After the debate, the Clinton campaign claimed the other Democrats had "piled on" Senator Clinton. Her campaign sought to paint her as the victim of an attack. Some people claimed this "attack" would backfire on the other candidates, and Edwards in particular, apparently thinking that people would sympathize with Clinton's inability to answer the tough questions she was asked.
The New Republic, in an article wittily if bizarrely titled "Edwards's Scissor Hands," has a very interesting take on how Edwards's experience as a trial lawyer has taught him how to read a jury or an electorate. (Emphasis mine.)
It was hard not to think of this passage on a brisk morning last Friday in Cheraw, South Carolina, as Edwards warmed up a crowd of some 200 locals. A few days earlier, Edwards had led the Democratic field in its first thorough grilling of Hillary Clinton--at one point urging her to shift from general- election mode to "tell-the-truth mode." Now he was eager to revisit the moment. "I want to start by saying a few words about the debate that took place in Philadelphia a couple of days ago," Edwards announced. "You know, I have a really simple rule: When you get asked a yes or no question, you can't answer yes and no. That doesn't work. ... We certainly can't afford to have a Democratic nominee who does that." The crowd chuckled, then nodded along in approval.
Though Edwards was the debate's consensus winner, the distinction had come with a caveat: What if he'd unwittingly turned Clinton into a sympathetic victim? It was a reasonable question, but one that ignored a key biographical detail: Having spent two decades doing rhetorical battle in some of the most hostile courtrooms in North Carolina, with juries ready to punish the slightest hint of overreach, Edwards arguably has a better feel for how voters will react to his words than any candidate in recent memory.
"There are a lot of people that the jury doesn't want to see you pound on," Edwards told me later. "What happens is, psychologically, they'll put themselves in the shoes of the witness. And you don't want them to do that." Then he picked up on the analogy between a trial and a campaign: "Tough is fine. Juries don't mind you being tough. Voters don't mind you being tough. ... If you're being factual and you're giving them information that's defining their choices, nobody's offended by that."
I think that Edwards is using his best courtroom skills here, and if his personal history is any indication, the battle over Clinton's Kyl-Lieberman vote is one he will win. What do you think? Is Edwards convincing the jury? Or is Hillary Clinton a sympathetic witness? Vote in the poll.
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