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: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:20pm


I have to agree-I've always found him attractive as well. But I don't really see Kerry as quite the same type.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-24-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:23pm
I'm trying hard to ignore this ludicrous comment. i hope you're joking, even so-not funny.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:25pm
Also check this site out: http://www.dailykos.com/ It talks about last night and some of the things Cheney said. All the way from Senate with Edwards to his remark on Edwards' hometown.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:26pm

I still dont know how Gore lost the debates, as Bush really didnt do a lot to win them in my opinion.>

Qutie honestly, I barely remember the substance of those debates, but it's hard to forget Gore's constant loud sighing, head shaking and eye rolling. Perhaps it was because the matters being debated were far less weighty. Gore lost mainly because he just didn't come across as very likeable, IMO. He came across as childish, petty and phony, particularly when he walked over to Bush and loomed over him in a ridiculously obvious attempt to rattle him.


Edited 10/6/2004 2:49 pm ET ET by liveanew

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:31pm
I didn't see the 2000 debates since I wasn't old enough to vote back then, but I've seen clips of them showing Gore sighing etc. when he disagreed with something Bush said. I think that probably hurt with the election no matter who actually won the debate. Only thing I can think of.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:37pm
< Let me reiterate, I meant fear- as he claimed in a previous townhall style meeting- that if one votes for Kerry they are doomed to suffer at the hands of terrorists.>

That's another comment of Cheney's that has been taken out of context and distorted. He's talking about the danger of another attack being treated as a law enforcement and not a military matter. (You'll have to excuse the source, I know most of you will cry foul because it's a conservative website, but I think it gives a good explanation, one the Cheney himself has reiterated.)

http://www.thatliberalmedia.com/archives/002656.html

"AP readers are not told that the AP snipped Cheney's quote in the middle of his sentence, in a way that supports the AP's interpretation of Cheney's remarks as an argument that a Kerry presidency will lead to another terrorist attack. When you read Cheney's quote in its full context, it is highly questionable whether the AP's interpretation is correct.

I heard Cheney's quote on the radio today, and later found it in a couple of places on Nexis. (I'll provide a web link when one becomes available.) When I read the entire passage in context, it does not appear to me that Cheney is arguing that electing Kerry will lead to another terrorist attack. Rather, Cheney appears to be arguing that, if Kerry is elected, the next terrorist attack will be viewed according to a pre-9/11 mindset, and will consequently be treated as a criminal act rather than an act of war.

Here is the full quote, in context, with the most relevant portion set in bold type:

We made decisions at the end of World War II, at the beginning of the Cold War, when we set up the Department of Defense, and the CIA, and we created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and undertook a bunch of major policy steps that then were in place for the next 40 years, that were key to our ultimate success in the Cold War, that were supported by Democrat and Republican alike -- Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Gerry Ford and a whole bunch of Presidents, from both parties, supported those policies over a long period of time. We're now at that point where we're making that kind of decision for the next 30 or 40 years, and it's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice. Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.

We have to understand it is a war. It's different than anything we've ever fought before. But they mean to do everything they can to destroy our way of life. They don't agree with our view of the world. They've got an extremist view in terms of their religion. They have no concept or tolerance for religious freedom. They don't believe women ought to have any rights. They've got a fundamentally different view of the world, and they will slaughter -- as they demonstrated on 9/11 -- anybody who stands in their way. So we've got to get it right. We've got to succeed here. We've got to prevail. And that's what is at stake in this election.

While Cheney's language could have been more precise, I think that his point was clearly that Kerry would view any future terrorist attack as a law enforcement matter -- not that a Kerry presidency would cause another terrorist attack. At the very least, this is a plausible interpretation of Cheney's quote."

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:38pm
What does his nephew look like?
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:45pm


I'm a little confused by that-Edwards claims he supports extending those benefits to same sex couples "in long term committed relationships". Without marriage, who determines what a long term committed relationship is? Is it 3 months? 6 Months? 5 years? How are couples going to prove that they are in a long term committed relationship? I've also never had anyone explain to me the difference between a civil union and a legal marriage. To me it sounds like just a cop out to avoid taking one side or another.

Personally I feel the time has come to legalize gay marriage. As a constitutional matter, I believe the issue of gay marriage (as all marriage issues are) ought to be left to the individual states.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:48pm
< But dont you realize that the terrorists like John Kerry, so perhaps they would be willing to work with his administration in some form of a coalition?>

You're right-perhaps if we were just a little more 'sensitive" towards them they would stop killing us in order to achieve Muslim domination of the world. Um, probably not.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-23-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 2:54pm
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040821_1512.html

Not a great photo of him, but the first one I found.

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