Today, I was proved right about John Edwards.
I remember Edwards in 2004. He wasn’t the fiery populist that he is now. He was against Universal Health Care. He voted for the war and hadn’t yet apologized (he’d actually co-sponsored the legislation, an unforgivable sin in my opnion).
On caucus night in Iowa, I was having a general good time. The Hillary people were subdued and reclusive, and the Richardson staffer next to me was having a near-nervous breakdown, but that was to be expected. But when I went to the Edwards table to get some water, the lady there turned on me.
“You need to start thinking.” she said as she saw my shirt, refusing to give me some water.
“I’m not caucusing, I’m just observing,” I replied, surprised at her virtrosity towards Obama.
She eventually gave me some water, telling me she hopes it would wet my brain and get my cells thinking again.
I always felt that Edwards, of all the candidates, was in this for himself. He was the only one (besides Gravel) who did not hold political office, instead, he’d been essentially running for President for the past 4 years, since his last defeat. He had changes all of his positions and spent months sucking up to the Progressive base, including the blogosphere. Little surprise that the folks at MyDD, OpenLeft, and numerous other blogs jumped on the Edwards bandwagon, and he routinely won the DailyKos straw polls.
Today, we learned that Edwards was just another politicial, another smooth talking lawyer.
Thankfully, we decided to nominate a real candidate this time.
