"Looking for President Dean"

The Caucus (NY Times' political blog):

Where is President Dean?

This notion came up when John Edwards was asked at a news conference here in Las Vegas, Nev., on Saturday how he was going to overtake Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. And using his old lawyer tactics, he asked questions to make his point.

“Have we had an election yet?” Mr. Edwards replied to the reporter. “What is there to overtake?”

Well, you know what the polls are showing, the reporter pressed on.

“I know what they showed in 2003 and I haven’t met President Dean yet,” Mr. Edwards said. “I don’t think he got the nomination and I don’t think he became elected president.”

He was referring to Howard Dean, of course, who was ahead in both the polls and with fund raising in 2004 — until he wasn’t.

Mr. Edwards has been lagging in national polls behind his better-financed Democratic rivals, Mrs. Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Mr. Edwards often emphasizes in his appearances that the race is not over, sometimes even asking his audiences whether they have made their decisions about whom to support. Often he will get a resounding “No!” in reply. He urges caucus goers to scrutinize each candidate, saying it is not a money contest.

“I have heard all these same questions in the fall of 2003,” he said today. “What I know is once we get ready to actually vote, it will not be an auction. It will actually be an election. And people are going to look at who is ready to be president. And who has the ideas to move this country forward.”

“When we are 30 days out in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, all the early states, people will be taking a very hard look at who is actually prepared to be president.”

“When that test comes I am confident about how it will work out.”

Mr. Edwards has looked to labor unions as a way to amplify the campaign’s ground efforts, and he was in Las Vegas to accept the endorsement of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, whose members and delegates held a rally at their training center here and have promised to promote his candidacy.

The union did not endorse anyone in 2004, but decided to look for a candidate this year because it felt the agenda of the working class was not being represented in Washington.

“Our union does not make endorsements early or make them lightly,” said the general president, Douglas J. McCarron, addressing the rally. “But this year is different. This year we see a candidate who truly shares the concerns of working Americans.”

In picking a candidate, they discussed how Mr. Edwards would fare against Senator Clinton, said Mr. McCarron in an interview.

“We had a rigorous debate within the union,” he said. “And we figured, look, where are our core values? Are they closer to Hillary, or Obama, or are they closer to John Edwards?”

Mr. McCarron said they did not choose Mrs. Clinton because of her economic staff and policies.
“When I look at the Clinton side of the Democratic Party, they are corporate Democrats,” he said. “So what are we going to do. We are going to support Hillary and switch from Republican corporate people to Democratic corporate people?”

It was a phrase voiced many times during the Edwards campaign.

“It’s the truth,” Mr. McCarron said.

There were few supporters for Mr. Obama. “We just figured he was too green,” he said.

The crowds at union rallies, Saturday in Nevada and Friday in Los Angeles, have been more spirited than the audiences of voters that Mr. Edwards has addressed in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Mr. Edwards received loud applause during his speech in which he emphasized better health care and keeping unions strong. When he mentioned he would make it as easy to join a union as signing a name to a card, like people do when they note their Democratic or Republican affiliations, the crowd rose to its feet. Several people pumped their fists in the air.

When it looked like some would take their seats again, he said, “You just as well stay up. Save yourself the trouble.”

He continued: “When I am president of the United States, nobody, nobody will walk through that picket line and take your job away from you.”

Steven Cox, a union member, and his wife Michelle brought their three young children to watch Mr. Edwards. He said he was supporting Mr. Edwards because the union was, “asking us to do that. I am here to support my union.”

Howie P.S.: I'm surprised that someone who says he is "ready to be president" would be so foolish as to mock a fellow Democrat who still has many supporters with the franchise to vote in Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. I am less surprised that this newspaper is
helping him deliver the message.