We didn't agree on all issues all of the time, but I found him wise, caring, and courageous. Let's clap it up for John Edwards.
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posted
I may be a man, but I agree wholeheartedly with pooka. It'd be nice to have a young and handsome president again; here's to Obama, our last hope Posts: 349 | Registered: Jul 2006
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posted
This picture of Hillary in 1992 almost breaks my heart. She was beautiful and she still is dignified.
I was very angry with Rush Limbaugh's comment of "are we ready to watch a woman president grow old?" back in late December. I mean, I don't expect much more from him. But questioning someone's worth based on their appearance rubs me wrong.
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I think we're talking about it because if Florida really were a beauty contest, it would have been Edwards, Obama, and then Clinton.
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posted
I'm not sure why Hilary's looks is a topic.
Of all the reasons to be for or against someone politically, their physical attractiveness rates right around "can do a cartwheel."
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I saw a program on PBS back in the early 90's about how people who heard the Nixon/Kennedy debate on the radio felt Nixon had won. People who watched it on TV felt Kennedy had won. How you look is part of how you deliver your message.
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See, I'd never associate Coke people and Mac people. I think of Coke as going with PC, and Pepsi as going with Mac. Probably because I don't like either Pepsi or Mac, I guess.
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I'm a Pepsi-drinking PC user. And my coworker is a Coke-drinking Mac lover. Take that, stereotypes!
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: I was very angry with Rush Limbaugh's comment of "are we ready to watch a woman president grow old?" back in late December. I mean, I don't expect much more from him. But questioning someone's worth based on their appearance rubs me wrong.
I've been thinking for the past few days that McCain looks like a total schlump. I mean, I can see him sitting on the sofa in a wife beater drinking a beer with a car on blocks on the lawn. But that's not why I'm not voting for him.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: [qb]I was very angry with Rush Limbaugh's comment of "are we ready to watch a woman president grow old?" back in late December. I mean, I don't expect much more from him. But questioning someone's worth based on their appearance rubs me wrong.
Limbaugh's been taking cheap shots at the way Hillary looks since 1988. Remember when he pasted Chelsie's face on the body of a dog. I just consider this par for Limbaugh and the idiots who listen to him.
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posted
Actually I was thinking it was a "beauty contest" here because there was no campaigning in FL. by the Democratic candidates, so voters voted on whether or not they liked the candidates. Not necessarily physical attractiveness, but everything, based on gut feelings.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I'm kinda glad for this, while I do like Edwards as the kind of guy you could drink a beer with by doing this it ensures that more people will vote for Obama and win the DNC.
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I am unsure what specific things there are to admire about Edwards. Or to dis, for that matter. He was a carefully managed candidate, and I never saw anything past the image.
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The only thing I actively don't like is that I don't particular admire people who get rich by suing people, especially the lawyers for class action suits where the lawyers get expotentially more out of it than the plantiffs.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
It's funny when candidate's looks get brought up--because I think the trend goes that the better-looking, more likable candidate will always win over the other one. Most American people don't care about the politics, they just go with their "gut"--and our guts like prettier people.
Let's look at the history since television came out:
Eisenhower vs. Adlai Stevenson -Ike's prettier and a wartime president
JFK vs. Nixon -JFK younger, prettier
Nixon vs. Humphrey/Wallace/McGovern -Nixon barely wins (without majority) because other side is split, also wartime incumbent
Carter vs. Ford--Carter's prettier
Reagan vs. Carter--Reagan was an actor, making him popular
Reagan vs. Mondale--even though Reagan's older, he's much more likable-looking
George HW Bush vs. Dukakis--Dukakis was younger, but was harsher-looking than the dad-like Bush.
Bill Clinton vs. HW Bush--obvious winner against the now-older looking Bush
Clinton vs. Dole--trend continues
George W. vs. Al Gore--this is the closest race yet--they were both pretty good looking back in 2000. Al Gore loses points in likability by kind of being a smarty-pants, while Bush plays the regular guy who won't talk down to you.
W vs. Kerry--I voted for Kerry, but I hated him--so ugly and unlikable. W also a wartime president.
My analysis is air-tight.
Edwards was the prettiest candidate--he would have won for sure against any of the republicans, except maybe Romney. If McCain gets the Republican nod, they don't have a chance--HE'S TOO OLD LOOKING.
Hillary's definitely a good-looking lady--but she loses bigtime on likability. Thus--in conclusion--Obama is the shoo-in this fall. Fewest wrinkles, big shiny smile, and he hasn't done anything remotely unlikable yet.
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posted
You forgot to add the SuperBowl factor. I've read that: the record of whether the NFC wins or the AFC wins has a far stronger correlation to GeneralElection results than the voting record of any individual state. Never been interested enough to check for myself, nor to remember which conference goes with which party.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Edwards' decision to pull out may have far less effect than might be thought. Most of the mail-in voters who would have voted for Edwards that I know of have already sent in their ballots. If that is true throughout the TsunamiTuesday states, mail-in ballots cast for Edwards will probably cause a severe distortion in delegate proportionment at both the State and the CongressionalDistrict levels.
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quote:I just consider this par for Limbaugh and the idiots who listen to him.
Well, yeah. I was borrowing someone's car and didn't want to mess with their radio.
Though a lot of people claim to listen to him for entertainment value.
