There's Johnny

I have really never posted about politics in my blog, I usually feel like it's not something I'm as qualified to write about, or to be more plain, it's something I think lots of people can do better than I can with it.

But with the departure of John Edwards from the Democratic presidential campaign yesterday, I find myself with no other subject to think as deeply about. It bothers me on a level I'm not even sure I understand yet, not even so much that Edwards dropped out, but the circumstances leading up to why he did.

John Edwards was my 'guy,' for the entire length of this campaign, and in fact I would go so far as to say I had him in my mind as the 08 Candidate during the 04 election, when I had the opportunity to see the Senator speak here in Columbus, following the first debate between Senator Kerry and President Bush. It was there on the waterfront in front of COSI, that I started to suspect that we had perhaps backed the wrong horse. Granted, at the time, Kerry had just wiped the floor with Bush in the debate and myself, along with the rest of the Dems in attendance of the rally, were fairly confident we had the election won. But there was something in the way John Edwards spoke that night, a level of charisma and conviction to his words that made me wish he had been the first name on the ticket. Assuming at the time that Kerry would win in 04, I was already picturing the Edwards 2012 campaign signs in my head (obviously in my fantasy, Kerry was a 2-termer.)

We all know how the 2004 election turned out, and it was in the wake of the election that I was then certain that Edwards was my guy. When the votes had not been fully counted, and there was suspicion of tampering in several Ohio counties, Kerry conceded. This action enraged me, and it enraged Edwards, who openly criticized his now-former running mate. Whether or not Kerry would have ultimately proven to be the loser was not the point, the point was that these men had campaigned on a ticket of fighting what they believed to be a wrong course for America, and Kerry knuckled under. Edwards wanted to keep fighting.

And in the build up to the 2008 campaign, it was this fighting attitude that made me lean towards Edwards when the media had already began prepping for a 2-candidate race between Hilary and Obama. Edwards ran the kind of campaign that people always claim to want, being one that focused on the issues and focusing his anger and fighting spirit towards what needed to be done about them, as opposed to what was simply wrong with his opponents. In the Democratic debate held on Martin Luther King, Edwards was the voice of reason, between a bickering set of frontrunners. His comment that his opponents back and forth was doing nothing to put food in the mouths of starving children, was to this viewer, the key moment of the debate, and yet in the vast majority of the media coverage of said debate, Edwards' presence was an afterthought, the fight between Hilary and Barack was apparently a more fun story.

What troubles me about the Edwards concession is that it is this media blackout on his campaign that forced it to be so. There are plenty of theorists online who suggest that the source of this blackout is a corporate media conspiracy to keep him from getting the ticket, as his populist message could pose a true threat to their status quo, especially as polls show he is capable of defeating every single republican candidate in the general election. I do not know how much stock I put in said theory, it has merit I suppose and frankly I've had the "liberal media" line shoved down my throat so many times that I challenge someone to try to claim that it isn't possible. If it can be argued that there is a media conspiracy powerful enough to push the leftist agenda, it is just as plausible, perhaps even more so, to say the same could go for the right.

But for me, I don't think the sin of media coverage in this election is an attempt to push a specific agenda, as much as it is the very troublesome problem with news coverage in general, in that the hotter story now is more important than the better story. In starting to write this blog, I had to actually dig deep to find any sort of information on what Barack, Hilary, Romney, or McCain actually think about any issues. All that is on the surface is that both Barack and Hilary are fans of "change," and the other offers false change. Romney and McCain, one of them is too conservative, or not conservative enough, depending on what day of the week it is.

The other thing that damned the Edwards campaign, is something that was at the very heart of what he was trying to accomplish. Edwards, by virtue of his refusal to take money from special interest groups, was unable to raise the level of money required to really take on either of his Democratic opponents. Without the support of media coverage, and the inability to finance his own advertising at the level of Hilary and Obama, he was forced into the distant third role, and written off, with most voters unaware that he was really even in it.

And that really doesn't sit well with me. I am tired of the way that in this country, politics have become a cult of personality that in no way have anything to do with ones own issues. I'm not saying that Edwards was absolutely the best candidate for everyone, in fact I know he was very opposable by people who favor conservative systems, but at least he had issues, at least he had a platform. When did we, as a country, stop caring about what our leaders actually think about? When did we just sit back and let 24-hour news tell us who the frontrunners are before a single vote has been cast?

We continue to allow things that at the end of the day are not the real important issues to be the things that dominate the race. In 2004, it was gay marriage, an issue pretty much untouched, even though it defined the voter turnout. Now the buzz points for the Democratic side seem to be making a change in race or gender. I get it, a black or female president is a progressive move forward, and there are benefits to it, and I support the cause. I just feel that with the country in the shape it is in, and with the troubles our next president is going to have to face, the changes of skin color or genitals are ultimately superficial changes, as in the end they are all politicians, all proven to be capable of the challenges of public office. The real change that needs to go into effect are philosophical and policy changes, an effort to shape the future of our nation, and like Howard Dean in 2004, that is what John Edwards represented in this election, and that is what has been lost in his departure from it.

In the wake of his departure, I now wait for Hilary or Barack to show me something besides what is wrong with the other, because I really want to know what they have planned, not as primary candidates, but as presidential ticket candidates, and as presidents. Hopefully that will include the message that Edwards has fought so hard to bring to the surface, of health care reform, of the poverty epidemic that gets worse every year, issues that his presence in the campaign thus far will make it hard for them to ignore. And here's hoping we see his name on the bottom half of a ticket, and the top in 8 more years.