Edwards' cool levels debate field

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Edwards' cool levels debate field
206
Tue, 10-05-2004 - 1:56am
Here's the original link: http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/politicians/edwards/story/1699641p-7949529c.html


By ROB CHRISTENSEN, Staff Writer

RALEIGH -- If Vice President Dick Cheney thinks he'll be facing the "Breck Girl" - the epithet Republicans like to pin on John Edwards - he may be in for an unpleasant surprise in their debate Tuesday.

Edwards is a canny fighter who outprepares his opponents, according to lawyers who have faced him in the courtroom. He isn't afraid of more experienced adversaries, has a large bag of rhetorical tricks and connects with audiences.

"If I'm going in a knife fight, and I have my choice, I am taking John Edwards," said Jim Cooney of Charlotte. "John doesn't like to lose."

Cooney ought to know. He dueled with Edwards in 10 cases.

Cooney is one of many Tar Heel lawyers who debated Edwards before a jury during the 1980s and 1990s, when Edwards made his fortune as a trial lawyer before being elected to the U.S. Senate.

Their advice for Cheney: Under no circumstances take Edwards lightly.

Edwards' strengths:

* He prepares thoroughly.

* He connects with his listeners in their language.

* He makes complex arguments easy to understand.

* He takes his opponents seriously.

Edwards made a living off more experienced lawyers who saw his mop-haired choirboy looks, small-town charm and wide grin and took him for a lightweight. That's one reason he rarely lost a courtroom debate.

And in some respects, the Cheney-Edwards debate also would seem a mismatch. Cheney is the very image of experience and authority -- a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary, congressman and corporate CEO.

But former rivals say Edwards has a history of besting people like Cheney: white-haired, "pillar of the community" corporate lawyers, respected doctors and all sorts of experts. He also has a history of taking on large institutions -- hospitals, insurance companies, trucking firms -- and coming out on top.

If Cheney goes after Edwards' inexperience in government, several lawyers said, he'll be walking into a trap.

"He's made a career of going up against the experts, leaders in their fields, whether it's medicine or epidemiology or engineering," Cooney said. "The first time Cheney gives him the lecture -- 'Well, young man' -- it will be interesting to see how he handles that. Various experts have tried it before, and it has not worked very well.

"He is well-experienced in going up against people who are experts and who believe very strongly that they know a lot more than he does."

Made-for-TV style

Intense preparation is Edwards' trademark, and few expect him to be stumped or surprised by a question. Nor can he be rattled easily.

"I would be surprised if he is intimidated by Dick Cheney," said Tex Barrow, a Raleigh lawyer who has faced Edwards. "I have never seen him intimidated by anybody. ... He will be very well-prepared and be very passionate about his positions."

Edwards has never been regarded as a great courtroom orator in the Clarence Darrow mold. His style is more conversational. It is a style that is suited for more intimate settings like the courtroom -- or the TV studio -- than a large hall.

Indeed, some say Edwards' vice presidential acceptance speech in Boston in July was a bit flat.

"In many regards the debate will be a more natural setting. ... It's just his background," Barrow said. "It's one on one. The courtroom is a lot more intimate exchange than a speech to several thousand people."

He also rarely hammers home a point, preferring to lay out the evidence and let the jury come to the conclusion where he led it. His style is to distill the major points, removing the jargon, so that everyone understands his points.

"He'll use 25 years of experience in talking to jurors and look into that television camera ... and make every person in the living room think he is talking to them," said Billy Richardson, a lawyer who has worked with Edwards on cases. "He is secure enough to let them form their own conclusions. That is a powerful technique."

One of his favorite techniques, the lawyers say, is to ask the rhetorical question of the type Ronald Reagan asked in his 1980 debate: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Nor is Edwards afraid to take someone apart. He just does it with Southern charm and a smile.

"It is not John's style to be mean or sarcastic," said his former law partner, David Kirby. "John has the ability to destroy a witness or a witness' position in a polite manner."

Edwards once dismantled an economist -- testifying for the opposition -- whose sons he had coached in soccer and with whom he had been friendly.

The North Carolina lawyers who have watched Edwards in the courtroom say there is no way that he will take Cheney lightly. They also say that Cheney would be foolish to prepare lightly for Edwards.

"Knowing John," Cooney said, "he has played out all the angles that Cheney could launch and his response to Cheney's attack, and how Cheney will respond to that, and how he would respond to that. He plays four or five moves ahead -- like chess."


Staff writer Rob Christensen can be reached at 820-4532 or robc@newsobserver.com.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:32pm
Not at all, Djie. I respect your opinion and would never say such a thing. It was in reference to the Hunt For bin Laden.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:33pm


When a preemptive war is necessary, IMO, it is the same.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:33pm
>>Iran and Saudi Arabia did not invade another country, sign a cease fire agreement, and then proceed to ignore the terms of that agreement and defy 12 years of UN resolutions.<<

Bush invaded another country, tore up arms control agreements and launched a war outside of the UN.


>>But we are currently putting lots of pressure on the Saudis for reform<<

How? Is Bush41 doing less work for the Carlyle Group in Saudi Arabia?

