Edwards was asked about what he would do after Swift Boat-style attacks. He said this:

[JohnLocke]

(...)

But Friday, Edwards came out with a far steelier, possibly more revealing response to one audience member's question. It was toward the end of a standing-room-only speech at a West Des Moines community college campus. A voter asked Edwards what he would do if he was ever faced with the same Swift Boat-style attacks that dogged, and some feel doomed, the 2004 Democratic ticket headed by Kerry.

"I will fight back with every fiber of my being," responded Edwards, who reportedly urged Kerry to fire back more urgently and effectively when his military service and Purple Heart were called into question during the 2004 election. "We will not let these people get away with this again."

"When they come after us," he added, "we have to go back harder than they come after us. We have to make them pay, because there's just too much at stake and you learn from these experiences."

"I can tell you from my own experience," Edwards continued, "if they come after me, they will pay in a way they cannot imagine when I come back."

So let that be a swift warning.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/12/think-the-2008.html

[asdjrocky]

1. Half of the reason I want to see him get the nod-

Just to watch him slap the pugs around.

[Hieronymus]

7. Oh yes ... I wouldn't want to have Edwards' wrath coming down on me.

[saracat]

2. ""I can tell you from my own experience," Edwards continued, "if they come after me, they will pay

in a way they cannot imagine when I come back."

I want this man as President. He is the one.

[AndyTiedye]

3. Great Tough-Sounding Rhetoric, But What Will He Actually DO About It?

[Yuugal]

4. Give them a double dose of their own medicine

right back in the face. One for the scum who actually do the attack , and a good sized dose for the corporate sellout running against him.

[AndyTiedye]

6. It Would Have Cost Over a Billion Dollars to Buy That Much Airtime

[countmyvote4real]

8. You exaggerate the real media cost. Why?

Some immediate press conferences (assuming they would be covered by MSM) would not have cost billions or millions. It would have been in the low, low thousands to stage the timely response. "Timely" is the key word here. Kerry was too senatorial and believed that the rest of Amerika operated under the same rules. They didn't and they still don't.

Anyway, are you suggesting that the POTUS should go to the highest bidder?

[AndyTiedye]

13. That Would be the Tab for a "Double-Dose of Their Own Medicine"

Because it isn't just the advertising on their side, it's all the pundits and assorted repiggie talking heads on the tube. You would have to counter all that.

A press conference, and the little blip of coverage it would get, won't cut it.

[Yuugal]

9. I'd have thought outside the box then and dropped the f-bomb.

Coming from Kerry that would have been sweet. I think it would have been covered for free.

[ShaneGR]

12. A billion dollars? WHAT? Seriously, you know how much it takes to set up a press conference?

It takes about $5000, press releases, the podium, the chairs, and the tech guys to report it on the internet. That's all it would of taken Kerry if he'd have just stood up and defended himself.

[AndyTiedye]

14. I'm Saying the Networks Gave Bush** The Equivalent of Half a Billion in Free Advertising

that they called "news", just on the Swift Boat issue alone.

[Snotcicles]

17. A few well thought up words even while walking out of a Burger-King

can be worth million's in free repeat coverage.

[AndyTiedye]

20. Only If Millions of People Somehow Get to Hear Your "Well-Thought-Out Words"

[Hieronymus]

16. You sound pretty defeatist to me .. Democrats need to grow a spine.

[AndyTiedye]

21. The way forward is to go around the "news" media, as Gore has done

After 2000 and 2004, I am cynical, to put it mildly, when I hear candidates and their supporters talk about what "fighters" they are.
Who could have asked for better "fighter" creds than Kerry's? War hero, decades in the Senate battling corruption and winning…
All of our current candidates are lightweights by comparison, and the street-fighter talk just makes them sound like posers.

So when Edwards gets Swift Boated, he is going to "go back harder than they come after us" by holding a press conference.
That'll show 'em.

Gore is showing us the way forward — around the "news" media.

