I Got A Voicemail From John Edwards
by Todd Beeton, Tue Oct 09, 2007 at 02:40:26 PM EDT
...or so said a text message I received this past weekend. The text directed me to call 323-982-7968 (it only works when dialed from my cellphone) where I was greeted by the following recorded message from David Bonior:
Hi, this is David Bonior. As the national campaign manager for John Edwards, I wanted to let you know about the exciting results of two national polls that were recently released.In head to head matchups, John Edwards beats out Giuliani, Romney, and Thompson with a 9 to 11 point lead in both the latest Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls. John is the only Democratic candidate that beats each Republican in these match-ups.
So if we want to take back The White House, John Edwards needs to be our nominee.
We need you to forward this message to a friend and let voters across the country know that John is the only candidate that can win in November.
I know Edwards has been touting his electability for much of this campaign, hoping lightning would strike twice and the electability argument would take center stage as it did in the early primaries 4 years ago. My guess, however, is that this will prove to be a less than compelling argument. First of all, doesn't electability only really work as an argument if you know who your opponent is? Against Bush, the tough-talking shoot first war president, war hero John Kerry was seen as the best choice to go up against him in 2004. Notice how the Republicans this year constantly raise the spectre of a Clinton nomination in order to then argue why each of them is best suited to go up against her. Without a Republican heir apparent waiting in the wings, it's much more difficult to tell which Democrat would in fact be "most electable" next year and as such, I suspect it will play less of a factor in determining the Democratic nominee.
Undeterred, Edwards here is using polls that suggest that he's best positioned to win against all three of the GOP front-runners based on national head-to-head match-ups. Putting aside for a moment the concern troll aspect of the voicemail, this idea that John Edwards is the only Democrat who can win next year (I'd wager that most Democrats think any of our candidates would likely beat the Republican,) this argument also smacks somewhat of desperation, since for much of the campaign, Edwards has been very much about making the policy argument for his candidacy; if he's resorting to citing polls, doesn't that mean the policy argument isn't working? Also, while I'm unaware of exactly to whom these text messages were sent, the Bonior voicemail seems a bit insider baseball to be effective on a mainstream level. But perhaps the biggest problem with it is that it's an inherently rational appeal. In poll after poll, respondents say that they see Hillary Clinton as the Democratic candidate best positioned to beat the Republican in 2008. This judgment isn't based on any polls or even policies as far as I can tell, but rather is based on the sense that she's beaten them before and she'll beat them again, something Clinton has made a peripheral emotional thread of her campaign. Like scissors going up against rock, Edwards is trying to trump an emotional judgment people have already made with a rational one.
I do think the strategy here is a good use of the technology, though. Once you get the text, you call the number and at the end of the message, you are instructed to press 4 to send the message to your friends. Very smart way of potentially expanding his list, I just don't know if this was the message to do it.
Tags: John Edwards (all tags)
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