Edwards eyes convention role — to what end?

January 25, 2008

Joe Trippi, a top strategist for John Edwards’ presidential campaign, conceded to the Wall Street Journal that the former senator probably won’t be the Democratic nominee, but can still have a significant influence on who is.

“I think 200 delegates on Feb. 6 is our over-under,” Mr. Trippi said. Although he continues to insist that Mr. Edwards has a chance at securing the nomination, Mr. Trippi concedes it is a long shot. More probable: arriving at the convention with enough delegates to tip the scales in favor of either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama. “Edwards is the primary force keeping Clinton under 50%,” Mr. Trippi said. “Worst case? We go to the convention as the peacemaker, kingmaker, whatever you want to call it.”

As Mr. Trippi figures it, if Mr. Edwards gets more than 200 delegates through the Feb. 5 contests — just more than 10% of the total 1,700 delegates at stake that day — he has a long-shot chance of playing kingmaker. If he gets 350, Mr. Trippi said Mr. Edwards is almost assured of playing that role. […]

“Every delegate we get over 200 on Feb. 5 is a step toward a scenario that at worst gives us a shot at influencing the final outcome of this race,” Mr. Trippi said.

So far, so good. Edwards may very well be in a position to earn 10% of the delegates, and his role may prevent one of the top two from claiming a pre-convention majority. (For the record, I’m skeptical that this is going to happen, but it’s certainly possible.) At that point, Edwards would be in a very powerful position.

The question, of course, is what Edwards wants to do with that power.

Kevin Drum asks:

[I]f this is a role Edwards wants to play, what does he want from it? As Cooper says, conventional wisdom holds that Edwards isn’t interested in the VP slot, and the best he can come up with as an alternative is that Edwards might “demand the insertion of one or several antipoverty planks in the party’s platform.”

That’s pretty weak tea. If this is really in the back of Edwards’s mind, he must be thinking of something a little more concrete than that. But what?

I’m wondering the exact same thing. Getting the eventual nominee to agree to some platform planks seems almost ridiculous — hell, Edwards could probably get that without winning 10% of the delegates.

The only thing that comes to mind is a very good cabinet spot. Edwards will, of course, be unemployed once the campaign is over, and one gets the sense he’d like to stay involved, even if he’s not the nominee. Maybe he’d like to be the Attorney General?

On a related note, it’s also worth noting that Edwards’ campaign goals may not be successful if he continues to take heat from one of the Senate’s most respected and reliable liberals: Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold.

“I don’t understand how somebody could vote, five or six critical votes, one way in the Senate and then make your campaign the opposite positions,” Feingold said, expanding on comments he made a week ago to the Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent. “That doesn’t give me confidence that if the person became president that they would continue the kind of policies that they are using in the Democratic primary. I’m more likely to believe what they did in the Senate.”

Asked to explain what precisely he found problematic, Feingold offered that Edwards had “taken in” voters by switching positions on several key issues.

“You have to consider what the audience is, and obviously these are very popular positions to take when you are in a primary where you are trying to get the progressive vote. But wait a minute — there were opportunities to vote against the bankruptcy bill, there was an opportunity to vote against the China [trade] deal. Those are the moments where you sort of find out where somebody is. So I think, people are being taken in a little bit that now he is taking these positions.”

This comes a week after Feingold said, “[Edwards] voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.”

Ouch. I guess Edwards can forget about that Feingold endorsement coming anytime soon.

I have to say, I think Edwards would make a very fine AG. If he were to take his commitment to the disenfranchised into the job, I could see him operating very much in the RFK mode–and one would assume he’d show plenty of independence from the executive branch. But perhaps there are things I don’t know?

  • Feingold said…“[Edwards] voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.”

    ****

    Oh, Lord. LOL!

  • If Russ Feingold is on such a high horse why didn’t he run for the nomination. Whatever happened to his censoring President Bush? Enough said.

  • I hadn’t considered the Edwards as AG angle. Guess I’ve been too distracted by the limp congress and the MSM’s inability to hold candidates feet to the fire regarding petty issues like surveillance, torture, and signing statements. Do you reckon it’s possible for a President Obama to work in conjunction with an AG Edwards to push the envelope of Shrub’s handiwork and force a decision by the Supremes on the fascist’s house of cards?

  • before we get all excited about AG Edwards and how he could roll back the Bushist Plutocracy, remember that he has almost no administrative background and almost no Constitutional law background (which is what the overwhelming majority of these issues would be). He does personal injury stuff and is great at putting a victim’s story before a local jury, but that is a long way from esoteric intragovernmental issues before the Supreme Court.

