William Jelani Cobb on John Edwards

Is Populism All That Popular?
by William Jelani Cobb

We know, or ought to know by now, that race is the plot twist in the American storyline. Take a fairly straightforward national coming-of-age tale and factor in that four-letter word and it coils into unpredictable kinks and convolutions. That said, not even the most studied observer of this unfolding epic would've predicted our present circumstance – one in which a Southern white man with great hair finds himself trailing a black man and a white woman in the presidential polls.

Of all the Democrats running, John Edwards is the only Southern white man and he has the nerve to be a populist at that. He recently concluded a multi-state "poverty tour," which, in light of Hurricane Katrina's extended aftermath made an important statement. Coming off the GOP's gutting of Medicare, failures on education, attempts to hijack social security, support for outsourcing and ongoing regressive taxation schemes it would seem that Edwards' focus on poverty would generate a good deal of electoral traction. Instead it probably ensures that he will be unelectable.

In 1964, Barry Goldwater orchestrated the most successful failure in the history of American politics. Goldwater was crushed by Lyndon B. Johnson but the former's opposition to civil rights provided a roadmap for the future of the GOP. Nixon's famed "Southern Strategy" in 1968 entailed pointing out to whites in the former Confederacy that the Democrats were soft on race. Going back to the days of Roosevelt, the growing political profile of Northern black voters made it increasingly difficult for the Democratic Party to hold onto working class and poor whites – especially in the South. The emergence of "Reagan Democrats" sixteen years after Goldwater was partly a product of that dynamic. (It was no coincidence that Reagan gave a campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi – the site where the civil rights workers Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner disappeared – and announced to the crowd that he had "always favored states' rights.") In short, the GOP realized that race could be the wedge that cracked the Democratic Party's base in half.

Edwards is basically trying to run a reverse of the 1968 Southern strategy. He has pinned his hopes for the White House on an attempt to prove that the Republicans are soft on class. On the surface it would seem that John Edwards has grabbed a bullhorn to inform America that the sky is blue. But sometimes the obvious still needs to be pointed out. The racial plot twist has created a bizarre scenario in which an unemployed factory worker and the CEO who fired him enter the booth and vote for the same candidate. An alliance of rich people and poor people working together to keep it that way.

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William Jelani Cobb, Ph.D. is an associate professor of history at Spelman College. His third book, now available from NYU Press: To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic