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Entered the race today.
Until proven otherwise, my impression is that he is a well groomed lawyer and politician. Nothing more, nothing less.
At this point, I'm more interested in listening John Edward, the guy who speaks to dead people, than John Edwards. But I'll give him another chance in the primaries.
My impressions of John Edwards are positive:
- far better for the country than any Republican candidate on the Horizon
- without polarizing baggage (see Hillary Clinton)
- intelligent and well-spoken (see George Bush for counter-example)
- conveys many of the right messages for me:
He seems to champion the rights and concerns of working people - as opposed to being wholly dedicated to providing more comfort & power to those already most comfortable & powerful (see the Bush administration)
- I believe that he is and was opposed to the Iraq war (but I have to double-check this)
- a Democrat without the pointy-nosed, professorial, elitist trappings that so turn off some of the electorate (see John Kerry & Al Gore)
His major drawback in my mind is that he may be a "bit too pretty" - which may detract from his "Presidential stature" quotient.
I welcome him to the 2008 race.
a Democrat without the pointy-nosed, professorial, elitist trappings that so turn off some of the electorate
Last election he did emphasize that he was a "mill worker's son" but I believe in the business world he is more well known for his million dollar legal fees.
He also played it very safe on Iraq in 2004. Let's see if he's a little more couragious this go round.
On the bright side, his performance against Cheney in the VP debate showed he has what it takes on the big stage. All he needs now is the right policies to go with the persona.
On the practical side, he is one of the most electable candidates that could run for the party. Certainly more than Hillary or Obama. Though, being a VP candidate, the GOP didn't give him their best effort last time, it appears they have a hard time going negative on him.
Mmmm.... in checking, it seems that he was initially on the wrong side of the Iraq issue (like so many other Democrats), but then had a change of heart later.
It's not a bad position to be in now - politically speaking: a Democrat who was willing to support the President in military action when he believed there was a threat, but who revoked that support when he found out the truth.
Here's what the New Republic had to say recently about Edwards:
----------------------------------------------------
More generally, Edwards has a unique message that takes advantage of two of Clinton's vulnerabilities. He has moved left on the war like Feingold, but he maintains an aura of general-election electability like Warner. And perhaps most importantly, he has the experience of running once before without the fatigue factor that sometimes hampers a repeat contender. A southern, moderate, antiwar, pro-labor candidate with low negatives and high positives who has already run for president is not a bad combination. He's the new anti-Hillary--at least for the next few months.
----------------------------------------------------
Jennifer_SFBA
12/28/06, 12:44 am
In 2004, it was reported that Edwards attended the Bilderberg Conference in Stresa, Italy.
http://www.greatdreams.com/nwo.htm
Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 11:02 PM
Subject: Bilderberg Conference, 2004 -from Robert Gaylon Ross
Bilderberg Conference, 2004
" ... 2. Senator, and Presidential candidate, John Kerry did not attend, but he sent Senator John Edwards to attend in his place. It would be too obvious if Kerry had attended, and the patriots who observed the attendees as they arrived and departed would certainly report the fact if Kerry were there. This solidifies John Edwards' position as Kerry's running mate, as Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. The Inner Circle of the Bilderbergs always select our world political leaders. ... "
http://www.bilderberg.org/2004.htm
http://www.bilderberg.org/2004.htm#participants
Mr. Anderson
12/28/06, 07:37 pm
John Edwards announced he's running for the office of President today. I knew that would be happening when he had his facial mole removed. Yawn. (We must be pretty lizards.) For all his posturing on poverty, why don't I trust this pretty boy? I guess I must like moles and the imperfect appearance of Kucinich.
cat's meow
12/29/06, 02:22 am
Edwards/Obama or Edwards/Clinton ticket would be one that could take the Whitehouse by getting enough moderate votes.
Mr. Anderson
12/30/06, 08:18 am
Who are these phantom "moderates", Cat's Meow? Every time the left tries to appeal to the center right they get burned and end up with a globalist like Clinton (or Edwards or Obama). All the Democrats, Progressives, Greens and Liberals I know are 'mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.'
In all fairness, I use to think like you. Cautiously. But after the last 6 years of American hell, I throw all caution to the wind and I'm ready to take a stand. Like others here on POL ... I will also work for Kucinich.
NeoCon Newbie
02/12/07, 08:00 pm
What a shock Edwards wants to raise taxes that liberal is a greedy bastard and wants to take money away from people who have earned it. In case you haven't figured it out yet the less taxes there are the more money people have and the more money people have the more they spend which in turn helps the economy go up.
Jennifer_SFBA
02/12/07, 08:55 pm
NeoCon Newbie, I notice you haven't commented on the economic analysis below yet.
Sustainable Developments
November 2006 issue
The Social Welfare State, beyond Ideology
Are higher taxes and strong social "safety nets" antagonistic to a prosperous market economy? The evidence is now in
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
One of the great challenges of sustainable development is to combine society's desires for economic prosperity and social security. For decades economists and politicians have debated how to reconcile the undoubted power of markets with the reassuring protections of social insurance. America's supply-siders claim that the best way to achieve well-being for America's poor is by spurring rapid economic growth and that the higher taxes needed to fund high levels of social insurance would cripple prosperity. Austrian-born free-market economist Friedrich August von Hayek suggested that high taxation would be a "road to serfdom," a threat to freedom itself.*
Most of the debate in the U.S. is clouded by vested interests and by ideology. Yet there is by now a rich empirical rec-ord to judge these issues scientifically. The evidence may be found by comparing a group of relatively free-market economies that have low to moderate rates of taxation and social outlays with a group of social-welfare states that have high rates of taxation and social outlays.
Not coincidentally, the low-tax, high-income countries are mostly English-speaking ones that share a direct historical lineage with 19th-century Britain and its theories of economic laissez-faire. These countries include Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. The high-tax, high-income states are the Nordic social democracies, notably Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which have been governed by left-of-center social democratic parties for much or all of the post–World War II era. They combine a healthy respect for market forces with a strong commitment to antipoverty programs. Budgetary outlays for social purposes average around 27 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the Nordic countries and just 17 percent of GDP in the English-speaking countries.
Friedrich Von Hayek was wrong
On average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on most measures of economic performance. Poverty rates are much lower there, and national income per working-age population is on average higher. Unemployment rates are roughly the same in both groups, just slightly higher in the Nordic countries. The budget situation is stronger in the Nordic group, with larger surpluses as a share of GDP.
The Nordic countries maintain their dynamism despite high taxation in several ways. Most important, they spend lavishly on research and development and higher education. All of them, but especially Sweden and Finland, have taken to the sweeping revolution in information and communications technology and leveraged it to gain global competitiveness. Sweden now spends nearly 4 percent of GDP on R&D, the highest ratio in the world today. On average, the Nordic nations spend 3 percent of GDP on R&D, compared with around 2 percent in the English-speaking nations.
The Nordic states have also worked to keep social expenditures compatible with an open, competitive, market-based economic system. Tax rates on capital are relatively low. Labor market policies pay low-skilled and otherwise difficult-to-employ individuals to work in the service sector, in key quality-of-life areas such as child care, health, and support for the elderly and disabled.
The results for the households at the bottom of the income distribution are astoundingly good, especially in contrast to the mean-spirited neglect that now passes for American social policy. The U.S. spends less than almost all rich countries on social services for the poor and disabled, and it gets what it pays for: the highest poverty rate among the rich countries and an exploding prison population. Actually, by shunning public spending on health, the U.S. gets much less than it pays for, because its dependence on private health care has led to a ramshackle system that yields mediocre results at very high costs.
Von Hayek was wrong. In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness.
*Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this essay misattributed the date of Hayek's suggestion.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Jennifer_SFBA
02/12/07, 09:04 pm
NeoCon Newbie, neither have you yet commented on the economic analysis below:
Richest 2 Percent Own Half the World's Wealth
by Aaron Glantz
The richest 2 percent of adults in the world own more than half the world's wealth, according to a new study released by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University.
The study's authors say their work is the most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken. They found the richest 1 percent of adults owned 40 percent of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent of the world's total.
In contrast, the assets of half of the world's adult population account for barely 1 percent of global wealth.
"It reflects the extreme nature of inequality around the world," one of the study's authors, New York University Professor Edward Wolff, told OneWorld. "Yes, we are richer than Africa and Latin America and most of Asia, but how much richer is what hadn't really been established until our study came out," Wolff added.
According to the report, the average American's wealth amounted to $144,000 in the year 2000, more than 100 times higher than the average Indian or Indonesian, whose assets totaled $1,100 and $1,400, respectively.
The study defined wealth as physical and financial assets--like personal savings and home, land, and stock ownership--less debts.
Besides the United States, only Canada, Western Europe, Japan, and Israel showed average personal wealth of more than $50,000.
Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia, many former Soviet Republics, and most of sub-Saharan Africa showed average personal wealth of under $2,000.
Conflict-ridden countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Sudan did not report data.