  • If Russ Feingold is on such a high horse why didn’t he run for the nomination. -D.W.

    Since when is candidacy for a particular office a prerequisite to criticism of a candidate?

  • #5 Exactly. There were a dozen “Run, Russ, Run” grassroots organizations which could have easily carried Feingold to the presidency. ‘I don’t want to put my daughter through this’ was not a good enough excuse to me.

    But I respect that, as long as you don’t trash Edwards saying, “that’s my voting record”. Chill out, Russ. Don’t “put your daughter through this” either.

  • Zeitgeist, you say that as if competence was the point. Both DOJ and SCOTUS come complete with a staff of Neanderthals. Use their position against them. I think a wonderful case could be manufactured by throwing Shrub in Gitmo on the authority of the power of the President in a time of war. Then beat the crap out of him until you get the evidence you need that he is a terrorist. Then give him one of his Cretan attorneys from DOJ to represent him.

  • I do most of my commenting over here, but I did comment on that Washington Monthly post. I will risk cross-posting it here:

    I hate to quote EVITA, even if Tim Rice was quoting someone else, but Politics is “The Art of the Possible.” You take your opportunities when they come, and you spend the rest of your time either making opportunities or positioning yourself for opportunity.

    If Edwards goes in with 200+ delegates to be king/queenmaker — it’s by definition a brokered convention — I’m using the term “open convention.”

    Yes, at worst he influences — for a cabinet post, for a special role (maybe a special prosecutor, maybe a special commission on poverty), maybe an SC seat, maybe just a seat at the table to make sure his issues aren’t forgotten…..that’s at worst. The trick is to Be There when it happens.

    We are following a narrative we haven’t seen in most of our lifetimes. Anything Can Happen. Yes, Edwards getting the nomination is a long shot, but it’s a shot.

    Clinton and Obama will both have “second thoughts” supporters — some delegates who were assigned early might see or hear something that makes them have second thoughts. What do they do on the second ballot?

    Imagine a convention deadlocked between Obama and Clinton. Neither will budge. And the way this campaign is going (have you read message boards *anywhere* between Clintonites and Obamaniacs — not to mention Edwardians?) the Obama delegates would die before crossing over the Clinton, and the Clinton delegates would feel the same about switching to Obama.

    So after five or six ballots — what happens? Draft Gore? A slow trickle and then a rush to Edwards as the only compromise? A dark horse nominated by a frustrated delegation?

    It’s a huge unknown. And that scenario is not inconcievable.

    What Edwards wants is to Be There when it happens — whatever happens — and practice the Art of the Possible.

    ********************************

    Sorry to cross-post, but the point is worth making. There’s no modern roadmap for an open convention, and it looks more likely every day. It’s foolish to have a specific endgame set, because so much will change between now and summer. The point is to be positioned to take advantage of Whatever Happens — he doesn’t have to choose a plum now — the smart play is to stay in the game.

  • Edwards is smoking something. I’ll take any odds that if Edwards doesn’t win or place in SC that we won’t have a brokered convention.

    Come on.

    A brokered convention is everyone’s dream. I’d especially like to see one on the Republican side.

    But the Democrats are already down to 2 people and one of them will get more than 50%

  • I could be mistaken, but I actually believe that Edwards is passionate about the positions he’s taking during this presidential campaign. However, as a 90’s Democrat, he was constrained by the leanings of the North Carolina electorate. All Democrats from the south have been, and continue to be, limited in how they can vote when we consider the people they represent–look at what happened to Max Cleland from Georgia.

    Having said that, Feingold (a personal hero) highlights the enormous difficulty that Edwards would have in this year’s general election. In ’04, Edwards was the Republicans biggest fear. In ’08, not so much.

  • He does personal injury stuff and is great at putting a victim’s story before a local jury, but that is a long way from esoteric intragovernmental issues before the Supreme Court.

    Just to play devil’s advocate, isn’t having the ability to persuade one of the most important skills an effective Supreme Court justice could have? As I recall the story, Justice Brennan used to quiz his clerks, asking them what the most important aspect of Supreme Court proceedings. They’d be stumped, wondering if he was asking for something to do with constitutional law or procedures. Instead, his answer was “counting to five.” It takes five justices to give an opinion the force of law. Brennan was able to remain an effective justice despite dealing with numerous Nixon and Reagan appointees on the bench because he could rally five votes for his liberal opinions. If Edwards could do that too, he’d be worth two Alitos.

