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Chasing Wisdom
by Rob Poggenklass · Op-Ed · June 20, 2007
Edwards family visits Hometown Days carnival
Elizabeth Edwards and her two youngest children, Emma Claire, 9, and Jack, 7, stopped in West Branch for an hour or so Saturday afternoon. She was here to campaign on behalf of her husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who is vying to win the Iowa Caucuses, a feat he nearly accomplished four years ago.
As home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Iowans are no stranger to political visits; many of us know that they rarely start or end when they’re supposed to, and that things can sometimes go a little haywire.
This, my friends, was a strange political event. That is not to take anything away from Mrs. Edwards, a classy, intelligent woman whom I have all the respect for in the world, or from her children, who had quite a lot of fun at Hometown Days.
Let’s start at the beginning, or perhaps a bit sooner. Edwards and her children were supposed to be arriving from Iowa City at a Main Street restaurant, Bruster’s, around 3:20 p.m. Of course, no one at Bruster’s knew that and when the Edwards campaign staff discovered, around 2:30 p.m., that Main Street wasn’t the hub of activity they’d expected, they moseyed on down to the Village Green.
Instead of arriving late, as political types tend to do, the Edwards family arrived about half an hour early. The only forewarning West Branch had of the visit was some word-of-mouth advertising and an online news story posted last Wednesday, when I first got confirmation.
After a talk with local Democrats, Jack and Emma Claire sprinted to the National Guard climbing wall. Jack expressed some concern about weighing only 55 pounds, as the requirement to climb the wall was 77, but the Iowa National Guard didn’t seem to mind.
This wasn’t, however, because the National Guard folks knew who they were dealing with. Once they discovered that they had let the young son and daughter of a possible future president climb up the wall — quite safely, I might add — they informed Mrs. Edwards that they were actually from the Missouri National Guard.
Those Army folks, always quick with a joke.
Elizabeth Edwards then introduced herself to a park ranger from the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, a story that already has several versions. At this point, there are two things I can report for sure. First, the National Park Service was not informed prior to the visit that there would be a political event on the Village Green. Secondly, after the encounter, Edwards, her children and her staff — including a male videographer and a female photographer — exited the Village Green in a prompt fashion.
Superintendent Cheryl Schreier, who attended Hometown Days on Saturday, was not in the office early this week to comment, nor was the park ranger who met Mrs. Edwards.
It gets weirder.
The Edwards family moved to the carnival where frankly, at 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, there were more carnival workers than visitors. Only at this point did a handful of misinformed freelance photographers make their way from Bruster’s to Second Street. A carnival worker asked why all the cameras were following this woman and her two children.
“She’s John Edwards’s wife. He’s running for president,” someone said.
“So?” one worker asked. I didn’t ask if he was a Republican or just apathetic.
Two other carnival workers asked a similar question, as photographers homed in on Mrs. Edwards’s dart-throwing skills (she’s quite good at hitting the balloons, by the way). I told them who she was.
“That’s funny,” said one of the men with a smile. “We were just talking about politics.”
As I paused to scold myself for having missed that conversation, the worker interrupted with a suggestion for me to relay to Mrs. Edwards, which I did. Actually, I told the nanny.
“She should try to win the Sponge Bob over there,” the man said.
The Edwardses didn’t win any Sponge Bobs, but Jack did win a dragon that he draped proudly around his neck. A Hometown Days volunteer, Kathy Knoop, presented the two Edwards children with fluorescent green t-shirts displaying the event’s cow partying theme.
Jack’s mother took him behind a tree to remove his shirt so he could proudly display the cow. As one of the stylishly dressed, New York City-based freelance photographers closed in on Jack, I wondered how much money she might get for photos of a half-naked 7-year-old boy. Whatever it is, I’m not envious.
After a brief stop at a Little League game in Beranek Park, where Emma Claire mentioned that her softball team’s name is the Hawkeyes, the family ventured on to Tipton to rejoin their favorite candidate. Oh, but that’s not entirely accurate — or at least it wasn’t on Saturday. When the Edwardses visited the Cedar County Democrats’ tent, Mrs. Edwards asked her daughter which of the presidential candidates she liked best.
Did she point to dear old Dad? No, she pointed to Hillary Clinton. One strange political event, indeed.
Editor’s note: I want to make a clarification, which apparently needs to be made before this becomes as big as the haircut “story.”
Emma Claire is 9 years old. Which, ladies and gentlemen, is old enough to make a joke. It’s not old enough to make an endorsement that matters.
Also, though I didn’t see it at the time, Elizabeth Edwards said that after her daughter pointed at Clinton, she pointed at her dad. In other words, kids say the darnedest things. Someone should create a TV show.
By posting this story under the headline “Edwards’ daughter picks Hillary,” Matt Drudge has misled many people into believing that it was Cate Edwards, a Harvard Law Student, who had endorsed her father’s opponent.
To contrast Drudge’s news judgment with that of the West Branch Times: he made this a lead story on his web site. I included it as the last sentence of an opinion piece near the bottom of Page 3.
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