I wouldn't say that I endorsed John Edwards, however he is very talented when it comes to responding to attacks and a positive tone. If his ability to respond positively to attacks was any indication of his ability to be a successful leader, he might make great president.
Regardless, this weekends attack on John Edwards by Ann Coulter, was very strange even for Ann Coulter's standards. Ann delivered a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. She stated, "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic Presidential Candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'"
She was apparently trying to be funny. The joke received a slow applause or acceptance initially. Other conservative presidential candidates later took a stance against the comments. The comments were captured on video and in a sense Ann as well as the rest of the audience will now look like bigots in that video. Ann will look like a big it for saying the words and the audience will look like bigots for laughing and applauding at the words. The incident harms the image of the conservative political action conference (CPAC) . Coulter was responsible for speaking the words, the audience was responsible for accepting the words.
Edwards had a great response,
"I think its important that we not reward hateful, selfish, childish behavior with attention. . . .I also believe that is important for all of us to speak out against language of this kind; it is the place where hatred gets its foothold, and we cant stand silently by and allow this kind of language to be used."
Coulter was not apologetic at all. She later told in the New York Times, "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."
Tactics to Rile Edwards
it strikes me that this attack on Edwards seems to have been executed in to upset Edwards and attempt to draw him out for seeing them to join in a native response or at least acknowledge a negative attack. Ann seems to have tried to bring him down to her level, and Edwards did not take the bait.
In addition Edwards stated that the comments were similar to racial slurs that he's heard in the South in the past. When asked specifically about his opinion regarding Coulter, he stated that he didn't have one and left it at that. All in all that seems to be a fairly dignified way of making what could have been a newsworthy issue into a nonissue a negative into a positive, and at the end of the day John Edwards stays clean.
The one possibly daring move that Edwards didn't make him was a change in his website that attempted to use this issue to raise hundred thousand dollars and Coulter cash. His words did not acknowledge her negative statement, however his campaign website did. Personally I like both moves to statements and the website tactic, however I don't think they work well together. I think he should have chose one or the other and not both. In today's election campaign scenarios I suspect he should've let some other political group raise the Coulter cash to run ads for his benefit without his direct intervention.
1 comment:
Great!!!
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