I was wondering this weekend why we hand't heard more about John Edwards' trial lawyer-ness from the GOP. Sure, the news has been filled with Swiftvets stuff for the last week or two, but since the Bush campaign isn't associated with that stuff, I was sure that Rove had something else in the hopper.
Turns out, says the Washington Times, that
GOP strategists are concerned that Edwards will turn and beat 'em like a red-headed stepchild (see Faircloth, 1998).
Quote:
Many remember Mr. Edwards' first campaign, in which he toppled a sitting senator — Lauch Faircloth, a Republican hog farmer from North Carolina — who spent a lot of money attacking Mr. Edwards for making millions from personal-injury lawsuits.
"Every time we talked about it, he'd bring out one of his clients who was some victim in a terrible tragedy," said one Republican who worked on that 1998 campaign. Many of those clients are children or the parents of children who were horribly maimed or killed.
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Bush himself may be learning this, too.
Quote:
President Bush, who does not shy away from noting Mr. Edwards' career on the stump, got a dose of the counterattack strategy during a visit to Mr. Edwards' home state of North Carolina in 2002.
Mr. Bush went to High Point to call for a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical-malpractice suits. "What we want is quality health care, not rich lawyers," he said during a campaign tour to help Elizabeth Dole win her seat in the Senate. "Higher and higher insurance premiums make it nearly impossible for a lot of doctors to practice medicine." He timed his visit with the release of a report by the Bush administration that cited clients of Mr. Edwards as having won "the litigation lottery" with a $23 million verdict.
Mr. Edwards arranged a conference call for reporters with the parents of Bailey Griffin, who eventually died after suffering from cerebral palsy. "What I heard was in some ways we're considered to be lottery winners," Christopher Griffin said. "Every time I go to my daughter's grave, it's hard to feel that way."
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