And, er, I was well aware that "beauty contest" was a metaphor. This seems to be happening to me a lot lately. I just get so tired of putting the winky everywhere. Also, it doesn't often fully capture my twist on my meaning.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Edwards is more than a pretty face. He has led the campaign for health care and finance reform, and the elevated discourse concerning the working poor can be directly attributed to his unflinching beliefs. The guy has changed the entire debate, and has made the field speak to his issues. If Obama had taken the same tact regarding education or criminal justice, I'd be on a bus ready to be deployed anywhere his campaign told me to go.
The character of the individual candidates matters. The reason this race is energizing as opposed to a scurry to the bottom is because Obama refuses to run a traditional attack campaign. I fully believe that that one man has raised the tenor of partisan politics. And the only reason anyone is talking about the state of the poor in this race is because of Edwards. Left to their own devises, the entire debate, on both sides of the "divide" would concern Iraq, security, and tax cuts. Edwards' campaign has mattered. Time will tell how much.
posted
Even worse then voting for a candidate because of looks is voting for a candidate because their name sounds better.
I've met people who openly admitted to doing that, but they, "voted" so they performed their civic duty. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Hmmmm....even in a topic about John Edwards we somehow spend more time talking about Clinton and Obama...can't imagine why he had to drop out.
I actually think is was a shame. The media gave him the raw end of the deal. I don't agree with any candidate issue for issue, but I thought John Edwards was a good guy and looks don't really play into it (although he is nice looking). The media didn't judge him on his competence or even his charisma, they judged him because he was a less interesting candidate in a race that, for the first time, includes both a black man and a white woman.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Was it Mr. or Mrs. Edwards who said they were sorry they couldn't make him black or a woman? (tongue in cheek, of course)
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:The media didn't judge him on his competence or even his charisma, they judged him because he was a less interesting candidate in a race that, for the first time, includes both a black man and a white woman.
He was a less interesting candidate than Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton. With Obama, not only do you have a black man, but a black man who doesn't sound like Clarence Thomas or Donna Brazile or Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice. You get a black man who, ostensibly, hasn't bought into to great white status quo myth. With Hilary Clinton, you don't just get a woman, you get a controversial former first lady, and Bill Clinton, former president back into the White House, to boot. We are talking about two deeply extraordinary people, not JC Watts and Kathleen Sebelius.
quote:Was it Mr. or Mrs. Edwards who said they were sorry they couldn't make him black or a woman? (tongue in cheek, of course)
It's a tough world for 55 year old white guy millionaires, those cats can't ever catch a break. And he were a black man or a white woman, his polls would still plummet because he isn't Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton; he just would have been another black guy talking about poverty or another woman whose name isn't Clinton.
__________
Edwards, like Chris Dodd before him, was one of a string of good rich white guys who got beat out by more interesting, compelling, better candidates in this race, for the good of America. The primary was a better place for having Edwards in it, I think it would have been better still if he had held on until the Convention, but he wasn't owed any more than he got from the media or the party apparatus.
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quote:The media didn't judge him on his competence or even his charisma, they judged him because he was a less interesting candidate in a race that, for the first time, includes both a black man and a white woman.
He was a less interesting candidate than Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton. With Obama, not only do you have a black man, but a black man who doesn't sound like Clarence Thomas or Donna Brazile or Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice. You get a black man who, ostensibly, hasn't bought into to great white status quo myth. With Hilary Clinton, you don't just get a woman, you get a controversial former first lady, and Bill Clinton, former president back into the White House, to boot. We are talking about two deeply extraordinary people, not JC Watts and Kathleen Sebelius.
I don't disagree with any of that, but I still think John Edwards got a bum deal. And maybe that's just the way the game is played -- maybe he picked the wrong race to get into.
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I thought John Edwards's "we need to support work, not wealth" statement (i.e., people who earn money need to be able to keep more of it, but not necessarily people who inherit it) made a lot of sense. But maybe it was because of his personal wealth and trial lawayer past, or just his smart-alecky tone of voice, but I never got the impression that he really cared about the poor. I felt as if he just wanted to reshape the country in his own image and that appealing to the poor was what he thought would work best to get himself made president.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote: I was very angry with Rush Limbaugh's comment of "are we ready to watch a woman president grow old?" back in late December. I mean, I don't expect much more from him. But questioning someone's worth based on their appearance rubs me wrong.
But isn't that what our culture does? Not that I would ever expect you to actually listen to Rush to understand what he was asking but his point was that our culture values looks over a lot of other factors especially on TV. Unless suddenly everything has changed and we no longer care about good looking women on TV or in magazines? We still don't have headlines about certain actresses gaining weight or dressing badly?
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
The idea is that it's worse to see a woman get old than a man -- which was actually being followed up on in the show I heard (which wasn't actually Rush but some guest host.)
Yeah we judge people according to their appearance, and it means there will always be people whose substance is not what their appearance implies. In some religious systems, it's actually considered wrong to judge someone according to their appearance. And yet we all keep trying.
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quote:The idea is that it's worse to see a woman get old than a man -- which was actually being followed up on in the show I heard (which wasn't actually Rush but some guest host.)
Then I must be confused about your Rush comment unless it was just a way to bash Rush? Rush was lamenting that our media does in fact judge women much more harshly than men especially when they age.
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, pooka.
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