David Saunders, a wiry, chain-smoking, 59-year-old adviser to Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards, is as bald and blunt as Edwards is coiffed and controlled. Known by his backwoods nickname, "Mudcat," he's a self-described "rural liaison" who is helping Edwards craft a populist message of economic equality for "Bubba," that catchall for the traditional white, male voter living in rural America. In real time, that means Saunders, a native of Roanoke County, Virginia, can put John Edwards on a stage next to bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley while reminding voters that Democrats like guns, too. With consultant Steve Jarding, Saunders co-authored the 2006 book Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out. Having helped Mark Warner get elected as Governor of Virginia in 2001 (in part by concocting a bluegrass jingle for his campaign), he used some of the same populist themes to aid Jim Webb's successful 2006 bid for senator.
Saunders insists that John Edwards is the one presidential hopeful who can get through to "the culture" because he's from rural North Carolina. Edwards loves his own "people," Saunders says. But is that enough to win over culturally conservative white men who've been voting Republican for 30 years?
MEN'S VOGUE: You call yourself a "rural liaison." How does one get into such a business?
DAVID SAUNDERS: I was drunk. [Laughs] And on January 3, 1983, I stopped drinking. I had a buddy who was a very powerful Virginia legislator named Dick Cranwell who'd stuck by me and worked with me and all. And I'd helped him some in politics. And then he became House majority leader and we started winning elections. You know, we'd get 60 percent of the vote in a 65 percent Republican district. We just did rural things, talked about kitchen table issues and understood the psyche of the people around us, and we won some more elections. Dicky called me one day in late 2000 and wanted me to meet him for a sausage biscuit, and he told me that with redistricting coming, he had been redistricted into a seat with two other legislators and was stepping down. And he had talked to Mark Warner and Mark Warner was really interested in doing a rural campaign. So that's how I got here.
MEN'S VOGUE: You picked John Edwards early while Mark Warner was still in the race. Why did you go with Edwards at that point?
SAUNDERS: It's very simple. I am much, much more a rural advocate than I am a Democrat. And I'm plum fed up with the way rural America—56 million of us—have been screwed. What deregulation and these trade treaties, what corporate pirates have done to us is unconscionable. And Johnny Edwards is right where I am. He's plum fed up. You can go through the South now—you know where we were raised—and they all look the same now, like Sherman went through there and didn't burn anything. But nobody really wants to talk about economic fairness. [Listen to an MP3.]
MEN'S VOGUE: What convinced you that Edwards meant it?
SAUNDERS: I know the guy. God, I've known him since December of 2001. Johnny's one of the most misportrayed people in the history of American politics.
MEN'S VOGUE: Why?
SAUNDERS: In 1980, one percent of the people made eight percent of the money, now one percent of the people makes more than 20 percent of the money. Disparity is at an all-time high. And it pisses me off that anytime anybody asks a question about John Edwards and his strong beliefs on economic fairness, everybody talks about how he isn't qualified to talk about it because he has a highfalutin haircut and lives in a high-powered house. What they're saying is only the uneducated can talk about education, only the sick can talk about health care. That's how ludicrous that whole mindset is.
