Posted 7:49 PM by Robert

A Positive Message Of Optimism And Hope

The New York Times reports that following his encouraging Iowa performance, Senator John Edwards is keeping his stump speech positive and has stuck to his message of optimism and hope.

So what does that mean in practice? Well, apparently, this:

Just as in Iowa, [Senator Edwards] sought to criticize President Bush as having helped create "two Americas," one for the haves and one for the have-nots, in an effort to undercut Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.

"I expect him to say the state of the union is strong," Mr. Edwards said, repeating to a scrum of reporters on the steps of the library here what he had just told the audience inside. "The question is which union? The union of special interests and insiders is strong. The problem is there are a lot of Americans who are struggling every single day, and they are the people who need our help."

It is not inappropriate in a campaign for Senator Edwards to offer such criticism and his harrowing vision of what the American union has become. But if that's what the Times and Senator Edwards think of as constituting the the "positive", "optimism" and "hope" in his message, it's terrifying to imagine what the Times and this man think it means to actually go negative.