"This is a reminder that most people do not live the way middle class Americans live," David Rauchman of the Washington, DC-based Center for Global Development told OneWorld. "That comes out of two centuries or more of history where North America and Europe have experienced steady and fairly rapid industrial development. Meanwhile, places like Asia and Africa haven't so much."
Rauchman said foreign aid programs and philanthropy would go part of the way toward closing the international wealth gap, but trade and immigration policies are also important.
"If we make it easier for clothing manufacturers and farmers in Bangladesh or Mali to ship their goods to the United States so Americans can buy them, that will help and it will be good for us too," he said. "Same thing for immigration. It's good for Mexico if Mexicans can come to the United States and send money home. If we make it easier for people to come and participate in our economy, it's actually good for economies in the rest of the world."
But unfettered free trade tends to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor, says Anuradha Mittal of the California-based Oakland Institute, a think tank that specializes in social, economic, and environmental issues. She says the rise of free trade has increased the wealth gap, both internationally and inside many countries.
Mittal cites as an example the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signed in 1992 by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. "Instead of Mexico being able to export its food to the United States, what's really happened is that U.S. corn exports to Mexico have tripled, pushing 2 million Mexican corn farmers out of business. And those are the very people who then migrate [to the United States]."
Those migrants then work for low wages inside the United States, Mittal argues, pushing wages for all workers down.
In addition, says Mittal, "when you talk about the ability to export you're talking about big plantations, which creates further inequities inside of countries. You're not going to be talking about [improving livelihoods for] small farmers in Mexico or Honduras or India."
One solution put forward by the authors of the United Nations University report is expanding access to microcredit--small loans given to poor people who are not able to get traditional lines of credit from regular banks. The loans, which are often used to help establish or improve small businesses, have proved to be quite safe, with many lenders experiencing repayment rates close to 100 percent.
This month, Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering microcredit program. Yunus shared the award with the Grameen Bank, which he founded 30 years ago. The bank gives small, unsecured loans to nearly 7 million impoverished Bangladeshis--almost all of whom are women.
Yunus started by lending 42 people a total of $27.
"The excitement that was created among the people by this action got me further involved in it," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech in Oslo. "If I could make so many people so happy with such a tiny amount of money, why shouldn't I do more of it? That's what I have been trying to do ever since."
"Grameen Bank gives collateral-free income-generating loans, housing loans, student loans, and micro-enterprise loans to poor families and offers a host of attractive savings, pension funds, and insurance products for its members," Yunus added.
But despite its benefits, Mittal notes that microcredit alone is unlikely to put a significant dent in the international wealth gap.
"Research shows that more than 55 percent of borrowers after eight years of borrowing are still using their loans to buy food," she said. "So while microcredit is a good survival strategy, it is not a solution for development."
Jennifer_SFBA
02/12/07, 09:08 pm
Nor, NeoCon Newbie, have you commented on the related Democracy Index analysis below:
By Laza Kekic, director, country forecasting services, Economist Intelligence Unit
THE WORLD IN 2OO7 democracy index 3
Table 1
Economist Intelligence Unit democracy index 2006
Category scores
Overall I Electoral process II Functioning III Political IV Political V Civil
Rank score and pluralism of government participation culture liberties
Full democracies
01. Sweden 1 9.88 10.00 10.00 10.00 9.38 10.00
02. Iceland 2 9.71 10.00 9.64 8.89 10.00 10.00
03. Netherlands 3 9.66 9.58 9.29 9.44 10.00 10.00
04 Norway 4 9.55 10.00 9.64 10.00 8.13 10.00
05. Denmark 5 9.52 10.00 9.64 8.89 9.38 9.71
06. Finland 6 9.25 10.00 10.00 7.78 8.75 9.71
07. Luxembourg 7 9.10 10.00 9.29 7.78 8.75 9.71
08. Australia 8 9.09 10.00 8.93 7.78 8.75 10.00
09. Canada 9 9.07 9.17 9.64 7.78 8.75 10.00
10. Switzerland 10 9.02 9.58 9.29 7.78 8.75 9.71
11. Ireland 11= 9.01 9.58 8.93 7.78 8.75 10.00
12. New Zealand 11= 9.01 10.00 8.57 8.33 8.13 10.00
13. Germany 13 8.82 9.58 8.57 7.78 8.75 9.41
14. Austria 14 8.69 9.58 8.21 7.78 8.75 9.12
15. Malta 15 8.39 9.17 8.21 6.11 8.75 9.71
16. Spain 16 8.34 9.58 7.86 6.11 8.75 9.41
17. US 17 8.22 8.75 7.86 7.22 8.75 8.53 (Note: 8.53)
18. Czech Republic 18 8.17 9.58 6.79 7.22 8.13 9.12
19. Portugal 19 8.16 9.58 8.21 6.11 7.50 9.41
20. Belgium 20= 8.15 9.58 8.21 6.67 6.88 9.41
21. Japan 20= 8.15 9.17 7.86 5.56 8.75 9.41
22. Greece 22 8.13 9.58 7.50 6.67 7.50 9.41
23. UK 23 8.08 9.58 8.57 5.00 8.13 9.12
24. France 24 8.07 9.58 7.50 6.67 7.50 9.12
25. Mauritius 25= 8.04 9.17 8.21 5.00 8.13 9.71
26. Costa Rica 25= 8.04 9.58 8.21 6.11 6.88 9.41
27. Slovenia 27= 7.96 9.58 7.86 6.67 6.88 8.82
28. Uruguay 27= 7.96 10.00 8.21 5.00 6.88 9.71
Defining and measuring democracy
There is no consensus on how to measure democracy,
definitions of democracy are contested and there is an
ongoing lively debate on the subject. The issue is not
only of academic interest. For example, although democracy-
promotion is high on the list of American
foreign-policy priorities, there is no consensus within
the American government on what constitutes a democracy.
As one observer recently put it, “the world’s
only superpower is rhetorically and militarily promoting
a political system that remains undefi ned—and it
is staking its credibility and treasure on that pursuit”
(Horowitz, 2006, p 114).
Jennifer_SFBA
02/12/07, 09:13 pm
Continued:
By Laza Kekic, director, country forecasting services, Economist Intelligence Unit
Although the terms “freedom” and “democracy”
are often used interchangeably, the two are not synonymous.
Democracy can be seen as a set of practices
and principles that institutionalise and thus ultimately
protect freedom. Even if a consensus on precise defi nitions
has proved elusive, most observers today would
agree that, at a minimum, the fundamental features of a
democracy include government based on majority rule
and the consent of the governed, the existence of free
and fair elections, the protection of minorities and respect
for basic human rights. Democracy presupposes
equality before the law, due process and political pluralism.
Is reference to these basic features suffi cient for a
satisfactory concept of democracy? As discussed below,
there is a question of how far the defi nition may need
to be widened.
Some insist that democracy is necessarily a dichotomous
concept—a state is either democratic or not. But
most measures now appear to adhere to a continuous
concept, with the possibility of varying degrees of democracy.
At present, the best-known measure is produced
by the US-based Freedom House organisation.
The average of its indexes, on a 1 to 7 scale, of political
freedom (based on 10 indicators) and of civil liberties
(based on 15 indicators) is often taken to be a measure
of democracy.
The index is available for all countries, and stretches
back to the early 1970s. It has been used heavily in empirical
investigations of the relationship between democracy
and various economic and social variables. The
so-called Polity Project provides, for a smaller number
of countries, measures of democracy and regime types,
based on rather minimalist defi nitions, stretching back
to the 19th century.
Freedom House also measures a narrower concept,
that of “electoral democracy”. Democracies in this minimal
sense share at least one common, essential characteristic.
Positions of political power are fi lled through
regular, free, and fair elections between competing parties,
and it is possible for an incumbent government
to be turned out of offi ce through elections.
Freedom House criteria for an electoral democracy include:
1. A competitive, multiparty political system.
2. Universal adult suffrage.
3. Regularly contested elections conducted on the basis
of secret ballots, reasonable ballot security and the
absence of massive voter fraud.
4. Significant public access of major political parties to
the electorate through the media and through generally
open campaigning.
The Freedom House definition of political freedom is
somewhat (though not much) more demanding than
its criteria for electoral democracy—ie, it classifies more
countries as electoral democracies than as “free” (some
“partly free” countries are also categorised as electoral
democracies). At the end of 2005, 122 states were
classified as electoral democracies; of these, 89 states were
classifi ed as free. The Freedom House political-freedom
measure covers the electoral process and political pluralism
and, to a lesser extent, the functioning of government
and a few aspects of participation.
A key difference in the various measures of democracy
is between “thin” or minimalist ones and “thick”
or wider concepts (Coppedge, 2005). The thin concepts
correspond closely to an immensely infl uential academic
defi nition of democracy, that of Robert Dahl’s
concept of polyarchy (Dahl, 1970). Polyarchy has eight
components, or institutional requirements: almost all
adult citizens have the right to vote; almost all adult citizens
are eligible for public offi ce; political leaders have
the right to compete for votes; elections are free and fair;
all citizens are free to form and join political parties and
other organisations; all citizens are free to express themselves
on all political issues; diverse sources of information
about politics exist and are protected by law; and
government policies depend on votes and other expressions
of preference.
