Letters to the Editor
Uberbah
Published Letters: 94 Editor's Choice: 1
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that's just weak, Dave
[Read the article: When principles aren't enough]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My point is that Edwards had his chance in Iowa and NH where he's campaigned for 4 years and was soundly defeated.
Coming in second in Iowa is "soundly defeated?" Beating Clinton when she and Obama outspent Edwards six to one is "soundly defeated?"
The voters of those two states simply didn't like him enough--and I tried to explain why.
No, you just repeated lame right wing smears.
Huckabee won Iowa with ZERO media support. Can't blame the media for everything.
Apples to oranges. Thompson is lazy, Guiliani is a fascist, McCain is a flip flopper (and the base doesn't like him), Romney is the king of flip floppers (and a Mormon) and Paul has crazy ideas. So it should be no surprise that Huckabee would do well in a state with a lot of evangelicals, regardless of fungding or media coverage. Because all the GOP candidates suck in one way or another.
The "GOP Talking Points" I mentioned are bullets Edwards loaded into their gun. It's hard to vote for someone not astute enough to avoid such gaffes.
You listed no gaffes, only smears. Why don't you have a nice long talk with Maureen Dowd and we'll see what she can come up with on you.
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what a surprise: another glowing eulogy instead of accepting responsiblity
[Read the article: John Edwards exits with honor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The GOP nomination has long been in "who knows" territory, but from the beginning of this election cycle the media decided that the Democratic race would come down to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
It's a given that Hillary would receive no shortage of press: six years in the Senate, eight years as first lady, sixteen years being pilloried by pundits and sixteen years being savaged by the right wing media.
However, there is no excuse for awarding Obama with coverage equal to Clinton while ignoring Edwards, given their national resumes. Edwards served a full term in the Senate, was the runner up in the 2004 Democratic race and the VP nominee the same year. Whereas Obama was halfway through his first term in the Senate when he announced his candidacy and made a big speech at the 2004 convention.
And yes, Edwards has been ignored:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/31/141617/72/752/428416
When the year began, no impartial observer would have discounted John Edwards' chances, yet for the year, Edwards has appeared in just 18% of the multi-candidate headlines in the New York Times, compared to 93% for Hillary and 91% for Obama.
(When I say multi-candidate headline, I mean a headline which mentions at least two of the top three Democratic candidates. The point of looking at these headlines is that the active exclusion of Edwards from the debate frames the contest as between Obama and Hillary, when it's actually a multi-way contest.)
Of all the multi-candidate headlines on Google News, Edwards appears in just 8%, compared to 97% for Obama and 95% for Clinton.
In other words, out of 2,901 multi-candidate headlines, Edwards appeared in only 228. Obama appeared in 2,813. Hillary, 2,761.Survey USA, a polling company, dropped Edwards from their polls weeks ago despite continuing to carry Rudy "gotten less votes than Ron Paul" Giuliani. After the New Hampshire results were out, some news stories dutifully Huckabee's (11%) and Giuliani's (8%) results - but didn't even mention Edward's (16.9%) name, despite the fact that Edwards got more votes than the two Republicans put together.
Obviously, Edwards could have still lost even if he had been given fair treatment along with the other two candidates. Hillary has high name recognition and a lot of establishment support, and Obama has done a fantastic job of brining in the youth vote and independents. But it would have been nice to know that John had lost in a straight up race. Now we'll never know.
This day has given me flashbacks to when the mainstream press heaped praise on Gore and Kerry after they made their concession speeches, after treating them very unfairly during the race. So much for your independence, Salon.