campaign desk

John’s Joke

Needling the press, for points

January 2, 2008

Burlington, Iowa– About 150 people packed John Edwards’s low-ceilinged strip mall campaign office here. The candidate stood on top of a chair near the door, and thanked the crowd, which spilled-over into the hall, for coming out and keeping the campaign’s spirits high.

“I’m still getting energized,” he boasted. “The guys in the press are gettin’ tired.”

No debate there. It’s broad daylight as I type this in the press bus on the way to Iowa City. Still, ten or so of my colleagues are slumped back or sprawled out with their eyes closed. Matt Phillips of Newsweek has rolled his sweater against the window and stuck his leather hiking boots into the aisle. Jo Piazza of The New York Daily News is in a fetal position under a cream-colored half-length winter coat, the furry lining peaking out near her face.

Edwards made the same joke earlier this morning at a Mt. Pleasant house party, and considering the laughs it’s gotten both times–and that it reinforces the up-all-night narrative of his thirty-six-hour “Marathon for the Middle Class”–I doubt we’ve heard the last of it.

Here’s a similar line from Roxanne Conlin, an Edwards state campaign co-chair. While giving the introduction in Burlington, she reassured the audience that her candidate was tested and trusted:

“We’re not buying a pig in a poke,” she started. “You all know that expression? Except for the press corps from New York?”

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It’s not exactly like we’re inconspicuous–blackberry clad, bus-transported, and managing to be oddly over- and under-dressed at the same time. (Staying warm has something to do with this.) While the notebooks, cameras, and voice recorders are dead giveaway enough, it’s still a safe bet that the guy topping his French cuffed shirt with a grey pullover with a bright red zipper (as British-born Matt Bigg, Reuters’ Atlanta bureau chief does) is not an Iowan sizing up one last contender.

No one’s accused Edwards of being short on charm, and the ribbing always comes off as good-natured. But it works on another level. When the campaign gets the whole room to laugh at the outsider press, it puts Edwards’ team (made up of outsiders, just as blackberry-clad and bus-transported as the press corps) on the same side of the joke as the audience. And being seen as being on the voters’ side is a good thing indeed. Call it humor with a point.

Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.