The Freedom House electoral democracy measure
is a thin concept. Its measure of democracy based on
political rights and civil liberties is thicker than the
measure of electoral democracy. Other defi nitions of
democracy have broadened to include aspects of society
and political culture in democratic societies.
2 Democracy index THE WORLD IN 2OO7
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s measure of
democracy
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index is based on the
view that measures of democracy that refl ect the state
of political freedoms and civil liberties are not thick
enough. They do not encompass suffi ciently or at all
some features that determine how substantive democracy
is or its quality. Freedom is an essential component
of democracy, but not suffi cient. In existing measures,
the elements of political participation and functioning
of government are taken into account only in a marginal
way.
Jennifer_SFBA
02/12/07, 09:13 pm
Continued:
By Laza Kekic, director, country forecasting services, Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit’s index provides a
snapshot of the current state of democracy worldwide
for 165 independent states and two territories. This covers
almost the entire population of the world and the
vast majority of the world’s 192 independent states (27
micro-states are excluded).
Several things stand out. Although almost half of the
world’s countries can be considered to be democracies,
the number of “full democracies” is relatively low (only
28). Almost twice as many (54) are rated as “flawed democracies”.
Of the remaining 85 states, 55 are authoritarian
and 30 are considered to be “hybrid regimes”. As
could be expected, the developed OECD countries (with
the notable exception of Italy) dominate among full democracies,
although there are two Latin American, two
central European and one African country, which means
that the level of development is not a binding constraint.
Only one Asian country, Japan, makes the grade.
More than half of the world’s population lives in a
democracy of some sort, although only some 13% reside
in full democracies. Despite the advances in democracy
in recent decades, almost 40% of the world’s population
still lives under authoritarian rule (with a large share of
these being, of course, in China). Given the most recent
trends, that are tantamount to a retreat from democracy
as discussed in our article in The World in 2007, it is
unlikely that this proportion will decrease signifi cantly
soon. On our ten-country watchlist for likely signifi cant
changes in 2007 (see box below) only one country is on
positive watch and nine are on negative watch.
The relationship between the level of development
(income per head) and democracy is not clear-cut.
There is an apparent association, although even in the
full democracy category there are a few that are not rich
OECD countries. The simple correlation between our
democracy index and GDP per head ($ at PPP) in 2006
is 0.6. This may look surprisingly low—it implies that in
a simple two-variable regression of the democracy index
on income per head, less than 40% of the inter-country
variation in democracy is explained by income levels. If
we also control for oil wealth (with a so-called dummy
variable that takes a value of 1 for major oil exporting
countries and 0 otherwise), the explanatory power of the
regression rises sharply to almost two-thirds of the intercountry
variation in the democracy index. Although this
still leaves more than one-third of the variation unexplained,
it illustrates the often-observed strong negative
impact on democratic development of a reliance on oil.
However, the direction of causality between democracy
and income is debatable. The standard modernisation
hypothesis that economic development leads
to—and is a necessary pre-condition for—democracy, ...
With globalism, manufacturing jobs are being lost to cheap labor overseas. General Motors among other large corporations have gone to China, India, South America, Africa, etc. and the United States is being reduced to a service economy. Property crimes go up when people are not able to maintain a reasonable standard of living. Pyscholgical and emotional disturbances in people goes up along with corresponding violent crimes against persons. Police, legal and prison costs increase at ENORMOUS cost to society and government. There are people who are severely physically and/or menatally disabled and who are not able to work. If everyone in the United States had a Ph.D., there would still not be jobs for everyone. The new statistical rules for determining the unemployment rate in America is to count Americans working as little as one hour per week as being employed. Under the new statisitcal rules for determining the unemployment rate in America, people who were receiving unemployment insurance benefits and whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out are not counted as being unemployed if they have not yet found a job under the "cooked" presumption that they are no longer looking for work and have dropped out of the labor market. People employed less than 20 hours per week receive NO medical benefits. In fact, many workers in America working 40 hours per week receive no medical benefits due to the employer trend toward individual employment contracts that have been popular for foreign workers working in Japan for decades.
A healthy society is one who provides for the welbeing all of it's citizens and the environment on which all life on Earth depends.
NeoCon Newbie
02/16/07, 11:16 pm
Hey John Edwards "No taxation without representation."
-American Revolution
FDRfollower
02/16/07, 11:21 pm
@ NeoCon Newbie
What? :confused:
The BRAD BLOG's [15] "Special Coverage" page documenting the debate for a DRE voting ban and other needed amendments to Holt's legislation is available at: www.BradBlog.com/Holt [16].
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4217:
Kennedy, an activist and actress well known for her role as Dharma's mother on ABC's Dharma and Greg, told The BRAD BLOG [2] that during a Q & A period following his address last night, she asked Edwards whether he would join PDA in their campaign [8] calling for "the complete removal of all Touch-Screen Direct Record Electronic voting machines from U.S. elections, with or without a paper trail."
Drawing an "X" in the air as the question was being asked, Edwards --- who was reportedly upset [9] at Sen. John Kerry's decision not to contest the 2004 Presidential Election count, or lack thereof, in Ohio --- answered with a definitive "Yes!"
"Yes!" echoed Kennedy in response as the audience reportedly cheered and applauded.
Edwards's public support for a ban on DRE voting systems follows just over a week after Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) was asked a related question [10] by an Election Integrity advocate at a public event at the University of California/Santa Cruz. Waters announced, in response to the query, that she would be withdrawing her co-sponsorship of the Holt bill in the wake of the growing concerns about several troubling shortcomings in the proposed legislation.
Kennedy attended the event, sponsored by the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, with friend and former TAXI co-star Rhea Perlman, who unsuccessfully tried to video tape the Q & A session on her cell phone. The BRAD BLOG [2] is attempting to locate a complete video of the event and we'll update this item if and when we do.
Before an audience estimated at 400, Kennedy rose and said to the former Vice-Presidential candidate...
"I'm not going to ask a question about the war," referring to PDA's anti-war campaign calling for withdrawal and diplomacy which Edwards had previously stated support for, "I'm going to ask about election technology."
"I'm going to try not to make people's eyes cross with the technical stuff," she said in recounting her question to Edwards. "You, of all people, know what has happened to our elections under some of this new technology and after working two years on these issues, Progressive Democrats of America and other groups have identified the worst offender as the touch-screen Direct Record Electronic voting machine."
As she spoke, Edwards reportedly nodded and drew a "large and vigorous 'X'" in the air in front of him with his free hand.
"So I'm going to ask you now --- Do you support the complete removal of all Touch-Screen Direct Record Electronic voting machines from U.S. elections, with or without a paper trail?"
Edwards's answer was an unequivocal and well-received "Yes!" according to Kennedy.
PDA has joined a growing list of Election Integrity advocates and organizations (including The BRAD BLOG [2]) in calling for an end to DRE voting systems and demanding amendments to Holt's Election Reform bill as currently written.
The bill, while calling for a number of much-needed improvements to the current electoral mess in America, stops short of calling for a ban on DRE/touch-screen voting machines. Such systems have been proven over the last several years to be inaccurate, extremely vulnerable to tampering, and prone to failures and breakdowns which, during the 2006 election cycle, denied thousands if not millions of legally-registered voters from being able to cast a vote.
PDA's campaign calling on citizens to insist that Congress amend Holt's bill to require a full ban on DRE voting systems is here... [13]
An earlier campaign, launched by more than 40 non-partisan Election Integrity organizations and endorsed by PDA, calling on Congress to require a paper ballot --- not a "trail" or "record," and one that is actually tabulated --- for every vote cast in America, is here... [14]
The BRAD BLOG's [15] "Special Coverage" page documenting the debate for a DRE voting ban and other needed amendments to Holt's legislation is available at: www.BradBlog.com/Holt [16].
:thumbup:
Presently, John Edwards has my vote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/10/AR2007031001374_2.html?nav=rss_politics
New John Edwards Sells Less Biography, More Liberal Issues
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 11, 2007; Page A01
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, March 10 -- When he first ran for president, then-Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) was the fresh face in the Democratic Party, a perpetually buoyant campaigner who built his candidacy around his own biography and whose success in the primaries earned him a place on the 2004 Democratic ticket.
Fast-forward to today, and there is a new John Edwards on the campaign trail. His demeanor is more serious and his elbows far sharper than four years ago. Two years after leaving the Senate, he rarely mentions his time in Washington. Nor does he talk about his experience as Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry's vice presidential running mate.
His political positions also have more edge. An emphasis on biography has given way to a focus on issues, where there has been a demonstrable shift to the left -- on the Iraq war, health care and the federal budget deficit. The changes have given him entree to the liberal voters and constituencies who are influential in selecting Democratic presidential nominees.
Although he labors in their shadows, Edwards has drawn attention from the party's two glamour candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), this year's fresh face. Both rivals recognize the potential threat he carries to their candidacies, particularly in Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire, states where the nomination battle begins.
Edwards's moves have raised eyebrows inside the party among those who wonder whether the differences indicate a genuine evolution or pure political calculation.
"Some of what is being characterized in that way is the result of me being strong and clear about where I stand and not being soft and muddy," Edwards said during an interview Friday after a day of campaigning in western Iowa. "I think that we're in a place in American history where any serious presidential candidate and the president of the United States need to be clear what they want to do for the country."
But in the next breath he defended himself as someone whose compass has remained fixed. "I should make absolutely clear: Nothing has changed about John Edwards as a human being and my value system," he said. "It's exactly the same as it's always been, which is wanting to give people the chances that I've had."
Anita Dunn, a Democratic strategist, said Edwards is running "a very different kind of campaign this time, with a very different moral compass." The differences, she added, are likely to draw scrutiny from his rivals in the primaries.
Steve Elmendorf, who managed Democrat Richard A. Gephardt's 2004 presidential campaign, said the changes could give rise to questions of authenticity. "His challenge is to show that, if he is different, experience caused him to change where he is," Elmendorf said.
Edwards advisers say some of the changes reflect significant shifts in public attitudes since 2004, particularly about the war. They also say Edwards having run before makes him a different candidate.
"He knows what he wants and believes it with a passion," said David E. Bonior, a former congressman from Michigan who is Edwards's campaign manager. "I think he's very confident about his values and beliefs and he's expressing that."
"This is not about small, baby steps," Edwards told an overflow audience in Council Bluffs on Friday. "It's not about political calculation and incremental change. We're going to bring about the real changes, the transformational change that's needed in this country."
skip
On health care, he has proposed a plan for universal coverage that he says would cost $90 billion to $120 billion a year. He would pay for it by rolling back Bush's tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. When he describes the details, he says matter-of-factly that it could lead to a government-run, single-payer health-care system, a position no other major candidate has come close to articulating.
As some Democrats, including Clinton, call for a return to fiscal discipline in light of current budget deficits, Edwards takes the opposite view. What threatens the country is too little investment in health care, alternative energy sources, education and job security, he says, and he would rather do something about those than try to reduce the deficit significantly.
"I think he has a strategy to meet the party where it is," said veteran strategist Robert Shrum, who was an adviser when Edwards first ran for the Senate in 1998. "It's a party that wants fundamental change, not just in Iraq but on issues like health care. He's going to meet the voters where they are. I think he believes, and I think he's correct, that the old strategy of triangulation won't work in Democratic primaries -- and certainly won't work for him."
more.........
Now if Rocky will step up & run with him...................;)
Jumpin Jupiter
03/16/07, 10:32 pm
What a shock Edwards wants to raise taxes that liberal is a greedy bastard and wants to take money away from people who have earned it. In case you haven't figured it out yet the less taxes there are the more money people have and the more money people have the more they spend which in turn helps the economy go up.
Since my taxes have gone up since Bush has been in office, does that make him a "liberal is a greedy bastard and wants to take money away from people who have earned it?"
Bush is now a Liberal?
Dude, you need to wake up to the real world.
Thelonious
03/22/07, 02:22 pm
Who are these phantom "moderates", Cat's Meow? Every time the left tries to appeal to the center right they get burned and end up with a globalist like Clinton (or Edwards or Obama). All the Democrats, Progressives, Greens and Liberals I know are 'mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.'
In all fairness, I use to think like you. Cautiously. But after the last 6 years of American hell, I throw all caution to the wind and I'm ready to take a stand. Like others here on POL ... I will also work for Kucinich.
A vote for Kucinich is just like a vote for Nader. We had just a few hundred too many of them in 2000 and that's how this Fascist president got to where he is. I vow to support the Democratic nominee whoever it is, and not criticise him/her needlessly. To get elected in this system you need hundreds of milions of dollars. No perfect progressively clean candidate can touch that kind of money. Our next president (whether I like it or not) will be either Far from perfect, the Democrat or tragically incompetent, dishonest and following the Wacko Right agenda, the Republican. You know my choice. What's yours?
I agree regarding the realities of our election system as is, Thel, but your point is better applied to the Presidential election rather than the Primaries. We do have the luxury of voting for our ideal candidate in the primaries. From then on, it is the 2 party system, like or not for now.
If Nader had been the Democratic primary winner and candidate for 2000 or 2004 he probably would have won!
A vote for Kucinich is just like a vote for Nader.
Um, what? How is a primary vote for Kucinich like a general election vote for Nader? That's like saying my table-lamp is like a dinosaur.
Now, depending on how the primary shapes up, it may well be that progressives will have to use the techniques of strategic voting. For example: if on primary-eve in your state, polling holds a 45%-45%-10% split with Hillary as one of the 45's. However, if it's something like a 65%-30%-5% split, there's no downside in supporting the guy with 5%.
Nobody's crystal ball is good enough to see that far out.
yes, actually it is true that the primaries present a similar problem. My crystal ball says that it will be relatively close between Hillary, Obama, and Edwards and I would be pressed whether to vote Kucinich or make it count for Edwards.
If Gore is in, I think the race is between him and the 2 new/younger faces. The media has imprinted Hillary with this "apple" ad and it may even be her Howard Dean moment.
Edwards scored good points today in the worst possible way with his wife's cancer announcement. It is hard not to get behind his populist platform and pull for the couple on a personal level that carries over to his public campaign. He got on my good side when he apologized for his Iraq vote and pulled out of the Fox debate.
Who'se got the scoop regarding his stand on the issues? It's a little hard to tell being that last election he was obligated to align with Kerry's platform.
In my opinion, John Edwards has been telling it like it is, unlike most of the presidential candidates.
I posted this on his idea for National Healthcare:
Re: Healthcare Issues
http://progressivesonline.com/showthread.php?t=377
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, February 08, 2007
PAUL KRUGMAN:
" Edwards Gets It Right
What a difference two years makes! At this point in 2005, the only question seemed to be how much of America’s social insurance system — the triumvirate of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — the Bush administration would manage to dismantle. Now almost all prominent Democrats and quite a few Republicans pay at least lip service to calls for a major expansion of social insurance, in the form of universal health care.
But fine words, by themselves, mean nothing. Remember “compassionate conservatism?” I won’t trust presidential candidates on health care unless they provide enough specifics to show both that they understand the issues, and that they’re willing to face up to hard choices when necessary.
And former Senator John Edwards has just set a fine example.
At first glance, the Edwards health care plan looks similar to several other proposals out there, including one recently unveiled by Arnold Schwarzenegger in California. But a closer look reveals extra features in the Edwards plan that take it a lot closer to what the country really needs.
Like Mr. Schwarzenegger, Mr. Edwards sets out to cover the uninsured with a combination of regulation and financial aid. Right now, many people are uninsured because, as the Edwards press release puts it, insurance companies “game the system to cover only healthy people.” So the Edwards plan, like Schwarzenegger’s, imposes “community rating” on insurers, basically requiring them to sell insurance to everyone at the same price.
Many other people are uninsured because they simply can’t afford the cost. So the Edwards plan, again like other proposals, offers financial aid to help lower-income families buy insurance. To pay for this aid, he proposes rolling back tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000 a year.
Finally, some people try to save money by going without coverage, so if they get sick they end up in emergency rooms at public expense. Like other plans, the Edwards plan would “require all American residents to get insurance,” and would require that all employers either provide insurance to their workers or pay a percentage of their payrolls into a government fund used to buy insurance.
But Mr. Edwards goes two steps further.
People who don’t get insurance from their employers wouldn’t have to deal individually with insurance companies: they’d purchase insurance through “Health Markets”: government-run bodies negotiating with insurance companies on the public’s behalf. People would, in effect, be buying insurance from the government, with only the business of paying medical bills — not the function of granting insurance in the first place — outsourced to private insurers.
Why is this such a good idea? As the Edwards press release points out, marketing and underwriting — the process of screening out high-risk clients — are responsible for two-thirds of insurance companies’ overhead. With insurers selling to government-run Health Markets, not directly to individuals, most of these expenses should go away, making insurance considerably cheaper.
Better still, “Health Markets,” the press release says, “will offer a choice between private insurers and a public insurance plan modeled after Medicare.” This would offer a crucial degree of competition. The public insurance plan would almost certainly be cheaper than anything the private sector offers right now — after all, Medicare has very low overhead. Private insurers would either have to match the public plan’s low premiums, or lose the competition.
And Mr. Edwards is O.K. with that. “Over time,” the press release says, “the system may evolve toward a single-payer approach if individuals and businesses prefer the public plan.”
