Opinion: ‘Um, um, you know, those guys with the guns...’
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DES MOINES -- You know the campaign days are getting long when you watch a candidate as practiced and smooth as John Edwards freeze up right before your eyes.
Edwards was partway through his standard stump speech here this afternoon after receiving Iowa First Lady Mari Culver‘s endorsement when he hit what seemed to be the public speaker’s version of a marathon runner’s ‘wall’ -- the point at which the body seems to say, ‘Let’s just go home and sit on the patio for awhile and forget about all this running foolishness.’
A central element of Edwards’ speech is the recitation of a litany of political decisions that he says came about because of the inordinate influence of corporations on national policy, beginning with trade agreements like NAFTA that Edwards says have cost millions of American jobs while enriching corporations ‘because big corporate America was for it.’
‘Why don’t we have universal health care? Because drug companies and insurance companies were against it. Why don’t we have cheaper prescription drugs? Because the drug companies and their lobby are against it. Why do we have the ... the ... what’s the name I’m looking for?’ Then he turned to people at the edge of the stage, including his wife, Elizabeth, and said: ‘What’s the name of?’ and someone said Blackwater. ‘Blackwater! Couldn’t think of the name. I was going to say Blackwell!’ Then Edwards was back in the groove. ‘Why do we have Blackwater, paid mercenaries, to roam around in Iraq making 10 times what our men in uniform make?’
We’re guessing there will be a little napping done on the bus ride to the next event.
-- Scott Martelle
