RALEIGH – As one of the nation’s most successful trial lawyers, John Edwards is, I think you can safely say, willing to bet his time and resources in high-stakes situations where the payoff is significant. In the current political environment, it looks like Sen. Edwards has decided what to gamble on: a successful prosecution of the Second Gulf War.
Edwards and fellow Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut are the most supportive Democratic presidential candidates of George W. Bush’s military intervention in Iraq, though both have criticized the president for what they argue was a mishandling of the international diplomacy leading up to the war. Richard Gephardt and John Kerry started out last fall as hawks on Saddam Hussein, but have since begun to wander leftward. The rest of the Democratic field is irrelevant, I suspect, and their reflexive attack on the war shows it.
Unless the campaign goes horrible awry – and as I write Sunday night we’ve seen American troops taken prisoner and killed as well as the spectacular discovery of a chemical weapons facility that buttresses the central justification of the war – opposing it as vociferously as the likes of Howard Dean and Al Sharpton have will create a political radioactivity from which it will be impossible to recover. So why do I stll say John Edwards is taking a risk?
First, the general public may not like political peaceniks a year from now, but I’m not so sure this will be true for many primary voters within the Democratic Party. They seem to have drunk deeply of the old McGovern wine. It’s aged, and probably tastes great, but it will did little more than leave them reeling and stumbling around. Even if the euphoria wears off in the coming months, there will still be a lengthy hangover. In their despair, Democratic leftists may take it out on anyone associated with a successful war policy. Edwards could face real trouble in the Iowa and New Hampshire contests, and may even underperform in the crucial South Carolina primary, where liberal minority voters will play a key role.
The second risk is that mainstream Democrats, who eschew left-wing revelry and simply want to win power back, may look unfavorably on candidates who don’t create enough of a contrast with Bush. These are, after all, the Clinton Democrats. They like triangulation, and having it both ways, and getting away with contradictory positions. I think they may be attracted to John Kerry, assuming he can square the circle and explain his flip-flopping around on the war with sufficient blarney. Remember that this Democratic faction’s beef with the 2002 election strategy was that their party didn’t challenge Bush and the Republicans enough. They may want to choose someone who can distinguish himself from the president on Iraq without being an anti-war wacko.
Of course, things could end up going much better for our senior senator. Perhaps victory in Iraq and vindication for Edwards’ brave stance will make Kerry, Gephardt, and others (such as our own freshman Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh, who is now a war opponent) look foolish. Perhaps Democratic activists will sober up quick, toss the old McGovern jug away, and look for Edwards’ help in swearing off the hooch. Perhaps.
It remains a gamble – and one I’m glad Edwards was willing to take.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.