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I can't stand Elizabeth Edwards.
I have a strict policy concerning families of politicians. Put simply: I don't care about them. They play no role in my decision-making process about a candidate, and talk of First-Ladyhood gives me the creeps, frankly. It strikes a sour royalist tone in my democracy loving heart every time. I'm voting to elect a public servant, not a blood line. Camelot? Ick.
I can't stand Elizabeth Edwards because she breaks this policy of mine into tiny little pieces. She's always struck me as really down to earth, and the kind of rare person from the political world with whom you'd actually like to hang out. When you add to that her decision to carry on with the campaign after the vagaries of her medical challenges, and she not only becomes cool in my eyes but also inspiring.
So when Amy Rubin invited me to come to Elizabeth's blogger meeting, despite the fact that I'm a proud Chris Dodd supporter (thanks Amy), I jumped at the chance, so that I could see for myself in person just what it is that attracts me to her. Here's what I found:
1) A shocker worthy of high Drudgeon: Ms. Edwards is completely normal. She's comfortable in her own skin. She puts people at ease. She's nice. As in, the kind of nice you hope your neighbors will be when you move to a new place.
2) Ms. Edwards is smart. She talks fast, and well. She is a natural progressive in her beliefs. She is an articulate spokesperson for her husband's platform. She does not end sentences with prepositions. She not only used the uncommon Latinate adverb seriatim in casual speech, but she used it correctly. She admitted openly that before her political blogging escapades, she used to fight it out online in a forum on grammatical topics. (And when's the last time we had a grammar nerd living in the White House? Teddy Roosevelt?)
3) Best of all: Ms. Edwards is utterly at home in the blogosphere. As she said, she was tinkering online from way back in the Prodigy and Compuserve days.
* The internet? "The most democratic media that could be devised."
* Blogging? The new "town square."
* Bloggers' credibility? "These people are fact checking one another all the time."
* Net Neutrality? "Incredibly important."
* Wikipedia? She corrects her entry frequently.
* The Edwards' campaign attitude on blogger supporters? "Our job is to provide you with the positions, where we're going to be", etc.. "It's not to manage you... Plants don't work."
I remember hearing Howard Dean, four years ago in Keene, declare that a Dean Administration would include a White House blog. Somehow I don't think that in an Edwards Administration it would be necessary to appoint someone for that.
(Photo courtesy of Mike Hoefer)
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