Following YearlyKos Debate, Edwards Uses Corruption to Frame Race as Him vs. Clinton

I'm just back from the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, and wanted to point folks to two YouTube clips of what were the best and most telling moments - by far - of the conference's presidential campaign interchanges. As you will see, after John Edwards pushed Hillary Clinton into a corner about her ties to Washington corporate lobbyists at the debate, he continued on the theme in his town-hall-style breakout session - a sign that, coupled with his history from 2004, shows that he is aiming to use the issue as a way to frame the race as him vs. Clinton. If I were Clinton's campaign trying to, for instance, paint American politics' top recipient of health care industry money and lobbyist cash as the candidate of "change," Edwards' line of attack is exactly what I would be most afraid of.

Watch the first clip from the debate - and watch how Hillary Clinton gets laughed at, not only by the audience, but by Barack Obama who is sitting next to her. This is about as revealing a moment as you will find on which candidates do - and do not - represent change:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5njRbQIJt_s

In the face of Edwards' discussion of how both he and Obama don't take money from K Street, Clinton actually goes on record bragging that she will continue raking in massive campaign contributions from corporate lobbyists, and claiming that "lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans." 

But my favorite line was when Clinton claimed, "I don’t, I don’t think based on my 35 years in fighting for what I believe in anybody seriously believes I am going to be influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group." Oh really? How about, as just one example, Clinton's vote for the 2001 Bankruptcy Bill? You remember that bill - it was the one written by the credit card industry that allows them to jack up interest rates on low and moderate income Americans who are struggling to pay their bills. Are we really to believe that vote wasn't "influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group?" Please.

Sure, Edwards voted for that bill, too - as did most of the senators, Republican and Democrat. He's also since said that, "Like a lot of Democrats, I voted for a bankruptcy reform bill before [and] I can't say it more simply than this: I was wrong." But that's not even the point - the point is that whereas he acknowledges that the campaign finance and lobbying system itself is rigged to regularly create votes like that, she's actually trying to deny that anything is even wrong, which beyond any one bad vote, is the real problem and the real contrast.

Following the debate I attended Edwards town-hall-style breakout session. As you can see from the video I got below, Edwards continued hammering the lobbyist theme and used it to draw a sharp distinction between him and Clinton, using more clear-cut terms than I've seen any of the candidates use in trying to frame the race. Watch the clip at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZXXGdLAM2g

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