Before the speeches started, two of Edwards’ senior staffers were touring the press filing center. Someone asked for a speech preview. One of the staffers rolled his eyes: “The expectations are so high for him…”
I wondered if that was something he actually thought or something he wanted us to think he thought. Having seen Edwards’ speech, I think it was the latter — someone who was really trying to rise above high expectations wouldn’t have given the safe, cut-and-paste stump speech that Edwards just did. He recycled anecdotes that, however powerful, must surely be as familiar to politically involved Iowans as they are to reporters: The James Lowe one, the “Elizabeth and I decided sitting in a hospital room, after a day of tests” one, and the swimming pool suit one. Also, he hates lobbyists — and his many pointed references to lobbyists and how he didn’t take money from them were his only jabs at Hillary for the night. But I doubt anyone missed significance of this one: “In the 1990s, Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate and the Congress but lobbyists [still] killed universal health care in the United States of America.”