Posted on 12/28/2007 9:56:17 AM PST by jdm
How can one make a case for running a government effectively when the candidate can’t even manage his own schedule? John Edwards has people scratching their heads in Iowa and everywhere else — because that’s all they can do when his campaign events are supposed to start:
Like Bill Clinton and Jesse Jackson before him, Mr. Edwards nearly always runs late while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination. He routinely begins events more than 45 minutes or even an hour past the scheduled starting time, keeping dozens or, lately, hundreds of people in jam-packed rooms awaiting his entrance.
With the approach of the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the New Hampshire primary five days later, Mr. Edwards, touring the two states at breakneck speed, has been drawing crowds that are bigger, louder and more prone to the occasional standing ovation than ever before.
And while most people who come out to see him are willing to endure some delays, his habit of lateness has alienated others, some of whom say it is just plain rude.
Running late occasionally on the campaign trail happens, and is more or less expected. When someone does it all the time, it comes across as both undisciplined and rude. And when their staff uses the downtime to try selling merchandise, it makes the attendees feel like saps — hardly the kind of grassroots feeling a candidate like Edwards needs.
Campaigns have symbolic value as well as practical electoral value. Voters see how campaigns are run and make evaluations about the executive abilities of the candidate. For Edwards, who has no executive experience at all, this symbolic value is even more critical. If he cannot manage his schedule as a candidate, that directly reflects on his ability to manage the White House and other executive responsibilities.
The most hilariously clueless story in the Times comes last. While Edwards kept an Iowa crowd waiting for an hour and 15 minutes, staffers tried selling pins for $10 each. Not only does this make little sense — why would someone pay to wear a campaign button? — but it adds insult to injury. The campaign has already made clear that it doesn’t value the time and effort of the potential constituents, and now it wants them to pay for the rude behavior of their candidate.
Edwards already has an image of self-absorption. This just adds cluelessness to the mix.
Gee, I could wait all day, or all week, or all month without hearing him speak.
Some would say that it makes him seem like his time is more important and that it makes him “presidential”.
It also helps him to monopolize the time of those who come to see him (can’t check out the competition that day).
"P-S-S-S-S-S-T-T-T-T!! Did you hear about Johnny Edwards' love child...
John attended the Axel Rose School of Time Management.
How insulting to Axl Rose!
“John attended the Axel Rose School of Time Management”
Yet, he’ll still bill you 8 hours for a 4 hour day...
Silky Pony is a joke... I must conclude that either:
A) He really has no clue or
B) He is making money by running.
jw
Maybe I misunderstood. But I thought it was Fred who was late. HA HA. GO FRED GO.
Its not too late til Elisabeth ‘The Big E’ Edwards says it!
And don’t you forget it!
(chuckle)
Well, he does have a 28,000-square-foot estate to heat.
He has a really hairy schedule...
He must have a fantastic bimbo eruption squad since this story is so well buried.
In Portsmouth, N.H., they asked a local union official, J. J. Joyal, to take the stage and entertain the crowd assembled at a conference center. (Meanwhile, Mr. Edwards was shaking hands with people in an adjacent kitchen, at a session closed to the press.)
This isn't just a matter of making a schedule that's a bit too ambitious and then not being able to keep up, in spite of great effort to do so. He wasn't stuck in traffic, or delayed at an airport due to weather, or just running behind arriving from a previous event. He was already right there, and just didn't give a cr*p that he was keeping all his fans waiting, while he engaged in a long hand-shaking session in an adjacent room.
Keeping to a schedule is only for the little people.
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