Opinion: For Edwards and Obama, once more with feeling
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John Edwards and Barack Obama found themselves in the spotlight twice Tuesday and, if anything, they shined brighter during their second appearance.
Following morning speeches to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, the pair of Democratic presidential contenders traveled a few blocks up Washington’s Connecticut Avenue to audition before a conference of liberal activists. The crowd was larger at the latter venue --- about 3,000, compared to about 2,000 at the earlier gathering --- and, reports The Times’ Janet Hook, even more spirited. The candidates responded in kind, delivering more impassioned speeches, Hook reports (her story on both events will appear in Wednesday’s print edition and late tonight on www.latimes.com).
Their listeners clearly were buoyed by the conviction that the political winds are blowing their way. During the remarks by both Edwards and Obama, they were interrupted by a band of activists chanting, ‘Beat the GOP! Beat the GOP!’
Obama focused his speech on his signature call for changing the nation’s political culture, using his familiar ‘turn the page’ phrase to connect his points. Example: ‘Politics in this town is no longer a mission, it’s a business. If you want a new kind of politics, it’s time to turn the page.’
Edwards focused on the agenda that has helped cast him as the major candidate with the most liberal platform --- his calls to curb poverty, provide universal health care, combat AIDs in Africa and work more assertively to end genocide in Darfur.
Both, of course, stressed their opposition to the Iraq war, and sought to burnish their credentials as war critics. Obama reminded his audience that he opposed invading Iraq in the first place (he was in the Illinois state Senate at the time, so he was not directly in the line of fire on the issue). Edwards underscored that he, unlike Hillary Clinton, has conceded that his vote for the war was wrong.
Bill Richardson spoke to the group earlier in the day and, as part of his bid to break into the top tier of Democratic contenders, stressed his pledge to leave no residual U.S. troops in Iraq as part of a de-escalation.
Clinton addresses the gathering, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, at 8 a.m. (EDT) Wednesday. So if she isn’t greeted quite as enthusiastically as Obama and Edwards, her campaign would seem to have a built-in excuse.
-- Don Frederick