It has always amazed me how the media seemed to flock to the feet of Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and then turn on him so quickly. For example, last spring Edwards was a media darling as he appeared on numerous national television talk shows and even received People magazine's "sexiest politician" award.
But after a rather disastrous appearance on Tim Russert's "Meet the Press" last May, the once-friendly media has been fairly indifferent to Edwards and his aspirations for a presidential bid in 2004.
But as the old saying goes, what goes around comes around. And I suppose the media's fickle attitude toward Edwards is only repayment for the way he has treated his home constituency during the past four years that he has been in the Senate.
During that time, in addition to being named "sexiest politician" Edwards also has racked up numerous awards that the folks back home wouldn't be so proud of, including an "F" rating from the National Taxpayers Union, a 100 percent approval rating from the nation's leading gay activist organization and an 88 percent "lifetime liberal quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action, one of the nation's largest liberal activist groups. The highest rating a member of Congress can earn is 100 percent.
So just what does that mean you ask? Well, ultra-liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy received the same rating from the group. 'Nuff said. That's not surprising given that in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, Edwards described the Massachusetts senator as a "mentor."
But Edwards' liberal advocacy and voting record is not what I have a problem with, per se. The real issue here is that Edwards' policy stances fly in the face of the campaign promise he made to N.C. voters in 1998 to be a "moderate" Democrat while running against then-Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C.
Edwards' voting record alone gives him the distinction of being the most liberal senator in N.C. history. What is even more damning about this characterization is that it is made by a leading liberal organization, making it virtually impossible for Democrats to refute the claim.
In a historically conservative state like North Carolina, these numbers simply don't bode well for an Edwards presidential run, much less a re-election bid to the U.S. Senate. The most recent poll measuring state voters' approval of Edwards conducted by Elon University found that two-thirds of all North Carolinians opposed an Edwards' presidential run and only 43 percent approved of his job performance so far.
One of the major factors hurting Edwards is likely his sharp criticism of the widely popular President Bush. During the 2000 election, Bush won 56 percent of the vote in the state, a larger percentage of the vote than he won in any state other than Texas.
