Regarding John Edwards and his Visibility of Late

indyjones1938

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Thu Sep-02-04 01:30 AM
Original message

Regarding John Edwards and his Visibility of Late

Edited on Thu Sep-02-04 01:42 AM by indyjones1938

I see a lot of posts here within the past two weeks attacking John Edwards for his so-called "lack of visibility" in the national media, and these charges are for the most part true. But he has not disappeared from the campaign trail. He is busy instead dominating headlines in the much more important local media. I would dare say that the person most responsible for keeping Kerry afloat in the polls is, in fact, John Edwards.

A recent Pew Foundation study revealed that more Americans get their political news from local media than from any other source, including the national media. Cable news and the internet are much further down on the list. The truth is, small town Americans trust their local newspapers. Hometown papers are the pride and joy of the people who read them. Folks in Cowtown, Kansas (pop. 500) sure aren't going to pick up the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times every morning when they head out to the factory or the farm, but they will pick up the Cowtown Daily News. And they aren't going to watch Wolf Blitzer or Hannity and Colmes or Hardball every night, but they are going to watch Cowtown's hometown WCTN TV for the 6 o'clock news, where they know and trust the reporters - all of whom have been at the station for two decades.

So, the Kerry-Edwards campaign has employed a very shrewd and daring tactic: send John Edwards to the small towns of America, to do town hall meetings and front porch discussions with regular folks, and in the process catapult himself and John Kerry into the headlines of small farming towns and middle-sized industrial cities across America. John is at his prime when he's in a town hall meeting or sitting on a front porch drinking a Coke and talking with real people who have been laid off or have no health insurance or can't keep food on their table. And for many of these small towns, having a big celebrity come to town is the most exciting thing that's happened there in a century. And Edwards gets front-page coverage in all those little hometown papers and 6 o'clock news reports. What you see at John's front porch discussions and town hall meetings at the local high school aren't cultlike gatherings for the invite-only crowd as is the case with Bush. Instead, you see Democrats and Republicans, normal folks, farmers and blue collar guys, little kids and grandparents all coming out to see him. Some of them haven't voted for a Democrat since FDR was in office, but a good number are swayed by the fact that a big Washington politician cares enough about them to visit their little town. And what's so amazing about John's small-town travels is that he doesn't just limit his visits to "battleground states." He visits bright red Republican territory and diehard Democratic towns too. When John stops in a rural little town where the only factory in town just closed down, and where farmers are going out of business; or when he stops in old railroad cities and coal towns that are but a shadow of their former glory...and talks from his heart with real people, the optimism is just infectious. For him, it's not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue...it's an American issue.

And it shows people in those little farming towns, rural hamlets and downtrodden old railroad cities that there's someone in Washington who cares about them. And those front page headlines in those little hometown papers are what's going to win this election.

So all the DU chicken-littlers and John Edwards naysayers are wrong. When it comes to down it, people care about what is best for their hometown...not what Wolf Blitzer or Chris Matthews or Sean Insanity has to say. If Karl Rove wants the national media, I say let him have it. Because Johnny Edwards is winning over the small towns of America, one at a time, and in the process he's winning over the very heart and soul of America.