Edwards Hammers Away at Clinton (and in New Orleans)

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards launched his campaign from the 9th Ward of New Orleans. From time to time over the course of the campaign he has returned there to work in the community with supporters from One Corps – the citizen activism off-shoot of his campaign. While the Clinton campaign was offering debate watching parties with Bill, and the Obama team had “Dinner With Barack,” Edwards gave away the chance to join him in working up a sweat rebuilding homes in New Orleans.

Edwards has shown that he knows his way around a hammer. Perhaps that is why he received the endorsement of the Carpenters union, eh?

But, in the days and weeks that have now passed since the Democratic Debate in Philadelphia, Edwards has been doing other hammering as well – with rival Hillary Clinton held with tongs against the anvil.

Entitled “The Politics of Parsing,” the video above is one of the most effective web videos of the campaign to date. While I evangelize day in, day out about using video to let voters get to know your candidate; there is also necessity the use it to help them get to know your opponent. Edwards campaign put this video out on the heels of the well-covered brouhaha near the end of the Philly debate. It makes their case with sound and titles and visually reinforces the point.

Feeling that they’d scored a hit, the campaign followed up with a flashback to the YearlyKos event a while back. On the 2008 candidate panel, Clinton raised a few electronic eyebrows among the Kossacs by stating – in no uncertain terms – that she would continue to take contributions from lobbyists, because they “represent real people.” That was a line perfectly teed up for both the populist Edwards and the reformer Obama.

After their initial hit on Clinton’s “positions” on the issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and the follow up with her clear defense of Washington lobbyists, Edwards campaign closed the circle with a video news clipping of Edwards concisely answering the question Clinton danced around.

This series of clips – which were woven into a fundraising push – demonstrate the power of narrative continuity across multiple pieces. While each stood up well as episodic clips, the story they told as a thought-out series was even stronger. And notice none of them included the candidate giving the stump speech for the umpteenth time!