So this is a smart, serious proposal. It addresses both the problem of the uninsured and the waste and inefficiency of our fragmented insurance system. And every candidate should be pressed to come up with something comparable.
Yes, that includes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. So far, all we have from Mr. Obama is inspiring rhetoric about universal care — that’s great, but how do we get there? And how do we know whether Mrs. Clinton, who says that she’s “not ready to be specific,” and that she wants to “build the consensus first,” will really be willing to take on this issue again?
To be fair, these are still early days. But America’s crumbling health care system is our most important domestic issue, and I think we have a right to know what those who would be president propose to do about it."
__________________________________________________ ____________________________
:thumbup:
from Katrina Vanden Hueval,
The Nation:
BLOG | Posted 03/22/2007 @ 10:29am
Energy and Substance
"While too much of the media has focused on first-quarter fundraising battles and the sniping between the Obama and Clinton camps, presidential candidate John Edwards took the opportunity to lay out a bold energy plan that addresses some of the great challenges of our time.
As he said in a speech in Iowa, "Our generation must be the one that says, ‘we must halt global warming.' Our generation must be the one that says ‘yes' to renewable fuels and ends forever our dependence on foreign oil. And our generation must be the one that builds the new energy economy. It won't be easy, but it is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."
Some key aspects of the Edwards Energy Plan include a cap on greenhouse pollution in 2010 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050 – consistent with the dictates of the latest climate science. He would use an economy-wide, cap-and-trade system and sell a portion of the pollution permits to raise $10 billion a year for a New Energy Economy Fund. The Fund would be used to pursue clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies and create 1 million jobs in the process – along the lines of what the Apollo Alliance has outlined. One billion dollars a year from would go towards helping US automakers meet higher fuel economy requirements and utilize the latest technologies, including biofuels, hybrid and electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells, and ultra-light materials. Finally, Edwards' plan calls for opening the electricity grid so that small-scale renewable electric generation – by farms, factories, schools, and communities – can compete with large, central power plants. (This is something Academy Award winner and pre-Scalia President-elect, Al Gore, touted in hearings on Capitol Hill today. Great to see Gore pushing the Presidential debate without even being a part of the race).
Edwards might be winning the early frontrunner race when it comes to substance over flash – he has been clear and strong on health care, labor rights and now energy. (And so far, among the frontrunners, Edwards and Obama have been clearest about a plan for ending the War in Iraq – though neither of them matches the clarity and courage of Dennis Kucinich, a presidential candidate who should receive more attention from the blogosphere since it isn't coming from the conventional media.)
With the science of global warming now settled for just about everyone who isn't named Sen. James Inhofe ☼, and the costs of a status quo energy policy perfectly clear, speaking out boldly on how to address these challenges should be a prerequisite for any presidential candidate. Good to see John Edwards doing the right thing here. "
.................................................. .................................................. ............................
John Edwards was my choice for President in the 2004 primary and presently is my current choice for 2008.
:thumbup:
Thelonious
03/23/07, 04:11 am
I don't have any problem with Edwards except that he has less experience than I would consider ideal. The most experienced candidate is currently Hillary (she spent ALOT of time in the White House. Maybe more than Gore) followed closely by Richardson. I'm a big fan of Richardson myself, but I think with the California primary moved up only STAR-Power can with the nomination now.
Thelonious
03/23/07, 04:20 am
If Nader had been the Democratic primary winner and candidate for 2000 or 2004 he probably would have won!
V,
Do you live in San Francisco??? Travel in different circles for a bit. I lived in Ohio for 7 years once. It was the time of the Reagan Democrats (often known as Joe Sixpack) I met Thousands of people who will never NEVER vote for Nader. These are the swing voters who decide every election. The idea that Nader could somehow win the presidency is completely absurd.
One friend of mine from Philly doesn't even believe that Joe Sixpack will vote for Obama. That's why he supports Richardson in the primaries. Says he's the only electable Democrat. Maybe he's right. I haven't been able to monitor the mood in Phily lately.
Thelonious
03/23/07, 04:26 am
Ok. Edwards is a really smart guy. And I actually believe that his heart is in the right place. (maybe I'm outrageously gullible) He like Bill Clinton in 92 doesn't have a lot of experience going into the race, but also like Bill Clinton, I believe he is smart enough to surround himself with smart experienced people to help him make decisions. (This is by the way the first and formost failing of G.W. He surrounded himself with incompetent ideologues, and every subsequent blunder flowed from there)
Who'se got the scoop regarding his stand on the issues? It's a little hard to tell being that last election he was obligated to align with Kerry's platform.
Here's a summary of the negative things I saw at OnTheIssues (http://www.ontheissues.org/John_Edwards.htm):
1. He goes for the style of censorship favored by Tipper Gore and Hilary Clinton: protect kids from the violence in Super Mario Brothers.
2. He's all for forcing his religion down your throat with school prayer and Jesus plays at Christmas.
3. Favors the racist death penalty.
4. Military issues: mixed bag. For example, supports Reagan's looney "National Missile Defense System."
5. Only got a 37% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Voted to defund renewable and solar energy initiatives. Voted against CAFE fuel efficiency legislation.
Between Obama and Edwards, there have been times I've leaned a little one way or the other. But never more than a smidge. Makes me nostalgic for Dukakis.
Thelonious
03/23/07, 07:27 am
My dear Haus,
The death penalty is the biggest non-issue issue ever. Presidents have little to no influence over its use. It is merely a philosophical litmus test. Purists like Dukakis stand by what they believe in and get killed during the elections because they look like wimps. (Joe Sixpack HATES wimps. He doesn't like stuckup elitists from New England either, but he really HATES wimps). Pragmatists like Clinton look tough get elected and actually DO something for the country.
Thank God there are still a few pragmatists in the Democratic Party.
I viewed On The Issues and will quote some in blue:
Here's a summary of the negative things I saw at OnTheIssues (http://www.ontheissues.org/John_Edwards.htm):
1. He goes for the style of censorship favored by Tipper Gore and Hilary Clinton: protect kids from the violence in Super Mario Brothers.
Relief for working parents via taxes & schools. (Aug 2003)
Voted NO on killing restrictions on violent videos to minors. (May 1999)
Rated 0% by the Christian Coalition (:thumbup:) : an anti-family voting record. (Dec 2003)
2. He's all for forcing his religion down your throat with school prayer and Jesus plays at Christmas.
Do you have specifics on this?
3. Favors the racist death penalty.
Favors topic 8:
Death Penalty
(2 points on Social scale) Death penalty OK despite flaws, on state-by-state decision: Favors topic 8
Capital punishment needed-some crimes deserve ultimate: Strongly Favors topic 8
Supports the death penalty: Strongly Favors topic 8
Require DNA testing for all federal executions: Strongly Opposes topic 8
Opposes topic 9:
Mandatory Three Strikes sentencing laws
(7 points on Social scale) Eliminate mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes: Strongly Opposes topic 9
Rated 63% by CURE, indicating mixed votes on rehabilitation: Neutral on topic 9
NO on more penalties for gun & drug violations: Opposes topic 9
YES on $1.15 billion per year to continue the COPS program: Opposes topic 9
I wouldn't get an A in "liberal" here either..............
4. Military issues: mixed bag. For example, supports Reagan's looney "National Missile Defense System."
Voted YES on deploying National Missile Defense ASAP.
Vote that the policy of the US is to deploy a National Missile Defense system capable of defending against limited ballistic missile attack as soon as it is technologically possible, and to seek continued negotiated reductions in Russian nuclear forces.
Reference: Bill S 257 ; vote number 1999-51 on Mar 17, 1999
I would have voted as Edwards did also. We sure do need a good missle system to protect the U.S. now, for sure!
5. Only got a 37% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Voted to defund renewable and solar energy initiatives. Voted against CAFE fuel efficiency legislation.
Please see # 25 on this thread for the entire article about Edwards and energy:
from Katrina Vanden Hueval,
The Nation:
BLOG | Posted 03/22/2007 @ 10:29am
Energy and Substance
"While too much of the media has focused on first-quarter fundraising battles and the sniping between the Obama and Clinton camps, presidential candidate John Edwards took the opportunity to lay out a bold energy plan that addresses some of the great challenges of our time. "
Between Obama and Edwards, there have been times I've leaned a little one way or the other. But never more than a smidge. Makes me nostalgic for Dukakis.
I also voted for Dukakis. However, I feel Obama is more controlled by the political elite and Edwards is not.
Edwards had 6 years in The Senate and elected to get out! I believe he is intelligent, has a mind of his own, is compassionate, fair, cares deeply for America and sincerely for "We The People".
So far he has my vote.
Now, if he'd chose Mayor Rocky Anderson for his running mate.....................:)
:thumbup:
Thelonious
03/23/07, 01:21 pm
Magi,
Thanks for that.
You're very thorough and that is a great contribution to the debate.