  • Chopin @#10,

    Ohhh…the scenario of throwing W, Cheney, Addington, Yu and others in gitmo without any recourse to courts or representation sounds soooooo good. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

  • Suppose Candidate A has a small but significant lead over B, some thing like 46% A to 41% for B. Suppose Kingmaker C puts B over the top to be the nominee. Then, given this:

    @11: “(have you read message boards *anywhere* between Clintonites and Obamaniacs — not to mention Edwardians?) the Obama delegates would die before crossing over the Clinton, and the Clinton delegates would feel the same about switching to Obama.”

    How do you suppose candidate A’s people would feel about this? I don’t think the party would be smart to let this happen. Bear in mind after a candidate releases his delegates, they are free agents per Party rules.

    I suspect whoever has the most delegates going into the convention will wind up as the nominee, regardless of the ambitions of would-be kingmakers.

  • “He does personal injury stuff and is great at putting a victim’s story before a local jury, but that is a long way from esoteric intragovernmental issues before the Supreme Court.”

    But I bet Edwards can handle such things at a minimum better than Clarence Thomas. And Edwards would likely fight hard (he definitely has the ability) on progressive issues.

    But most importantly, he could possibly be on the bench for upwards of 30 years.

  • Damn it. I had just made up my mind to vote for Edwards to get some of his policy in the Democratic plank, since the other two appear to be centrists. (sigh).

  • I think Feingold is simply pointing out what most astute political observers can see for themselves. Edwards was a politician without a base, and the progressive left is typically a political bloc without a candidate. It’s a match made in heaven, except for that whole political integrity thing.

    And lay off Feingold! I’m not sure when deciding that your life’s goal is not the presidency became a bad thing, but this man’s political courage and personal integrity should never be questioned. Just mention Mark Neumann’s name to any Wisconsin Democrat over the age of 25 and you’ll find out why!

  • Get a grip Russ, after all wasn’t you who recommended Mukasey and then said, “Oh shit, what’d I do?” when he would not call water boarding torture? Edwards has changed because he’s come to see what we are ultimately up against and who we are fighting…to get our democracy back…the money party, the privatization party…the war profiteers…the energy profiteers…the greedy corporate power lobbying army who have been essentially writing our laws.

    He is less a corporatist than Obama or Hillary that’s for sure and these are desperate times and the fight is urgent demanding a partisan approach just to get rid of the cancer destroying our republic. Edwards is like chemo and as a lesser Kucinich his stands on the issues are a big part of what our party stands for. I hope he’s in all the way past the convention as a major part of our progressive movement.

  • jimBOB and bubba –

    I think Edwards would do well on the Court itself; some diversity of legal background there is a positive thing (sorry, Clarence, that does not mean a diversity of legal competence), and his instincts to help the underrepresented could make him a Brennan or Marshall.

    As AG, however, I do think the specific legal background matters. Yes linguistic persuasion is still the name of the game, but the particular skill set for persuading a jury and persuading an appellate court are more different than they may seem at first blush. And while much of the practice of law involves continually learning new things, and Edwards is surely a bright learner, it is nonetheless true that the day one passes the bar they have the broadest and shallowest knowledge of the law and with each day in practice one knows more and more about less and less as the types of cases you deal with narrows and you specialize in a particular area. He has been doing tort cases for a long time – Constitutional, international, and administrative law are likely among the parts of the brain cleared out to make room as his tort expertise grew.

  • Edo #15 – No, the representation is integral to the point. I want to see Shrub’s sycophants forced to formulate a defense against their own wet dream and be forced to make their case to the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas court where the decision matters and resolves issues the wimp congress refuses to address. Ba$tard Shrub either rots in Gitmo or we have ourselves a decision that Shrub overstepped his constitutional authority (fodder for litigation against these turds for the next several decades).

  • First, I think there’s a little ego showing there in Russ Feingold, to characterize Edwards as running on “his” record – I wasn’t aware that Edwards had made himself out to be a taller Russ Feingold, nor was I aware that Edwards was claiming to have a record other than the one he has.

    We’ve spent 7 years with a president who is incapable of admitting he made a mistake in any of the positions he’s taken, and we have some candidates who claim that their current position has always been their position, and at least one who has yet to admit that her vote on the AUMF just might have been ill-considered.