[Hieronymus]

24. Kerry didn't fight against the Swift Boaters... Edwards wanted to.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. How can the man...

Predict the future? You are asking for tactical specifics while he is addressing strategic policy.

I can say this: He better be ready to bring it all. Knees, headbutts, elbows, gouging, biting clawing and fish-hooking. Spitting and pissing, too.

[Yuugal]

11. Where is my goddamn pitchfork!

Once us serfs gather our torches and pitchforks and swarm behind him we can win this fight.

[calimary]

10. I hope to God he means it.

He came up a little short on offense - AND defense, during the last campaign. He could have utterly eviscerated cheney during the debate, and he mostly pulled his punches. It was really frustrating to see some obvious openings cheney inadvertently left for him that he didn't drive a sherman tank through. If the bad guys don't pull punches, then why do we?

Like, for example, the whole ridiculous bullshit around cheney's gay daughter. Both Edwards and Kerry, too, tiptoed around that, far too busy being gentlemen, and didn't make some hay with it.

What I would have loved to have seen:

cheney: blah-blah-blah gay-daughter nobody's-business don't-wanna-talk-about-it.

Edwards: Yes, I couldn't agree more! You and I are both fathers, sir, and I support your family's privacy, and your absolute love and acceptance of your precious daughter and her life.

And I just think it's a terrible shame that there is such intolerance about people like your daughter Mary, whom you love and care about so deeply. And it's SO sad, and such an unfortunate comment about where some of us are in this nation in the unnecessary
complications this has brought into your life - from people on YOUR OWN SIDE. Mr. cheney, you and your wife had the evening of a lifetime a couple of months ago at your convention, when you accepted your party's nomination for vice president of the United States.
And you were up there onstage with your WHOLE FAMILY, basking in the glory and the spotlight and all the confetti and the music and the cheering crowd - that your lifetime of public service has earned for you. ALL your family was up there with you to share in that
utterly marvelous moment! AND YET, YOUR OWN DAUGHTER, Mary, WASN'T EVEN ALLOWED UP ON THAT STAGE WITH YOU AND MRS. cheney AND THE WHOLE REST OF YOUR FAMILY!!! And why??? Because there are large enough groups of supporters of yours who would get upset that YOUR
DAUGHTER was up there with you, just because she's gay. You couldn't even have that, because some people are just too judgmental and can't live and let live.

BAM! It would have KILLED. Woulda turned the whole sanctimonious religious wrong straight onto its ear. And if it were delivered in that sweet, down-home, folksy drawl of his, from that wholesome, all-American, apple-pie face, it would have been sincere-sounding and irresistable, and it would have had everybody talking for days and days about the hypocrisy and "say, where WAS Mary cheney, anyway? And why WASN'T she up there with the rest of her family? Because some prissy putzes were gonna be pissed off???" It might have changed the entire timbre of the campaign, and it might just have been enough to help us keep them from stealing it. And Edwards let that opportunity pass.

ALWAYS go in for the kill. NEVER give the bad guys a break, or an opening. And QUIT FIGHTING LIKE SOME GENTLEMAN! This isn't some genteel country club fencing competition. This is WWF and worse.

[rodeodance]

15. they should have shot back the question was about Cheney hypocracy!!

[JohnLocke]

18. Kick

[gristy]

19. Edwards should use "these people" more

He used it once. Look how it reads if he used it 3 times:

"I will fight back with every fiber of my being," responded Edwards, who reportedly urged Kerry to fire back more urgently and effectively when his military service and Purple Heart were called into question during the 2004 election. "We will not let these people get away with this again."

"When they come after us," he added, "we have to go back harder than these people come after us. We have to make them pay, because there's just too much at stake and you learn from these experiences."

"I can tell you from my own experience," Edwards continued, "if these people come after me, they will pay in a way they cannot imagine when I come back."

[polichick]

25. I agree - very effective! nt

[Cha]

22. I know John Edwards will fight

back with every fiber of his being..he has nothing to lose and knows his priorities now.

[JohnLocke]

23. Kick