Jennifer_SFBA
03/23/07, 08:26 pm
Though I'm not at all progressively excited about it, I think Richardson/Edwards is able to win the 08' election. I don't think America is ready to vote for a woman President, unfortunately, and from my progressive point of view, I would never vote for Hillary. America does have a racist streak, so, I don't think America is ready to vote for any Presidential candidate who is non-caucasian either, unfortunately too. America is very far away from voting for the best, the brightest and the most politically progressive.
I know many of you don't watch TV, so this article about Katie interviewing the Edwards should be on this thread because I agree whole heartedly with the writer!
****************************
Published on BuzzFlash.org (http://www.buzzflash.com/articles)
Linda Milazzo: Open Letter To Katie Couric: You Were Unfair To The Edwards
By
Created 03/26/2007 - 9:37am
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Linda Milazzo
"I watched your "60 Minutes" interview this evening with Elizabeth and John Edwards. I found you insensitive and judgmental, particularly toward Senator Edwards, whom you portrayed as uncaring and self-obsessed.
You were more preoccupied with Elizabeth Edwards' dying than with her genuine desire to live. You challenged her positivism and vitality. You painted her future as bleak. Why such negativity, Katie? Yes, cancer isn't good news. But your badgering seems suspect. Didn't you hear Elizabeth's response when you suggested she's staring at death? She said, "Aren't we all?"
Didn't you get that, Katie? We ultimately face the same fate. Elizabeth hasn't surrendered. Don't presume that she should.
Many in America know the tragedies you have suffered, Katie. You were a widow much too young. Your loving husband, Jay, lost his battle with colon cancer after a valiant effort to prevail. Your older sister, Emily, succumbed to pancreatic cancer after she similarly fought to prevail.
Your personal tragedies are well documented, as are your triumphs in dealing with them. You bounced back. Of course there will always be pain, but you survived.
In each of your tragedies you had warning. Your husband, Jay, and your sister, Emily, knew of their illnesses in advance of their deaths. Their diagnoses offered no absolutes. No forecast date of death. No guaranteed length of survival. Diagnoses never do. Yet throughout their illnesses, you lived each day with hope. This was obvious from the way you fought to save Jay. The doctors you saw. The treatments you sought. The research you did. You wouldn't have done that if you didn't have hope.
Why should the Edwards hope any less?
During your interview with Elizabeth and John, it was clear you didn't understand them. John and Elizabeth Edwards aren't like you, Katie. Your experiences are night and day. You experienced impending loss. They experienced instant loss. Within seconds, they had no son. In an instant, they went from two kids to one. Do YOU understand what that means?
Throughout YOUR preoccupation with Elizabeth's potential to die, you overruled her desire to live. YOU screwed up, Katie. You owe her an apology. For Elizabeth, life isn't about losing. It's about winning and remaining vital. Regardless of the hope Elizabeth foresaw, you foretold disaster.
Your experience with death (known only through your public persona) came with forewarning. But life has NO GUARANTEES, as the Edwards tried hard to tell you. They lost their child at 16 years old. Loss often comes without warning. ANY leader can lose a loved one in office. Not just through illness. Accidents happen. People die unexpectedly. There are NO guarantees. We can go at anytime. We merely presume that we won't.
The question is, can the person in power survive the loss? Does he or she have the character... the mettle to see it through?
John Edwards has proven he has it. Elizabeth has proven it, too.
Funny, Katie. You used to be so perky. Tonight you were the picture of gloom. You discouraged positivism. You dissuaded goals. You challenged desire. You shed darkness where the Edwards sought light. Is that really how you view your life? Die before dying? Lose before losing?
You will state you were seeking the truth. Instead you refused to accept it."
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Linda Milazzo is a Los Angeles based writer, educator and activist. Her writing has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and domestic and international journals. She's a member of CodePink Women For Peace and Progressive Democrats of America. Over the past three decades Linda has divided her time between the entertainment industry, community projects and education. A political and social activist since the Vietnam War, Linda attributes her revitalized, fully-engaged, intense, head-on, non-stop political activism to the UNFORTUNATE EXISTENCE OF GEORGE W. BUSH and her disgust with greed-ridden American imperialism, environmental atrocities, egregious war, nuclear proliferation, lying leaders, and global tyranny!
Jennifer_SFBA
03/31/07, 12:35 am
Today I discovered the article below that I think sounds good and is interesting. However, considering Edward's attendance at a Bildergerg meeting just prior to his assention to Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States, I do have reservations with good cause and concern about what's best for America, namely, American national integrity or the New World Order.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/?pid=177999
BLOG | Posted 03/22/2007 @ 10:29am
Energy and Substance
While too much of the media has focused on first-quarter fundraising battles and the sniping between the Obama and Clinton camps, presidential candidate John Edwards took the opportunity to lay out a bold energy plan that addresses some of the great challenges of our time.
As he said in a speech in Iowa, "Our generation must be the one that says, ‘we must halt global warming.' Our generation must be the one that says ‘yes' to renewable fuels and ends forever our dependence on foreign oil. And our generation must be the one that builds the new energy economy. It won't be easy, but it is time to ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war."
Some key aspects of the Edwards Energy Plan include a cap on greenhouse pollution in 2010 and an 80 percent reduction by 2050 – consistent with the dictates of the latest climate science. He would use an economy-wide, cap-and-trade system and sell a portion of the pollution permits to raise $10 billion a year for a New Energy Economy Fund. The Fund would be used to pursue clean, renewable, and efficient energy technologies and create 1 million jobs in the process – along the lines of what the Apollo Alliance has outlined. One billion dollars a year from would go towards helping US automakers meet higher fuel economy requirements and utilize the latest technologies, including biofuels, hybrid and electric cars, hydrogen fuel cells, and ultra-light materials. Finally, Edwards' plan calls for opening the electricity grid so that small-scale renewable electric generation – by farms, factories, schools, and communities – can compete with large, central power plants. (This is something Academy Award winner and pre-Scalia President-elect, Al Gore, touted in hearings on Capitol Hill today. Great to see Gore pushing the Presidential debate without even being a part of the race).
Edwards might be winning the early frontrunner race when it comes to substance over flash – he has been clear and strong on health care, labor rights and now energy. (And so far, among the frontrunners, Edwards and Obama have been clearest about a plan for ending the War in Iraq – though neither of them matches the clarity and courage of Dennis Kucinich, a presidential candidate who should receive more attention from the blogosphere since it isn't coming from the conventional media.)
With the science of global warming now settled for just about everyone who isn't named Sen. James Inhofe, and the costs of a status quo energy policy perfectly clear, speaking out boldly on how to address these challenges should be a prerequisite for any presidential candidate. Good to see John Edwards doing the right thing here.
Thelonious
03/31/07, 10:05 am
John Edwards would normally be too leftwing to get elected in the US. Joe Sixpack is sceptical of very slick very good-looking millionaire lawyers who talk about helping the poor.
At the moment however the Republicans are so pathetic, and the country so sick of war mongering fools that any Democrat has a good chance to win this time.
Page 3 of 3
"On Poverty, Edwards Faces Old Hurdles
By the time Edwards left the center in December to launch his campaign, he and his 2008 policy director, former Senate aide James Kvaal, had assembled his platform, with informal advice from his 2004 policy director, Robert Gordon, now an adviser to the New York City schools, and several experts, including Bruce Katz, director of metropolitan policy at Brookings.
The advisers say the platform accepts the premise of welfare reform but goes beyond it to argue that society owes a decent existence to those who do work. "Welfare reform was about telling everyone they need to work," Katz said. "What it didn't do is provide everyone with the means to succeed."
Besides expanding the earned-income tax credit, Edwards would strengthen labor laws and create 1 million publicly subsidized "steppingstone jobs" that would fill "community needs," pay the minimum wage and last up to 12 months. To help the poor build assets, he would create "work bonds," a tax credit that would match wages to $500 per year and be deposited into a savings account. His universal health-care plan would help poor people not covered by Medicaid.
Poverty experts say the proposals are vulnerable to some of the same criticisms leveled against past Democratic programs. They are expensive, with Edwards's health-care plan alone estimated to cost up to $120 billion a year. They do not challenge liberal orthodoxies by, for instance, exploring private-school vouchers, even though supporters of that idea say it is justified by the same logic as Edwards's housing voucher plan: giving poor families a choice.
The platform is also short of proposals that directly address the social problems, such as broken families, invoked by conservatives. Edwards mentions these problems on the trail but said he is not offering policy prescriptions because he thinks there is little Washington can do in this regard. At a symposium he hosted in November 2005, Edwards acknowledged some discomfort in broaching such issues: "In poor inner-city areas . . . the last thing they want to hear is an affluent white politician telling them what they are supposed to do."
Dispersing Poverty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edwards is more willing to enter sensitive ground with his plan to break up concentrations of the poor, an idea with a long history in some schools of anti-poverty thought. "America has turned a blind eye to the extraordinary economic and racial segregation that still exists in this country, particularly in cities," he said. "We have to confront the issue head on."
