Debate Aftermath

I found it interesting that the most aggressive and pointed of the attacks came from John Edwards. Not that we haven’t seen the negativity lately. But his teeth were showing all evening, and they weren’t the smiling kind.

What hits me is that John Edwards, the former vice presidential candidate, could not be coaxed out of his positive, above-the-fray candidacy in 2004 to go after Bush and Cheney. As hard as the Kerry campaign tried to get Edwards to draw contrasts with the Bush/Cheney duo and serve as a vigorous contrast, he didn’t do it. In fact, he studiously avoided going after the Republicans, no matter how hard they were hitting the Democrats. After all, isn’t this the role of the candidate for vice president? Cheney sure understood it!

The frustrations with Edwards within the Kerry campaign were detailed in Bob Shrum’s book. The irony is that now Edwards is attacking Democrats — most notably Hillary — when he couldn’t seem to find the backbone to fight the Republicans hard in 2004.