I took a second look at John Edwards’ announcement speech from last week, which was strikingly brief (less than 1700 words in prepared remarks) and disappointingly generic in some places.

 

Let’s start with the positives – Edwards spoke extensively about volunteerism, a perfectly noncontroversial idea that everyone can back, and then actually appeared to be suggesting that the public cannot expect government and politicians to solve their problems for them: 

Earlier this year, we were not in the Ninth Ward but in St. Bernard Parish with 700 young people who gave up their spring break to come here and work to help rebuild New Orleans.This is an example of what all of us can do if we actually take it upon ourselves to take responsibility.

And we want people in this campaign to actually take action now — not later, not after the election. We don't want to hope that whoever's elected the next leader of the United States of America is going to solve all our problems for us. Because that will not happen, and all of us know it. Everyone listening to the sound of my voice right now knows that.If we actually want to change this country and we want to move America the way it needs to move, we're going to have to do it, all of us, together. Instead of staying home and complaining, we're asking people to help.

You know — all of us have so much to contribute and we have different things to contribute. And we want you to help not starting later, but starting right now.And that's why we're here in New Orleans, because Americans can make a huge difference here.

And later:

And what I've seen — I learned a lot in the last campaign, which some of you heard me talk about — but I've actually learned more since the last campaign, because I've seen firsthand what actually happens when, instead of waiting for somebody else to take care of our problems, we do something.

Having said that, the policy proposals laid out in Edwards' speech were pretty much standard issue for a Democratic presidential contender in this decade:

So it's not — and by the way, it's not just Iraq that'll help establish America's leadership role in the world again. We have to show that we have the moral authority to lead. You can't lead through raw power.

And in order to do that, we're going to have to lead on things that, at least in the short term, seem like they're beyond our self- interests, things like the genocide in Sudan and Darfur. We said after Rwanda we'd never let anything like this happen again. Well, it's happening right now. America needs to lead.

I was in Uganda a few weeks ago where there are huge atrocities going on in northern Uganda. America can make an enormous difference there. I was there with the International Rescue Committee, who are another group of Americans that are making a huge difference in the world.There's so many opportunities — global warming, which is a huge moral issue for America and for the entire world.

We need to ask Americans to be willing to be patriotic about something beyond war. We need to ask America to be willing to conserve, to take the steps necessary to get off our addiction to oil, to create a new energy economy in this country.

It's critical to America being able to do what it needs to do in the 21st century. We ought to be the example for the rest of the world. It's not just what we do over there; it's also what we do here.

You know, we've got 46 million, 47 million people without health care coverage? When are we finally going to say, "America needs universal health care"? Because we do. We need it desperately.

I like the idea of America leading on Sudan. The question is, leading how? There’s really only one way that the killing will stop: a properly armed military force standing between the militias and their would-be victims. So who’s up for it?

 

Moving along… 

We ought to be patriotic to do something about global warming. I don't mean in an abstract way. I mean, we've made mistakes in the past. We walked away from Kyoto unilaterally, which was, in my judgment, a serious mistake.

If you are under the age — people often think about global warming as something that is going to affect the next generation. If you are under 60 and something doesn't change, global warming is very likely to affect your life.

And this is another example of a place where Americans can get off their addiction to oil, we can drive more fuel-efficient vehicles, we can invest in some of the cleaner alternative sources of energy — wind, solar, biomass. There are a whole series of things that we need to do.

Come on, man. 95 to 0. 95 to 0!  That was the vote in 1997 when U.S. Senate passed the Byrd-Hagel Resolution which stated was that the United States would not sign any protocol that did not include binding targets and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.” It wasn’t just those big bad Republicans; every one of those good Democrats came to the same conclusion.

 

They could not support Kyoto as it was written, at least partially because it has a great big exemption for China, the world’s second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (and with all that coal they burn, all kinds of other pollutants). India, no slouch in generating carbon dioxide and economic industry, is also exempted. Those are not insignificant objections, and yet Edwards adds to the slippery doublespeak that support of the Kyoto treaty means the speaker loves the environment, and opposition to the treaty marks one as an evil polluter.

 

It's also worth noting that Edwards’ “we’re going to do it together” Bela Karolyi routine (“You can do it, Kerri! You can do it! I cannot do it! You can do it!”) – is that it’s straight out of Howard Dean’s “You have the power” rhetoric from 2004.

 

One of the more interesting books by somebody on the other side of the ideological divide is “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” by Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean. I was reminded of this passage (italics in original): 

Every time I see John Kerry on television, I am struck by the same thought. Whether he is snowboarding or playing hockey or wearing his leathers, sitting on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, the message seems to be the same: Aren’t I amazing? His campaign spots, with the focus on his laudable service in Vietnam, tell the same story: Aren’t I amazing? It’s no different with the other Democratic candidates, or with George W. Bush, the “compassionate’ conservative. All of them had their version of Kerry’s Harley. Look at me. Aren’t I amazing?...

 

This is the difference between the Dean for America campaign and every other presidential campaign of the past twenty years. Every other candidate has started by saying Look at me. Aren’t I amazing?

 

But every time Howard Dean got up to speak, every time his campaign staff go on the web to blog, the message was Look at you. Aren’t you amazing? And they were: 600,000 people committed to a new democracy.

In an era where Time magazine made the safest (and lamest) possible choice in its selection of the Person of the Year, a campaign that focuses on “you” as opposed to the candidate might be the right formula.