    Edwards, at least, can admit that some of his votes he would have made differently. I think it’s fair, for example, to say that with NCLB, it took some time for it to be clear just how wrong it was turning out to be, Edwards was out of the Senate by then, and I don’t think Edwards is the only one who has come to that conclusion.

    As for Joe Trippi’s comments, if I were John Edwards, Trippi would be looking for a job. For the candidate to be out on the stump fighting hard, and saying he is in it to the end, and then have Trippi making those kinds of comments could be truly damaging – especially as Edwards’ numbers have continued to climb in SC over the last week.

    I’d like him in it for as long as possible – and think speculating about what he wants his role to be, or if he’s angling for something in an eventual Democratic administration is silly. That being said, I don’t see him as AG; maybe Sec. of Labor or Health and Human Services.

  • I was wrong. The odds of a brokered Democratic convention are over 10%. I find that amazingly high. But ….

  • @23:

    There are laws that pertain to war crimes, and as a nation of laws we ought to follow them.

    War criminals should go to The Hague, not Gitmo.

  • I second Anne.

    Why would we want another president incapable of learning anything new and unable to admit it when they were wrong?

    Edwards admitted the error of his ways: had an epiphany or was educated.

    As it stands Edwards is the only one speaking loud & clear against corporate takeover. The only one hitting the nail squarely on the head each & every time. Corporate influence is exactly what is at the bottom of everything wrong in our government today.

    I am voting for Edwards…in fact already did in my CA absentee ballot.

  • I second Anne.

    Why would we want another president incapable of learning anything new and unable to admit it when they were wrong?

    Edwards admitted the error of his ways: had an epiphany or was educated.

    As it stands Edwards is the only one speaking loud & clear against corporate takeover. The only one hitting the nail squarely on the head each & every time. Corporate influence is exactly what is at the bottom of everything wrong in our government today.

  • Senator Feingold should lob some criticism at Senator Hillary Clinton for first being so gung ho on the Iraq war and now switching to anti war from her hawkish stance. Sure Senator Obama wasn’t even in the Senate when Edwards had to cast his votes so Feingold has a point there he was Illinois voting present or whatever you call it.
    I still want to see Senator Feingold censor Bush and Cheney instead of blowing off steam on the best candidate to take on the special interests.

  • #23 – Gitmo is a necessary step to beat out a confession and The Hague is much too civil for that (speaking strictly from frustration). The precedent laid down by the unitary executive groupies must be addressed and overturned. And by whom better than Shrub’s own sycophants? Another Shrub will surely arrive, pick up where this one left off and push the agenda to the wall. The electorate will surely let them. Read The End of America by Naomi Wolf.

  • Maybe I’m missing something but one of the things Feingold mentions is the bankruptcy bill, which was after Edwards left office. Soupy Feingold may be the leading “liberal” at putting himself in the spotlight of pointless show spectacles but the least you can say about Edwards is that if not for him still being in the campaign, there would be almost no populist sentiments from either Lieberman Democrat Obama or DLC Democrat Clinton. Feingold likes being viewed as a “maverick.” But just as with his buddy McCain, his maverick qualities are often more glitz than substance.

  • “Maybe I’m missing something but one of the things Feingold mentions is the bankruptcy bill, which was after Edwards left office.”

    There was a vote on a similar bankruptcy bill while Edwards was in office. It did not pass that time. Edwards, in the minority, voted in favor of the bill.

  • I just hope that Edwards doesn’t consult with Joe Trippi about what to do. Keep his sexist hands out of it.

    BAC

  • Edwards is the reason Hillary and Obama are talking change. Edwards is the real deal and with any luck, South Carolinians will help get him closer to the nomination. I intend to vote for him as well.

  • I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that Edwards would make for a good AG. I’d love to see him accept the position of AG in the next administration.

    I don’t worry about the fact that Edwards might have to brush up on constitutional law, etc… That’s what the top dog in any office does: he/she hires the best people to accomplish the task at hand. Edwards could hire some good assistants who know all about the areas he’s currently lacking in.

    I’d love to see him go after all the Bush administration misdeeds. He’s certainly capable of presenting a case, after all he’s done that many times before in front of a jury.

    Once an opening comes up at the Supreme Court, he’d be able to go that route as well. Wouldn’t that be something. Over the Next 8 years we’d be able to have Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton (if she doesn’t become the President) as potential nominees for the SCOTUS

    The ideal would be (in my opinion)

    President: Barack Obama
    Ambassador to the UN: Bill Clinton
    Senate Majority Leader: Hillary Clinton
    Attorney General: John Edwards

    that’s for starters… Plenty of potential for a dream team to be assembled, to bring us back from the dark ages under Bush.