Housing experts say there is a good case to be made for expanding vouchers, which give people more choice in where to live and are by some calculations less costly than public housing. There are now 2.1 million housing vouchers and 1.3 million public housing units. Three of four families eligible for housing assistance receive none.
But there is extensive evidence that it is going too far to expect that replacing public housing projects with a million new vouchers will alleviate poverty. In 1994, the Department of Housing and Urban Development launched a program called Moving to Opportunity for Fair Housing, under which 1,820 families living in public housing in five cities were given housing vouchers that they were required to use in low-poverty neighborhoods.
The results startled researchers. The families who moved reported improved health, and girls in the families fared better overall. But to researchers' surprise, boys in the families fared worse than those who remained in public housing, getting into more trouble with the law and feeling out of place.
Most notably, the families did not fare better economically, nor did their children's school performance improve. Among other reasons, many families did not move very far from their old homes, partly because of a shortage of affordable housing in better areas, while others reported missing the contacts they had used in their old neighborhoods to find jobs.
"In terms of breaking the intergenerational cycle of poverty, it's not a magic bullet," said Greg Duncan, a Northwestern University economist. Duncan brought up the findings at Edwards's November 2005 symposium; according to a transcript, no one responded.
Edwards said that he did not recall any mention of the findings but that in any case, he still thinks dispersing poor families is a cure for poverty. "I do think over time it will have a salutary effect," he said.
For some who study poverty, the question is not so much what Edwards is proposing, but whether, for all his focus on the problem, he is the candidate best suited to effect change. Edwards has become late-night comedy fodder for his new 28,000-square-foot mansion and the $400 haircuts his campaign paid for.
Kathryn Edin, a Harvard sociologist, said that while she admires Edwards, she is supporting Obama because his stint as a community organizer two decades ago in Chicago indicated a "deep set of personal commitments" to the poor.
Edwards said it is fair to ask how his call for different classes to live together can be reconciled with his family's decision to build a house that sits on 102 acres and is invisible from the road. The answer, he said, is that the estate is surrounded by farmhouses and smaller homes. "The neighborhood is very diverse racially, very diverse economically," he said.
But the larger insinuation that he is not credible on the subject riles Edwards, who notes that many rich people throughout history have helped the poor. "If you go from nothing to being extraordinarily successful and you don't try to do things to help those who have been less successful than yourself," he said, "then all you do is care about is yourself." "
Page 2 of 3
"On Poverty, Edwards Faces Old Hurdles
"We don't need new policy. We have plenty of policy," said Waller, now part of a Washington think tank called Inclusion. "It's just that no one's helping us move it."
Old Debates Are New Again
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For years, the national poverty debate has run on a seemingly endless loop. Liberals have argued that the poor suffer from structural disadvantages -- underfunded schools, disappearing jobs, inadequate child care -- that could be addressed by public investment. Conservatives have argued the problem is cultural -- absent fathers, teenage mothers, high school dropouts.
What action that has been taken has swung from one pole to the other -- in 1993, President Bill Clinton signed an expansion of the earned-income tax credit; three years later, he signed a welfare reform law with new work requirements.
Standing apart from the back-and-forth has been an unavoidable fact: No program has helped lift up the poor in recent years as much as a strong economy. In the prosperous 1990s, the number of people living in high-poverty neighborhoods fell by 24 percent, or 2.5 million people. Since then, the poverty rate has increased, to higher than it was 30 years ago.
"The ultimate goal is to create tight labor markets that create opportunities for poor people," said Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson.
Meanwhile, a separate debate has been underway within the Democratic Party, over how aggressively to fight for the poor. After pushing through the major anti-poverty programs of the past century -- the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s -- the party has had to defend some of the programs against charges that they are wasteful and promote dependency. Democratic candidates have urged help for the disadvantaged, but more often have couched economic issues in terms of helping the middle class.
Edwards's main rivals for the nomination have mostly adopted this measured approach. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who has upset some poverty advocates by supporting tougher welfare work rules, talks about helping the poor by raising the minimum wage, reforming immigration and promoting savings. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) proposes expanding the earned-income tax credit and subsidizing temporary jobs but leavens this with calls for more personal responsibility, particularly among African Americans.
Edwards, on the other hand, calls poverty "morally wrong" and a "national shame," and he proposes paying for his plans by immediately repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich. His admirers say his emphasis on poverty is proof of political courage. But it also fits with his strategy to carve out a niche as a populist truth-teller to the left of Clinton and Obama, a shift from his 2004 campaign tone, which he now says was too cautious.
Edwards disavows any calculation in talking about poverty. "Is this a powerful political issue? Maybe not. I don't know whether it is or not," he told the National Jewish Democratic Council last month. As he describes it, his decision to make poverty his focus of the past several years -- and, by extension, of his 2008 campaign -- was relatively spontaneous. In his 2004 campaign, he talked about poverty, but mostly within his broader theme of "the two Americas." That December, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, met with friends and advisers to discuss how he could spend his time before his next campaign.
"We talked about a whole range of possibilities . . . for an hour, hour and a half, and Elizabeth said, 'Can I just say, I've been sitting listening to you talk about these various things and, John, the place that you light up and show greatest passion is this issue of poverty,' " he said. "That's when I decided I wanted to devote significant time to it."
Edwards launched the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity in September 2005, with Hurricane Katrina and the scenes of deprivation it laid bare days earlier giving the venture an unexpected timeliness. The center had a small staff, paid for mostly by several million dollars from Edwards's campaign supporters. It organized a dozen conferences and panel discussions over Edwards's two-plus years there, sponsored a book published last week and explored rebuilding strategies for New Orleans.
Edwards received a salary of $40,000 for work that had him on campus a day or two a week. He spent the rest of his time traveling the country and working as a paid adviser to a hedge fund."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050601322.html?nav=rss_politics
"On Poverty, Edwards Faces Old Hurdles
Critics Say He Brings Few Fresh Ideas to Signature Issue
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 7, 2007; Page A01
ALLENDALE, S.C. -- His rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination were busy April 26 preparing for their first televised debate, but John Edwards was 45 miles south, strolling along a dirt road in this struggling town in South Carolina's Low Country to chat with what few people he could find among the many abandoned houses.
"We've got 37 million people who wake up every day in poverty," he declared moments later to residents gathered outside a local church, under the shade of a giant live oak. "This is not okay, not in the richest country on the planet."
As he makes his second bid for the White House, the former senator from North Carolina is sounding a clarion call of a sort not heard on the presidential campaign trail since Robert F. Kennedy's run in 1968. A millworker's son who became a multimillionaire trial lawyer, Edwards brings to the subject a hard-edged rhetoric and a host of proposals culled from the University of North Carolina's poverty center, which he started and ran after his losing campaign for vice president in 2004.
Advocates and researchers praise Edwards for focusing on an issue they say too many have shied from over the years. "It's so refreshing," said Peter Edelman, a former aide to Kennedy who quit the Clinton administration in protest over its welfare overhaul and now teaches at Georgetown Law School. "It's a wake-up call for a lot of people in this country."
But Edwards's plan to "end poverty in 30 years" also underscores the challenges of tackling poverty in the political arena, of the intractability of the problem and of the seeming timelessness of the debates over solving it.
Edwards dedicated himself to the subject for two years, effectively making it his part-time job and part of the record on which voters will judge him, and yet he said in an interview that his time at the UNC center did not reshape his thinking on poverty. The platform he has produced, while lengthier than his rivals', consists primarily of ideas that have been percolating in the academy for years and are shared by some other candidates, such as creating publicly subsidized temporary jobs, expanding the earned-income tax credit and easing college affordability.
If there is a personal imprint on Edwards's plan, it is his argument for reducing racial and economic segregation -- that, as he put it in one speech, "if we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together, too." To achieve this, Edwards proposes doing away with public housing projects and replacing them with 1 million rental vouchers, to disperse the poor into better neighborhoods and suburbs, closer to good schools and jobs.
The idea sounds bold, but it faces a deflating reality: A major federal experiment conducted for more than a decade has found that dispersing poor families with vouchers does not improve earnings or school performance, leaving some economists puzzled that Edwards would make such dispersal a centerpiece of his anti-poverty program. Edwards said he was unaware of the experiment.
"The Edwards proposal is a good idea, but I don't think it's likely to accomplish the primary aim he intends," said Jeffrey Kling, a Brookings Institution economist who has studied the experiment.
Missing from Edwards's approach, some thinkers on the subject say, is the same crucial component lacking in past proposals: a way of framing the problem that can inspire political will to help a segment of society that tends not to vote.
Margy Waller, a policy adviser in the Clinton administration, said that because so many Americans believe poverty results from bad personal decisions, it is better to address it in broader terms of improving social cohesion, reducing inequality and strengthening the economy, instead of focusing on "poverty."
That is how Prime Minister Tony Blair has sold his anti-poverty plan in Britain, she said, and she is surprised that Edwards has not framed his proposals that way, since there is so much research showing that the public's views are a hurdle. She worries that it will be hard for Edwards to get elected, much less implement his plans, with his current rhetoric."
