RALEIGH – For all those Republicans and fellow Democrats tempted to dismiss Sen. John Edwards as a lightweight newcomer and his presidential campaign as a preordained failure, I’d like you to meet two friends of mine: D.G. Martin and Lauch Faircloth.
In 1998, John Edwards was a little-known but successful trial lawyer in Raleigh with no history of political activism. Sporting a button-down, a big smile, a pretty haircut, a smooth voice, and a bulging bankroll, he stepped forward and defeated University of North Carolina lobbyist D.G. Martin, the choice of most party leaders, for the Democratic nomination for Senate.
In the general election, Edwards spent a lot of his own money on TV ads in which he simply looked into the camera and talked about how “regular people” lived and what they cared about. There were virtually no campaign events, no big addresses, no hot-button issues. He talked about a Patient’s Bill of Rights, for example, but neither he nor his opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth, spent much time debating the details. It was about proving that he cared.
Faircloth made the mistake that many appear poised to repeat today: he wrote Edwards off as a trial lawyer easy to lampoon and demonize. But there’s a reason why so many prime-time TV shows and blockbuster movies depict heroic trial lawyers instead of heroic corporate moguls. Americans may resent their lawsuit culture, but they are attracted to its practitioners, especially those attorneys who stand up for us regular people against the big bad businesses or big bad governments. Given the tear-jerking nature of some of his most celebrated cases, involving maimed children and swindled adults, Edwards’ background as a plaintiff’s attorney is a political asset, not a liability.
I remember hearing from numerous Faircloth operatives about how easy it would be to expose him as a sham and a fibber. One Republican ad showed Edwards’ nose growing like Pinocchio’s. Another ad featured footage from Edwards speaking to a group of fellow lawyers, and counseling them to take a particularly eye-popping piece of evidence and “blow it up” for the jury. The attacks were desperate, and they showed it.
Ironically, the situation didn’t merit Faircloth’s desperation. Edwards ended up winning by only a slender 51 to 47 percent margin. Faircloth told me later that he had made a tactical error in emphasizing Edwards’ personal background instead of more forcefully pushing him on the substantive issues where Faircloth was more in tune with swing voters. That and a very strong post-impeachment turnout among black North Carolinians cost him a close race.
I say all this just to encourage a more serious consideration of John Edwards as a presidential contender. At this point, he has about as much experience in electoral office as George W. Bush had in 1999 when he began the early stages of his presidential run. He has already spent much of the past two years, since being Al Gore’ second-choice for vice president in 2000, as a frequent traveler to New York, California, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and other places where key Democratic donors and political activists reside. Like Richard Gephardt and Tom Daschle in Iowa and John Kerry in New Hampshire, Edwards has an early primary state next door (South Carolina, where he was born and spent his early childhood). He’s got personal wealth. He’s from the South, where Democrats must be competitive to prevail. And he’s still got the teeth and the hair.
On ideology, Edwards has so far managed the best of both worlds from the standpoint of Democratic primary voters. He has cultivated an image as a Southern moderate. Yet in actual voting behavior Edwards is surprisingly orthodox, with a 95 percent rating from Americans for Democratic Action last year and a 100 percent rating from the government employees’ union.
Here’s some advice for Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and other Democratic aspirants this year: take John Edwards seriously. Don’t think you can beat him on his personality or his trial lawyer past. Your party has been fully Clintonized, and many of its activists and voters are now primed to value youth, energy, and charm above anything else. Do challenge him on the issues, where Edwards does indeed appear shallow and inexperienced.
I’m not saying Edwards will be president. I think it most likely that he will be the pick for vice president by Kerry or Lieberman. But I also think that the future isn’t written, and that Edwards has a history of being underestimated. Just ask D.G. and Lauch.
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Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of CarolinaJournal.com, a state politics and public policy web site.
 
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