John Edwards in Londonderry

I went to my second John Edwards event today. I have to say I am more and more impressed with him each time. He really wants to shake things up. I’m not sure he can do it but it would be great watching him try. Obama and Clinton just seem too much like candidates of the establishment and the media. I haven’t seen them in person but I just don’t know if I want to. Obama seems like a good person on TV. But he is young and I worry that he will be too much of a mainstream party guy in office. Clinton just never struck me as a good person. I don’t trust her. It’s a gut feeling.

I like the way John Edwards looks people in the eye when he talks. I like the way he respects the people who ask him questions. There was a funny exchange today. A woman asked a good question and John Edwards said “that’s a good question.” The woman replied “I know.” John repeated her comment, laughed and said “welcome to New Hampshire.” He said it in a good way. He said it in a way that gave me the impression he knew that people in New Hampshire thought hard about their questions and would think hard about his answer. It told me he understands what the New Hampshire Primary is about. Retail politics at its best.

John Edwards talked about a candidate’s responsibility to meet with people and take their questions and answer them on the spot. I completely agree with him on that. Campaigning in New Hampshire is all about letting people ask questions face to face. Edwards understands that and is more than willing to do it. Are the other candidates? I don’t know. I have yet to see them in person. But clearly John Edwards is a fearless question taker. I respect that in a candidate.

Who knows, if none of the Republican candidates impress me I may change my registration and vote for him in the primary. Now wouldn’t that shock some people?

4 Responses to “John Edwards in Londonderry”

  1. Mr. T says:

    Wierd characters in there. I will try to edit them out when I get a chance. This was cut and paste from Word. For some reason I could not post direct. May have been a network problem.

  2. n1zyy says:

    I have to say that I think it’s great that you’re attending events from both parties. I haven’t really been keeping up with my civic duty; I saw Obama once and everyone else 0 times. (I think what you’re doing is what New Hampshire’s primary is all about.)

    I think people place too much trust in what the media says about politics. It’s important that the media tells us the news, but the way they’re doing it right now causes so many problems. It seems to me (but I don’t watch the news if I can help it) that Obama and Hillary are receiving 90% of the attention given to Democrats, for example. Which means that right now Edwards probably doesn’t have a shot, just because the media doesn’t pay him as much attention. (I’d love to be wrong.)

    He really wants to shake things up.

    Things need a good shaking, but we can’t shake too hard or the country will fall apart. If that makes any sense.

    I haven’t seen them in person but I just don’t know if I want to. Obama seems like a good person on TV.

    (Disclaimer: I’m currently rooting for Obama.) I went to see Obama. I was very impressed. We watched it on the news that night, and I thought he looked like a bumbling fool by comparison. He’s an amazing speaker, and just filled me with hope for our future. I guess my point is that who he is on TV is who he is in person. He just seems like the real deal. And, much like you said about Edwards, he actually answers questions, as opposed to changing the subject to whatever he feels like talking about. (Which is a surprisingly common, yet bizarre, tactic in politics?)

    But he is young and I worry that he will be too much of a mainstream party guy in office.

    Maybe my age gives me a unique (and perhaps inaccurate?) perspective, but I think there’s a great deal of confusion about what the parties are right now. It always seemed that the Republicans were about small government, minimal funding, and individual rights. Now the Democrats are criticizing the Republicans for having too big of a government, spending exorbitant amounts, and for eroding individual rights. I’m sure the minority party always criticizes whoever’s in power, but still… I think we’ve been witnessing changes in the parties.

    It doesn’t necessarily mean much about who he’ll be as President, but in his book (Audacity of Hope), he takes Republicans and Democrats alike to task for a lot of what’s wrong.

    Clinton just never struck me as a good person. I don’t trust her. It’s a gut feeling.

    What worries me is that so many people think this… Myself included to some extent. I haven’t met too many people who can give a good reason, and yet I’ve met lots of people who “just don’t like her.” I worry because she’s a Democratic front-runner, but she’s pretty polarizing: I think there are a lot of independents / undecideds who may very well vote blue, but who definitely wouldn’t vote for Hillary. (Sort of like Bush today, there seem to be a lot of people who aren’t necessarily for anyone, they’re just against her.)

    Who knows, if none of the Republican candidates impress me I may change my registration and vote for him in the primary.

    I’ve always wanted to be an independent. (It seems that you get registered as whatever ballot you take, which makes this hard?)

    I’ve been harboring strange ideas for the primaries, actually. I don’t think voting for who you want is necessarily the best strategy. (The best example I can give: someone who really wanted to see a Republican in office might actually do best voting for Hillary in the primaries, hoping that she’ll win the nomination but lose the actual election to a Republican.) I currently plan to vote ‘normally,’ but I don’t know. If it came down to one Democrat leading in polls by a strong majority, but two Republicans neck-and-neck, I might be tempted to vote in the Republican primary to help sway things the way I wanted.

    Did you just remove the extraneous characters? I’m hoping to figure out where they’re coming from. The fact that it happened to you in Word indicates that the “Visual” compose window here isn’t the only source of the problem.

  3. n1zyy says:

    (Nope, looks like the odd characters show up on the main page but not here. Which means that I’m doing something on the main page differently from how it’s being handled when WP generates the pages… The plot thickens.)

  4. Mr. T says:

    I have come to believe that the difference between the parties is that one is in power and the other is out of power. How the parties operate is determined more by that than anything else with very few exceptions. The Democrats will always be pro-choice on abortion and anti-choice on a lot of other things like firearms and right of association. The Republicans are less consistant and have a broader set of views on abortion and choice. Voting party line is no longer reasonable.

    In NH indepentents can choose either ballot but once they do they are listed as belonging to that party. As I recall one can immediatly change back to Independent. I need to find out when/how I can change to Independent before the primary.

    The media push for Obama and Clinton is a large part of my problem with them. I trust the media much less than I trust the candidates. Because they can make a big deal about race and gender they focus on those two candidates. I do not believe it has any relationship at all with providing a public service and everything to do with making money. Yet another good reason to see candidates in person.

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