Edwards tagged 'populist' early on

After John Edwards charged that Barack Obama would be too willing to compromise with special interests, Obama jabbed back during an interview with the Washington Post on Nov. 8, 2007.

"John wasn't this raging populist four years ago when he ran" for the previous Democratic nomination, Obama said. "He certainly wasn't when he ran for the U.S. Senate."

Edwards has run for major office three times: He ran for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina in 1998, and he's run for president in 2004 and 2008. News reports from his 1998 race show Edwards was described as a populist early on, running as "the people's senator" and saying he would help fight powerful interests like the insurance lobby, just as he did in his career as a successful trial lawyer.

Ferrel Guillory, a longtime Edwards watcher and director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed Edwards as a "suburban populist" back in 1998. In a 2007 interview with PolitiFact.com, Guillory recalled that first race. "The way Edwards framed himself was very much in tune with the modern suburban Southern middle class, who have anxieties about their medical care, about the quality of their children's education, and about their future," he said.

If Obama didn't think of Edwards as a populist in 2004, a lot of other people seemed to. The Los Angeles Times wrote of Edwards, "The North Carolina senator lays his populist cards on the table in New Hampshire," while David Brooks wrote a column about Edwards titled, "The Happy Populist." Brooks, a conservative columnist, criticized Edwards' ideas as "false" and "too facile," but he painted a striking picture of classic populist rhetoric: "The emotional climax of his speech comes when he describes how he used to represent 'people like you' against teams of highly paid, distinguished corporate lawyers. 'And you know what happened? I beat them, and I beat them, and I beat them again!' The crowds go crazy..."

Guillory said Edwards has struck populist themes his entire political life, but that's not to say Edwards hasn't sharpened his rhetoric and branched out to other populist issues over the years. During the course of the two presidential campaigns, Edwards has increased his support of unions, a crucial Democratic constituency, and spoken out more about international trade policy.

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"Edwards is in a different place than he was in 1998," Guillory said. "But it's not like he couldn't go back and give his speeches from 1998. He's just running for a different office in a different context."

We give Obama a False ruling on his remark that Edwards came to populism recently. His Senate record may not be the most substantial, but Edwards has consistently raised issues of economic inequality his entire political career.