Domestically, I also thought Edwards was able to offer traditional Democratic support for the less fortunate without engaging in sour leftist resentment. I’m always moved by white Southern men of a certain generation who can also speak so effectively about civil rights. Not all of them have come around so passionately. And he balanced his big=spending with an honest description of how he’ll pat for it:
And everybody listening here and at home is thinking one thing right now: OK, how are you going to pay for it? Right?
Well, let me tell you how we’re going to pay for it. And I want to be very clear about this. We are going to keep and protect the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans — 98 percent. We’re going to roll back — we’re going to roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. And we’re going to close corporate loopholes.
I’d rather cut spending. But I’m not a Democrat. And the Democrats can now claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility that the GOP, under Bush and Hastert and Frist, has abandoned. It will be hard for Bush to defend the tax cuts for the very rich in a debate, especially one framed this way by the Democrats.
THE GOP DILEMMA: How can Bush respond to this increasingly effective message? His only real choice is to say what the Republican machine has been saying: don’t believe them. They’re liars and liberals who will sell out the war and our military as soon as they get the chance. Or, as some readers often inform me, a vote for Kerry will be a vote for annihilation at the hands of terrorists. Or they will keep going back to Kerry’s record. None of this is out of bounds, but I don’t think it’s very effective. The trouble is that this line of attack comes across as so negative, as rooted in fear rather than hope. What Edwards accomplished last night was to make the Dems seem like the optimists in this race – those unafraid of the dangers of the world, happy warriors, if you will. And Ronald Reagan proved that optimism wins in American politics. What Bush has to do, I think, is not take the bait and go even more negative. He must point to progress in Iraq and Afghanistan and remind people who made that possible. If things deteriorate, of course, then Bush really is up a creek. And the dour Cheney up against sunny Edwards won’t help. But again, Edwards played a strong and canny card last night. This campaign, whatever else it is, is intelligent and determined. I’ve long believed that the result of this election will not be close. Either Bush will be re-elected decisively or he will lose decisively. The odds on the latter just shortened again.
The Dish 