The Edwards Speech
Watching the positive reviews to the Edwards speech, I wonder if I saw something else. One of the first rules of effective trial advocacy is that you pick a theme, preferably simple, and stick to it. All "hope is on the way" chanting at the end of the speech aside, Edwards's speech failed there. Instead of the expected smooth trial attorney, the speech resembled the an impassioned version of the laundry lists that Clinton and Bush used to give during their State of the Unions. Edwards wants to finish the job on welfare, he wants a higher minimum wage. American consumers must be protected from foreign products they like. Increased spending on public schools and health care is demanded. He wants tax break on health care premiums, tax credit for after school programs, a tax break on tuition if first person in family to go to college, and more incentives to teachers. But wait, he can't be a knee-jerk liberal: he wants to increase spending on special forces and new military equipment.

How will democrats pay for this? Well he is going to raise taxes. Oops my bad - not a tax raise - a tax rollback. My apologies to the campaign for forgetting this repeatedly stressed point. Cutting wasteful government spending will be done as well. I'm sorry, but with policies like prevailing wage law (which is one of the main factors in keeping government contracts costs inflated) supported by the Democrats, I happen to be quite skeptical.

As a final point, the speech and the after speech spin emphasized the positive nature of the Democrats compared to the negativity of the Republicans. Right.