Show Time!
Believe it or not, presidential wannabes are at it already
Which almost happens before he sits down for an interview in the Merrimack Restaurant. C-SPAN has a crew with him--C-SPAN is the lifeblood, the glucose drip, the keep-hope-alive channel of presidential candidates--and the producer clips a wireless mike to his belt just before Edwards decides to powder his nose. As he is about to disappear into the men's room, a look of horror passes over the producer's face. She runs after him, lunges underneath his suit jacket, and says, "Um, do you want me to turn you off?" He does. He most definitely does.
To some, campaigning is a series of such indignities, large and small. And some very successful politicians have loved serving but have hated running. "It is grueling and time consuming and it burns people out," says Donna Brazile, who was Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000. "Without fire in the belly, you can't survive. If it's not in your soul, you won't make it." Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who ran in 1988, says: "What it takes is an overwhelming desire. . . . I used to think back in the '80s that you could seek the nomination and still be the kind of father, husband, son, etc., you wanted to be. [But it] means no more quiet conversations on the beach with your wife, no more deciding you're going to take your granddaughter to a teddy bear tea. . . . When you seek the presidency, it has to be total and complete focus."
But Anita Dunn, who was Bill Bradley's communications director in 2000, has news for the guys now running: "This is the fun part. Very small crowds give you an opportunity to have real discussions. It is still very informal and relaxed. And there is huge interest among Democratic activists out there. It is absolutely stunning. The activists have never been interested this early. Why now? Because they feel we should have won last time."
Dunn also believes that this period, which Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts jokingly refers to as "early retail," is valuable for another reason: You can screw up now and learn from it. Later, your mistakes won't just embarrass you, they can cripple you. Consider what happens after Edwards emerges from the men's room, microphone mercifully off, and sits down for an interview with a regional TV crew with his wife, Elizabeth, seated next to him. Elizabeth is bright, funny, and candid (three qualities valued about as highly as poison oak by many political advisers), and began the day by asking reporters: "So, have you met anyone up here who knows who he is?"
Straight-faced. The answer was no, which may not have been exactly what the campaign had in mind, but Edwards himself is letter-perfect at stop after stop. He is warm and friendly and gives good eyeball; he has his line down about why a former trial lawyer would make a good senator or president--"I spent my adult life representing people who played by the rules and got hurt by people who didn't"--and he even can tell people with an absolutely straight face that he really is in New Hampshire just to listen. "One of the worst places to find out what people care about is inside Washington, D.C.," he says, already maneuvering to be an "outsider" candidate. "One of the best places are places like New Hampshire [or Iowa or California or Florida] and North Carolina." And after he says it, lots of people just want to scoop him up and brush back that shock of Kennedyesque hair from his forehead and squeeze him just a little. He gets incredible crowd reaction. People named him its "Sexiest Politician" last year; Elle calls him "the new and improved Al Gore" (which, upon examination, may not be the highest praise in the world).
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