Charlotte Observer Edward:The distance between candidate, voter grows

[surfermaw]

Posted on Sun, Feb. 22, 2004





The distance between candidate, voter grows

A brief `nice to see you' begins to replace the earlier personal chats

MARK JOHNSON

Staff Writer


HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - U.S. Sen. John Edwards has finished speaking at his presidential campaign rally. John Mellencamp is playing over the speakers, but before Edwards can get off the stage, a crowd has encircled him, shouting requests, elbowing their way in for a photo and thrusting pens and papers in his face.

"Will you sign this?" a fan calls out behind him.

A supporter shouts out an introduction to the man next to him: "He's a legislator from Nassau County."

"Isn't it hypocritical to talk about two Americas," a critic of Edwards' opposition to gay marriage shouts out from the other side, "and support two separate marriages?"

He doesn't respond to her. He almost always smiles. Cameras flash.

Edwards occasionally meets a voter during a thoughtful and, sometimes, emotional conversation, but at this stage of the campaign they more often exchange inaudible greetings amid a disorienting swirl of noise and lights. The interaction is bound to grow even more difficult soon as Secret Service agents begin accompanying Edwards, as they routinely do with candidates in the final rounds of the nomination race.

"Nice to see you," Edwards now and then can be heard saying in the cluster of people.

Sam Myers, Edwards' advance director who looks like the campaign staff version of Tom Selleck, gently clears a path to the door. Edwards and the swarm around him scoot a foot at a time, like a large football huddle that remains in tact, toward the door.

Edwards doesn't as much shake hands as reach out and grasp as many as he can, overhand, like grasping a pull-up bar.

In Buffalo the night before, an autograph dealer got Edwards to sign a black-and-white photo, then shifted around to the other side of another voter and stuck out a second photo to be signed.

Campaigns are waged primarily through television advertising and mass public appearances, rallies that are orchestrated to get on television news. Up-close interaction with voters, however, remains a powerful influence with the few voters that the candidates meet individually this far into the campaign. It's also when candidates learn the most from voters and hear personal experiences that they later retell to crowds. Edwards met with about 20 workers from Tower Automotive the week before the Wisconsin primary and has mentioned the experience in at least half his speeches since.


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[dArKeR]

1. I feel the Dems. are a bunch of sucking idiots! Who advises the Dems?

Retired military lobbiest? Why don't the candidates have enough sense to go with their own thinking?

Iowa and New Hampshire was just great, for me! To see that type of campaigning was just wonderful. No speeches read from papers. Talking from the mind and heart. Citizens asking questions. (And this style is the one way for sure to make AWOL lose. Dem. candidates declares 'no more reading words, which often are written by a team of writers'. 'From now on you're only going to hear what's in my heart.' Every person here on the DU knows it would be impossible for AWOL to compete without reading directly from a teleprompter. So why don't our cheerished Dem. leaders?

And... If I were Kerry, I declare that 'no electronic devices shall be used to assist the candidate.' This would make NEWS and it would imply/suspect that AWOL has a micro receiver in his ear with a DEBATE TEAM feeding him responses.

And... Kerry, Edwards should always carry a large briefcase. When it's cold, they should where a long scarf and long thick jacket. It makes them look bigger than life, which what this is all about.

Someone needs to hire me!

[dArKeR]

2. I feel the Dems. are a bunch of sucking idiots! Who advises the Dems?

Retired military lobbiest? Why don't the candidates have enough sense to go with their own thinking?

Iowa and New Hampshire was just great, for me! To see that type of campaigning was just wonderful. No speeches read from papers. Talking from the mind and heart. Citizens asking questions. (And this style is the one way for sure to make AWOL lose. Dem. candidates declares 'no more reading words, which often are written by a team of writers'. 'From now on you're only going to hear what's in my heart.' Every person here on the DU knows it would be impossible for AWOL to compete without reading directly from a teleprompter. So why don't our cheerished Dem. leaders?

And... If I were Kerry, I declare that 'no electronic devices shall be used to assist the candidate.' This would make NEWS and it would imply/suspect that AWOL has a micro receiver in his ear with a DEBATE TEAM feeding him responses.

And... Kerry, Edwards should always carry a large briefcase. When it's cold, they should where a long scarf and long thick jacket. It makes them look bigger than life, which what this is all about.

Someone needs to hire me!

[dArKeR]

3. After all that rambling I forgot my point. Why get a 100,000 people who

might vote for you, (66% of who are not registered and/or will not vote), or touch 100 voters (early) who will then 100% got out and vote for you and probably will one-on-one talk to their friends to convince them to vote for you too. (As opposed to impersonal advertisement.)

Lastly, Kerry, especially, is an idiot arrogant aristocratic selfish egotistic dope if he doesn't announce that ALL Democratic Candidates will be appointed a Cabinet position. This would keep all supporters/volunteers of all (dropping out) Candidates energized and willing to keep working HARD for the common goal, putting The Bush Crime Family in jail. Everyones interests and causes would be kept alive.

Is this rocket science?

[bluedeminredstate]

4. You're right

It would make them look bigger, more engaged and involved in important business that can't wait. Compare that to the Chimp's empty desk (remember that?) when some news org got into the WH for an up close and personal. It was hilarious!

[dArKeR]

5. I didn't think of the briefcase, thick jacket, scarf myself. I saw a pic,

CBS, of Kerry bording a plane like this. I thought to myself, 'wow Kerry really looks powerful, intelligent, he's carrying his own material/projects... he's really a smart, educated, hard working guy.'