  • Why does everyone assume he doesn’t want a veep spot? I mean, seriously he wasn’t running for it like he was running for it in 04, but now he doesn’t stand a chance of winning straight out. There is almost no chance the democrat won’t be a winner of the presidential election in 08, so a veep spot means being vice-president, and in eight years the presumptive nominee. He’s young enough to make that a very realistic goal, as well.
    The other alternative is he realizes he still takes more votes from Hillary than from Obama, and is staying in simply to make sure she loses. He seems to actually dislike her, and he seems to actually like Obama.

  • Edwards’ delegate strategy looks like an answer the campaign has devised for the endless queries about why JE keeps running if his poll numbers are so low. The real motive is to stay in the race, period, and the share of the delegates argument is a rationale. I’d like to think Edwards wants to keep the issues he’s advocating alive, but that runs up against the “don’t be naive” counter-arguments that have cohered around Feingold’s comments. In effect, Edwards has to present some kind of horse-race answer for his campaign because running solely for the sake of the issues gets reported as fake sincerity masking desperation. The Feingold attack is interesting in that Feingold’s standing allows people to broach the case for Edwards withdrawal without looking like a HRC/BO partisan hyping the horse race.

    Feingolds argument, however, has plenty of flaws, and here are a few (forgive the cross comment from other blog threads):

    1) Feingold’s “for a liberal his past votes are a problem” attack is a more coherent variant on the “rich guy is a hypocrite because he helps the poor” argument that’s been out there longer on JE. It’s kind of like saying you couldn’t support FDR in 1932 because he because he was wealthy, from a conservative family, and had a checkered legislative past. In fact, this is exactly what Republicans told wavering FDR supporters throughout the Depression in a cynical effort to undermine the New Deal.

    2) Glass houses? Feingold was the only Dem to side with Republicans in bringing Clinton’s impeachment to trial and he refused to vote no on both articles of impeachment. He voted yes on John Roberts’ Supreme Court nomination, and was 1 of 7 Democrats to back Ashcroft for AG (Edwards voted no) in a 58-42 vote that was the Dems’ main test of Bush’s 2001 nominations. Feingold voted yes on other Bush loser-cronies including Rice at State, Leavitt at EPA, Chertoff at Homeland Security, and Norton at Interior. Also troubling were yes votes on Welfare Reform, Bush’s prescription drug boondoggle (Edwards voted no), and a border fence.

    Should progressives worry that Feingold’s conning them? Of course not. These are a few bad votes measured against his incredible support for progressive issues. Even if Edwards has a higher ratio of centrist votes, Feingold’s purity politics argument is an old, self-defeating habit that progressives need to abandon.

    3) Are HRC’s and BO’s voting records better? Without going into detail, the frontrunners have many center-right votes to defend. I don’t get why this is particularly damning of JE.

    4) Given that Edwards is standing up for progressive issues more than Obama and Clinton, who else should progressives support? Feingold, after all, chose not to run despite some popular support for the effort.

    5) Feingold echoes Charles Krauthammer (see yesterday’s WaPo), never good.

  • as a 90’s Democrat, he was constrained by the leanings of the North Carolina electorate. All Democrats from the south have been, and continue to be, limited in how they can vote when we consider the people they represent–look at what happened to Max Cleland from Georgia.

    At the time these votes took place, Edwards was already planning to run for President in 2004, not for re-election as a senator from North Carolina. He didn’t need to worry about the leanings of the North Carolina electorate.

  • I want John Edwards to win against all the odds and the MSM slant. That aside, I want John Edwards to continue campaigning, however, not as king/peacemaker. But, as the voice of progressives. Does no one else have the balls to talk about the truth? Poverty? Broken middle-class? Of course not. They’re too busy sucking up the rooms oxygen with their 100 million dollar donor crap. People are sick and tired of the status quo. Clinton and Obama represent nothing more. I don’t give a rats @ss about yesterday. I do give a damn about today. And today no one speaks to me better than John Edwards. I work damned hard for a living and for once I want to be recognized for it. I want to be heard. And I believe that’s all John Edwards wants. For me to be recognized and heard. Thank goodness someone is doing it. So shut-up Russ, you had your chance.

    • Comments are closed.