Stand up for what you believe in

Jonathan Singer at MyDD has it just about right. He begins by observing that John Edwards wasn't very impressive during the primaries preceding the 2004 campaign because he was too reserved and didn't really speak aggressively about the things that mattered to him. He goes on as follows:

Forward to years to Thursday morning at the University of Southern California. Now former-Senator Edwards was speaking at the Conference on Poverty convened by the Daughters of Charity Health System. What a difference just two years had made.

You can listen to the speech here (a 29.8 megabyte .wav file) and judge for yourself its power and content. For me, it was simply amazing to hear the depth and substance of the address, particularly in comparison to the one I had attended in 2004. Gone were the poll-tested phrases, the multiple planned applause lines, the refinements that come with a presidential campaign. Edwards came to speak about poverty and that is exactly what he did -- with great zeal. Edwards was not at all afraid to speak about the immorality of poverty, calling the participants in the conference into action.

After the speech, some of the others in the audience and I could not help but come to the same conclusion: if only Edwards had used that unreserved tone during the campaign... if only the well-paid consultants had not told him to rein in his language... if only he had given this kind of speech on the hustings...

This is not only about John Edwards. This is much bigger than him. The Economist's America columnist Lexington thinks along similar lines this week in describing the reaction to Al Gore's recent untrammelled speeches on the environment: "Mr Gore is generating far more political capital by breaking the political rules than he did by obeying them."

And this is exactly it. I didn't refrain from voting for John Edwards in the California primary because his language was too unabashedly progressive; I didn't give him my vote because he wasn't taking any real risks with his speech. John Kerry did not lose because he was too liberal, he lost because he hedged his bets too often and refused to speak strongly enough about the issues near and dear to his heart when necessary. The same can be said for Al Gore, who should have won by a much larger margin in 2000.

If John Edwards wants to make another run at the Democratic nomination in two years, he should continue doing exactly what he is doing. The same goes for Al Gore, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton or for anyone else even potentially looking at the campaign. The next Democratic nominee must be someone who has devoted him- or herself to an issue and be willing to go out on a limb to tell Americans why it is urgent to fix it. The empty poll-tested rhetoric peddled by the Beltway consultants will no longer suffice. It's that simple.

Virtually everyone on the left that I speak to holds views similar to this. What was wrong in 2004 was not that Kerry was too radical or too far to the left, it was that he didn't stand up for what he believed. He was always watching over his shoulder, worried about appearing too radical. Because of that, he came across as standing for nothing (with a lot of help from the Thuglicans). The same was true of Al Gore in 2000. These guys need to get rid of the campaign consultants that want them to be all things to all people. The swing voters in this country don't usually vote because they like a person's position on one issue or another better than the other guy. They vote because the think the person has some substance -- will stand up for what he believes in and will lead instead of follow. It's about time the Dems learned that and fired their inside-the-beltway professionals.