DAYTON, Ohio -- Dick Cheney and John Edwards have a few things in common: They are both running for vice president and they are both Homo sapiens.
But you would struggle to find two greater stylistic opposites in American politics.
Edwards is a populist outsider; Cheney is a capitalist insider.
Edwards, who is 51 but looks younger, is known for his oratorical flair and exuberance. Cheney, who is 63 but looks older, is known for his reticence and discretion. He takes as a mantra, "You never get in trouble for something you don't say." (A quote he attributes to former House speaker Sam Rayburn.) Edwards's wife, Elizabeth, calls her relentlessly sunny husband "the most optimistic person I know." Cheney once took a personality test that found him best-suited to a career as a funeral director.
Edwards runs four miles a day. Cheney has had four heart attacks.
Edwards is "very beautiful," according to Teresa Heinz Kerry. Cheney is "not the prettiest face in the race," says President Bush.
"People keep telling me that Senator Edwards got picked for his good looks, charm and great hair," Cheney said in a speech here Thursday. "And I say to them, 'How do you think I got this job?' " The line -- a staple of his stump routine -- always brings giggles. But it also is revealing. These are very different men touting very different tickets to very different constituencies. To compare their manners, themes, applause lines and crowds is to glimpse the distinct anthropologies of the two campaigns for the presidency.
Traditionally, vice presidential candidates have served a set of prescribed functions. They are cheerleaders for their running mates and attack dogs against their opponents. In this campaign, they are playing to carefully screened audiences, who have usually been issued tickets. The crowds cheer, make noise, wave signs and do what they're supposed to do -- look good and giddy for television news clips, convey a sense of momentum.
Both men campaigned last week in battleground states of the Midwest. It's unknown whether either changed any minds. But their performances yield broader lessons.
On With the Show
Campaign venues in a general election are essentially TV studios. This is what it looked like Wednesday when Cheney, accompanied by his wife, Lynne, held a "town meeting" in the southwestern Missouri city of Joplin. The Cheneys sat side by side on a small stage amid flags, Bush-Cheney signs and 300 supporters who filled four risers around them. There were, at first glance, no more than two non-whites in the audience.
With muscled security guards standing everywhere, the setting looked a little like the "Jerry Springer Show" -- except that there was absolutely no disagreement here about anything. One member of the audience began a question by saying, "Just let Brother Ashcroft know that his fellow Missourians are praying with you guys."
The iconic town meeting provides a forum for citizens to engage community leaders in a vigorous exchange of concerns. The election town meeting provides true believers the chance to ask softball questions and applaud answers they already know and agree with.
On Friday, Edwards participated in a Kerry-Edwards version in front of a little yellow house in Flint, Mich. The "front porch" meeting -- a staple of the Kerry-Edwards campaign's roving studio -- convenes the candidate with a group of "regular people" who are going through some hardship, usually economic. The candidate will then tell the "regular people" how his prospective administration would address their concerns.
This could be any neighborly lawn scene, except for the bright lights and boom mikes and huge speakers and the mob of photographers on a flatbed truck and the entourage of about 200 staffers, media members, Secret Service agents, police officers and onlookers swarming 4021 Cuthberton.
