Edwards SC Mill ad
This is John Edwards' latest ad in South Carolina.
Here's what our friends at the Associated Press had to say about it:
SCRIPT: John Edwards: "I'm John Edwards and I approve this message. I'm not running for president because I read something in a book. I'm not running for president because some political consultant told me what I'm supposed to say. I'm running for president because of 54 years of my life I have believed to my soul that the men and women who worked in that mill with my father were worth every bit as much as the man that owned that mill."KEY IMAGES: A brief opening photo of Edwards during his approval note at the outset. Most of the rest of the ad is footage and audio of Edwards during a speech, with cutaway shots of the crowd listening and then cheering at the end. The ad briefly cuts away from the speech footage to show a snippet of Edwards standing outside his childhood home in Seneca, S.C., with his parents, with text underneath that reads, "John and his parents."
ANALYSIS: The ad continues the former North Carolina senator's populist campaign theme of trying to improve the lives of ordinary people and of speaking to the working class. In South Carolina, where Edwards won the primary in 2004 and which is seen as critical to his campaign this year, the textile industry has lost thousands of jobs. The ad also appears to reach out to black voters: Nearly every crowd shot has black people listening to or cheering for the speech. Blacks comprised nearly half the Democratic primary vote in South Carolina in 2004 and candidates are courting them heavily again this year.