Please explain the pressures Bush43 is placing on the House of Saud.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:39pm


and for the umpteenth time, saying that Saddam was directly responsible for 9/11 and saying that Iraq has something to do with 9/11 are not the same thing-what Iraq has to do with 9/11 is that 9/11 taught us we can no longer wait until threats become realities before acting. It taught us that we could not wait until Saddam and al quaeda DID collaborate on an attack, given that they have been in contact, possibly with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons that we all believed he had, and given that he refused to allow the world to verify that he was complying with the terms of his surrender. I'll try to make it more clear-

Saddam was involved in 9/11-probably false

Our action in Iraq is partially due to the way the world changed after 9/11-absolutely true.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:39pm
>>...but I do have a problem with people being "anti-war no matter what".<<

after saying

>>but it's obvious Kerry's not after folks like you. He's trying to portray himself as a hawk to the rest of us, but his record belies that.<<

so you are saying you wish someone to be anti war, but not to the point they take away our right of self-defence. Hmmmmm... sounds like Kerry would fall in the acceptable catagory, based on your own description of him.

Kerry has seen war and knows how bad it is. Bush was for the Vietnam war... yet he didn't go. Why? Why would someone for it not go? Kerry went and came back with a different outlook. IMO, he has a sensible outlook on this stuff, unlike our current president who is willing to send others to wars he supports yet would not go himself. If someone opposes a war and doesn't go, good for them. If they support it and go, good for them. If they support it and hide... is that person qualified to lead?

Hardly.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 1:43pm
So what's your point? Patriot missiles SUCCEEDED against some Scud missiles-so that means if we didn't have them those scud missiles would have hit their targets and killes hundreds or thousands of our troops. I would say worth the money.

< when they had limited success against Iraqi Scud missiles.

28 American soldiers were killed when a Scud hit a barracks in Saudi Arabia, because a software fault in the defending Patriot system meant it could not work properly.

The error meant its tracking system was half a second out - during which time a Scud travels half a kilometre.

Three years ago the US Army set about replacing "hundreds" of Patriots after identifying a problem with some of their components having deteriorated over time. >

Again, so what? No technology works perfectly every single time. Does that mean we ought to scrap something that worked a lot of the time because it didn't work a couple of times? Let's say it only works, 50% of the time. OK, no Patriot-100% of missiles strike their target. With Patriot-50% of missiles strike their targets. Sounds like a better outcome to me.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-07-2003
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 2:03pm
<>

Sadaam obviously did comply with most of the requirements of the UN resolutions, considering the crux of these resolutions called for him to disarm-- which he clearly did.

<>

I hope we do solve this diplomatically, but the problem is that we didn't exhaust the diplomatic possibilities with Iraq and Sadaam Hussein. Hussein submitted a 13,000 page document to the UN after we called for him to disarm or that we would attack. Guess how much time we gave to analyzing those documents? 24 hours. We didn't even bother to look at the documentation submitted before we attacked-- that certainly does not show our willingness to go through all of the diplomatic means necessary to avoid the war.

<>

It clearly wasn't.

<>

The US was clearly unwilling to take the time to negotiate the return of inspectors or the use of sanctions.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 2:08pm


???? I'm saying I want a president who is on the right side of things when military action is necessary. I don't know how you can say that Kerry would be acceptable to me-he voted for a nuclear freeze during the Cold War. He voted against Desert Storm, even though it passed his "global test". He voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq, then staged a "protest vote" not to fund it, then said he was the antiwar candidate because Howard Dean was rising in the polls, than said that given everything he knows now he would have voted the same, then said that given everything he knows now he would NOT have voted the same, he claims he still believes that Saddam was a threat but also says that Bush misled us about he threat, says if he was President, Saddam would not still be in power today but also says it was the wrong war, wrong place wrong time. Really I don't know how either those who support the Iraq war OR those who oppose it could find him acceptable, as he seems to be trying to be neither and both at the same time. I don't want war but I recognize that it is sometimes necessary. I DO believe that given what we knew (or thought we knew) at the time the Iraq war was necessary for our national defense. Obviously if we knew our intelligence was wrong and Saddam had no WMDs we probably shouldn't have gone in, but the fact is Saddam did not give us the opportunity to find that out.

If Kerry had said from the start that he disagreed with that viewpoint, if he'd been saying all along that we should not go into Iraq, if he had not voted to authorize the war, I might respect his antiwar opinion even if I disagreed with it. But the fact is even today he will not say that Saddam was not a threat. He is somebody who simply wants to have it both ways, and IMO that is a truly scary person to have incharge of our national defense.

< IMO, he has a sensible outlook on this stuff, unlike our current president who is willing to send others to wars he supports yet would not go himself. If someone opposes a war and doesn't go, good for them. If they support it and go, good for them. If they support it and hide... is that person qualified to lead? >

I don't know-was Clinton qualified to send troops into battle? He admitted that he used his connections to avoid military service altogether. You denigrate the National Guard when you say that those who joined it were "hiding". Was it the same as volunteering to go to Vietnam? Of course not. But no, I don't agree with the notion that someone who served in the Guard instead is not qualified to be commander in chief of the armed forces. I didn't even believe Clinton's actions disqualified him, so why would I think Bush's should?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-20-2003
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 2:08pm
>>Does that mean we ought to scrap something that worked a lot of the time because it didn't work a couple of times?<<

You've got that backwards.

It worked a couple of times.

It didn't work a lot of the time.

A false sense of security in a defense system that can target friendly aircraft indiscriminately is dangerous as well.


>>Let's say it only works, 50% of the time. OK, no Patriot-100% of missiles strike their target. With Patriot-50% of missiles strike their targets. Sounds like a better outcome to me.<<

Let's be more accurate and say that in the first Gulf War it only worked about 10% of the time.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-11-2004
Thu, 10-07-2004 - 2:13pm
Dick Cheney is one of the smartest men in politics. He knows what he is doing and he did make eye contact. Edwards put on one of his fake smiles and looked like a little kid repeatedly going back to the last question instead of answering the question given.

Cheney won, even Chris Matthews of Hardball said so and he is a liberal.

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