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
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:33am
I take seriously Bush's efforts to make this a Christian nation that favours gun rights over women's rights, corporations over citizens, war over peace, testing over learning, and dividing over uniting.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-24-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:37am
And war over peace is the clincher, very Christian indeed. The list goes on, corporations over environment, insurance companies over struggling individuals....
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-12-2001
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:43am
What women's rights do you believe are in jeopardy under Bush? I'm a woman myself, and I can't think of any.

Bev

girl in chair
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:46am


Bush/Cheney have never claimed that SH was linked to 9/11-only that he had ties to al quaeda which he clearly did. It is the left that keeps characterizing their comments about a SH/al quaeda link as connecting SH with 9/11.



Bush/Cheney cannot help what uneducated people believe, partly because the left keeps feeding them that information. Educated people understand the difference between an al quaeda link and a 9/11 link, despite how hard the other side tries to obscure it. President Bush has consistently stated that we could not risk a future collaboration between SH and al quaeda on an attack, he has never claimed they did collaborate on such an attack.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:55am


None of those comments made by Cheney were dishonest! If people made inferences from those comments that SH may have somehow been tenuously linked to 9/11, well, perhaps there ARE inferences there that need to be made. There is no proof that SH had anything to do with 9/11. That doesn't mean it's been proven he didn't. But Cheney has never claimed such a thing.

This comment in particular is being distorted:



He was saying that in bringing democracy to Iraq, as part of the Middle East, would be bringing democracy to the geographic base of terrorists like those who attacked us on 9/11. If someone wants to claim that the Middle East is not the geographic base of Islamic terrorists, well, okayyyyy....

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-24-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 11:56am
I thought Cheney did well early on... and there is something about Edwards that turns me off... still, think he bounced back to make the debate about even.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 12:01pm


As well he should! The Dems just don't get it-the fact that there are people who hate us, who are willing to slaughter innocent civilians, children, to advance their distorted religious views, who are willing to slice people's heads off with dull knives, who are likely pursuing ways to up the casualty figures with bio, chem, or even nuclear weapos, that ought to scare us-and it is perfectly valid in an election to raise the question of who has the will, and the right means, to defeat this enemy. I think Cheney did a great job of explaining why Bush has it and why Kerry doesn't. I only wish Bush had been able to explain it half as well.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 12:02pm

<>


Yeah, I am pretty darn young... 25 to be exact.

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 12:06pm


Yes, he does understand the problems we face, but what he doesn't understand is simple mathematics. There simply aren't enough people making over 200,000 a year to pay for government run healthcare, huge increases in education spending, increased defense spending, and cutting the federal deficit in half while giving the middle class an even bigger tax cut as he promised. He also doesn't understand that increased taxing of small business owners will eliminate jobs, eliminate MORE healthcare benefits, and thrust more people into poverty. But he does understand how to pit rich against poor and scare old people with the best of them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-06-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 12:07pm
Edwards got his butt kicked. Great job, Cheney!

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