, and all will be forgiven, we have a big tent.

[pmorlan]

I too am a big fan of both Raitt and Browne and I'm glad to see that they are with my candidate, John Edwards. I wouldn't have expected anything less of them.

[AFYPE]

God bless USA. I wished Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh or Mike Savage would run for the office of the president. All are true Americans who have Red, White and Blue running thru their veins. They love and respect this land. But unfortunately they never will. There is not one candidate in these current bunches of republican and democrat party members, who are running for the white house, who is any good. They are a bunch old-idea, fizzled-out, self-centered, bribe taking, big business, America haters who have no clue as to what is going on in this dangerous world we live in. Consider these:
1. Dictators of Iran and Venezuela are banding together to terrorize their citizen and the world.
2. Dictators of Russia and china are actively working to dominate the world. They are taking b’s of dollars in one-way trade form the USA to bolster their military. They are actively stealing any technology they can get their hands on thru Russian mafia and millions of Chinese illegal aliens who hide in the storage containers and vanish in the big cities.
3. Illegal aliens are all over USA and most of our cities are over run and infested with them, and no one has any idea, or courage, on how to stop the flow.
4. English language is being replaced with half other languages in most schools (most American student can't even read or right in their own mother language of English!). No one cares or bothers to raise the concern.
5. Our school system is failing and they are graduating a whole class of dummies who can't compete in this technology driven world (all technologically advanced equipment is being designed, produced and manufactured somewhere else). This includes countries of India, China, Asian rim countries and even old Easter block nations in Europe. This is regardless of billions of dollars, which taxpayers are spending on the school system. Average per pupil cost is now $11,000 annually in USA. In India and China is $300! Which country do you think had more advancement in science and technology for the last 10 years? If you don’t believe it, look around in your company and see who is running, or designing the computer programs at your place. The best product this country had this year was a toy wooden carriage!
6. The only think our students now learning is how to have sex correctly and with condoms, how to have parties and watch useless programs, how to find the best porn sites on the web, how to find sites on the web to steal videos and songs, how to be disrespectful to their parents, how to ignore the laws of the society, how to trash the USA and burn its flag, and how to be non-working, non-producing member of the society, and always critical of US armed forces and against our brave men and women who serve in it.

I’ve got more for the next posting. But meantime, think about where your candidate stands on these above issues.

[AHighSchoolSenior]

HAHAHA AFYPE!!! I don't know about some of the things you stated, but based on what you had to say on some points and considering the fact that four out of six points are incorrect and that you have made several grammatical mistakes in your post (my favorite is "most American student can't even read or right in their own mother language of English"), I would have to say that you based a lot of the "facts" on what is going on in your own little, sad life.

- You state #3 because you don't live anywhere even close to Southern California and someone told you everyone here is a hooligan running around, tagging and doing drugs.

- You state #4 because you don't know how to write a sentence that makes sense (as shown in #4).

- You state #5 because you know nothing about high school as it is today. Was Geometry too hard during your senior year? I'm sorry. I took Math Analysis my junior year and passed with an A- (Aced the final, the teacher's second job was a professor at a college, and Math Analysis is a recommended course for high schoolers by all Cal States because the first year of math in college is on par with Math Analysis. I know a junior friend who completed AP Calc last year. The standards, at least in Cali schools, are getting pushed up every year, and they are being met, at least for the most part (Even though the school budget has been decreasing...). Maybe when you went to high school, there were no technical classes, but just off the top of my head, I can name ten classes at my high school having to do with relatively-new technology. It's only your fault that you learned what Microsoft Word is last week and are blaming the school system because your high school never taught you how use that program back in your day, when computers where the size of SUVs.

- You state #6 because (in order of appearance in AFYPE's post): -[1]- You caught your son having sex last week (which makes you jealous because you never got any until you were thirty) -[2]- Your neighbor's son had a high school party over the weekend(which makes you jealous because you were never invited to one of those back in your day) -[3]- You turned on the television today, and "Teletubbies" happened to be on -[4]- You caught your significant other looking at porn this morning because you can't satisfy them (Maybe take some tips from your son?) -[5]- You think teenagers spend their free time on "how to find sites on the web to steal videos and songs" -[6]- Because you don't know how to raise a child and also because you obviously have brains that are lesser than that of a high school senior, your son back-talked to you today (It's okay, you can blame it on video games, along with Jack Thompson) -[7]- You saw someone litter on your lawn today -[8]- You, for some reason, think that all the teenagers of the U.S. want to revolt and overthrow the government -[9]- You can't support your family on your minimum wage income at McDonald's, so you blame your 15 year-old son because he can't legally work yet -[10]- You have your son's used condoms where your brain is supposed to be

/pwned

[AHighSchoolSenior]

Oh, and I'm pretty sure that millions of Chinese spys aren't swarming into the U.S. through oversea containers..... You probably confused yourself with the millions of kids that msut throw rocks at your windows because you're calling out the youth of the U.S. and stating we're stupider than you. Oh, and L2grammar plz kthnxbye

[tourist]

Glad to see Mr. Edwards getting more press as time goes on. For awhile it seemed as if the only two Dems running were Clinton and Obama (media match made in heaven). As time goes on, it seems those more personally exposed to Mr. Edwards support him.

As for the comments of AFYPE: most of his complaints about America today occurred under the tenure of George W. Bush - a hero of Coulter and Limbaugh. It is only with twisted logic that one can hype the likes of Coulter and Limbaugh but ignore the consequences of their promotion of Bush. Perhaps there is a need for better education, and it might start with the calcified minds of good old boys.