NeoCon Newbie
05/07/07, 10:01 am
He wants to socialize medicine what a moron he won't be getting my vote.
I'm sure you won't intend to vote for Edwards. However, considering your typing skills, it's pretty likely you will actually vote for a Democrat.
He wants to socialize medicine what a moron he won't be getting my vote.
Oh, tell us about the plan you have, Newbie.
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/07/late-late-nite-thursday-nite-no-photo-necessary/#comments
Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Late Late Nite Thursday Nite: No Photo Necessary
By: TeddySanFran
Good evening to all of you and forgive my technical failings — I had a magnificent YouTube ready that I simply cannot get to post uptop, so I’ll post it in the thread for your enjoyment.
It’s a swell montage of Novakula’s walkoff from the CNN set, but you’ll see it soon, I promise. It’s meant to go with his column from yesterday’s Washington Post, in which he clarifies the establishment DeeCee Beltway view of 2008 PrezCandi John Edwards:
The dynamic performance by John Edwards in Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate, assailing his competitors for the nomination, got high marks from political reporters, Republican politicians and left-wing activists. But not from the Democratic establishment. Once their great hope for the future, Edwards now is massively unpopular among party regulars, who neither like nor trust him.
The performances at the Goffstown, N.H., event by the two front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were error-free if a little leaden. Edwards, the third man in the big presidential field, supplied the fireworks by taking on Clinton and Obama. On the surface, he seems a perfect candidate: eloquent, smart, handsome and shrewd. Is he reminiscent of the two slick Southerners who were the only Democrats elected president in the past 40 years? Yet the prospect of an Edwards-led ticket evokes deep apprehension inside the party that he would be another flawed nominee.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
Deep apprehensions!? Another flawed nominee?! Who could our dear Robert Novak be speaking with about John Edwards?
Edwards has not worn well with party colleagues. Campaign consultant Bob Shrum was enthusiastic about Edwards after working on his 1998 Senate victory in North Carolina and unsuccessfully advised Gore to make him his 2000 running mate. But Shrum chose Kerry over Edwards as his 2004 presidential client. In his newly published memoir, “No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner,” Shrum explains: “I was coming to believe he wasn’t ready; he was a Clinton who hadn’t read the books.”
But wait — there’s more!
During the 2004 primaries, Democratic activist James Carville was enchanted when Edwards shifted his centrist posture to a populist depiction of “Two Americas.” Carville told me — and then repeated it on CNN — that Edwards was the best stump speaker he ever had seen. When I asked him this week whether he still thought that was true, Carville replied: “Maybe he’s not as good now.”
I don’t know if you’ve chosen a Presidential candidate for 2008 (I have) but could you do worse than to choose the one opposed by Bob Shrum?
and James Carville?
and Robert Novak?
Discuss.
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349 Responses to “Late Late Nite Thursday Nite: No Photo Necessary”
1
LoudounLib says:
June 7th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
yes I am still lurking, for just a few…
Quote This Comment
2
TeddySanFran says:
June 7th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Novak on YouTube
Quote This Comment
3
LoudounLib says:
June 7th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
hey, I got the non-zed ;) and so to bed…
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4
Suzanne says:
June 7th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Teddy! Thank you for the lovely smackdown of Novakula.
more..................
Could it be the Washington Dems don't have John Edwards in their pocket?
:thumbup:
I'm really not 100% in sync with the majority at times at firedoglake (esp. when it comes to illegal "aliens"...........)
but this one is worth a read, I think.
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/23/fdl-late-nite-dear-john/#comments
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 8:06 pm
FDL Late Nite: Dear John. . .
By: Pachacutec
Okay. Let’s cut the bullshit.
I read our commenters here. They like you. You’ve staked out the most creative, progressive and politically incorrect ideas among the those in the top tier of Democratic hopefuls. Your anti-poverty agenda is heartfelt and really meaningful for what ails America. Your willingness to call bullshit on the “war on terror” is genuinely courageous.
But you’re too gentle, so far, to be trusted. It’s time to get your hair mussed. If you don’t, you’re going to continue to get this kind of hit piece coverage. The elites hate you and your anti-poverty agenda because they see you as a traitor to your class. They think you’re a sanctimonious prig for calling them out on their own blatant hypocrisy.
So much more, with so many comments..................
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/06/23/fdl-late-nite-dear-john/#comments
About John & Elizabeth Edwards...........................:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/29/AR2007072901261_5.html?nav=rss_politics
The honest truth;
Corporate America and The GOP's fear John Edwards
July 31, 2007
Today Show Helps Frank Luntz Roll Out The Right Wing's Latest Hit Job on Edwards
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steve_yo_070731_today_show_helps_fra.htm
Republicans have been outstanding in couching the debate, quick to label issues, persons or an entire political party's position in terms so simplistic, yet deviously potent. A facile catchphrase feeds into the voters' darkest fears without engaging the least amount of analytical thought.
If you believe attacking terrorism where and how the Bush administration has is a disaster, you're "soft on terror."
If you feel the failure in Iraq is a failure you're the party of "cut and run."
If you present the facts from both sides of an issue, you're part of the "liberal media."
You can always tell when the Republican Party believes something can hurt them. They attack it like you'd wish a Michael Vick pitbull would attack its owner.
By the second or third time it's uttered, catchphrase rhetoric becomes obvious. But there are times when they are more insidious, building momentum under the radar. Oh, you know it's an attack, but it comes in so many different shapes and sizes it's difficult to notice until they all meet at one place: the target.
And one big target in the Republican cross-hairs is John Edwards.
He's presently a third place longshot in the Democratic race, but there's strong evidence that the Republican Party may be more afeared of Edwards then they are of Obama or Clinton. They both may have bulls-eyes painted on them, but it is Edwards who has been under unrelenting assault.
It started with tagging Edwards as the "personal injury attorney." Next, the subtle, Coulter "Edwards is a fag" strategy. Bill O'Reilly deemed Edwards "out of the race" even though he polls higher than Mitt Romney who O'Reilly believes is a keeper. It moved into the "$400 haircut," and then to the "30,000 square foot house." Finally, settling on, "How can a man fight poverty when he lives in a 30,000 square foot house?"
But Monday you knew it was no longer a disconnected series of attacks, but a full-fledged offensive when the Republican's Master of Maxims, the Sultan of Slogans, the...um, King of Katchphrases, Frank Luntz - father of "Death tax," "Contract for America," "Climate Change - went on the Today Show to get on the "stop John Edwards train."
It was a bizarre segment with Meredith Viera setting up Luntz on politicians using humor. In every case, from John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, Rudy Guiliani and Hillary Clinton. Democrat or Republican, every single president and presidential candidate received a positive review from Luntz. Everyone but one: John Edwards.
When it came to Edwards, they played a clip of him on the Tonight Show where he quipped about his expensive haircut. It received a big laugh from the Leno audience. For some baffling reason, Viera asked Luntz, "Why didn't that work?" What? A huge laugh, but both Viera and Luntz somehow ignored what we had just seen and heard to whack Edwards.
I've been in the business of comedy and satire - stand-up and written - for most of my career and I guess that I've been under the misconception that when you tell a joke and it gets a big laugh, people thought it was funny. In the comedy biz, we say, "it worked." But in the world of Luntz and the slamming of Edwards, it didn't.
As far as Viera buying that the Edwards joke didn't work, my guess is that she was given the question to ask, but didn't actually listen to the audience reaction. If she had, she would have found her question incredulous.
I imagine Viera and her producer were duped; that Luntz asked for Viera to use that clip to pose a negative about Edwards.
Luntz pointed out that "you can't discuss poverty with people when you get a $400 haircut." Luntz said that Edwards "shouldn't be making jokes about it. He should be apologizing."
This after he set up the segment with saying that for politicians to be funny "they must poke fun of themselves."
Why Viera didn't ask why Edwards can't discuss poverty when he gets and expensive haircut? Ring that one up to gross infotainment negligence.
Now I appreciate what Frank Luntz does - in a sports fannish kind of way. The same way I felt about Larry Bird as a Philadelphia 76er fan. I hated his guts but wouldn't mind at all to have him on my team.
But even so, when Luntz is sicked on someone or something, you know what the intent is as sure as Karl Rove is behind all evil in the universe. And don't be surprised if Karl Rove is behind the stop Edwards effort.
"John Edwards...Personal Injury Attorney"
"John Edwards...Poverty Hypocrite"
"John Edwards...Not Funny"
You can understand Luntz's motive.
Why the Today Show decided to help with its in depth analysis of political funny?
That's a question for the comedy gods.
Award-winning TV writer and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful," Steve Young, was political editor of National Lampoon and is now writing "Satire: Political Secret Weapon." (www.greatfailure.com)
A talk show host, author, columnist,award-winning television writer and filmmaker, his inspiring book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press) has been published internationally and has become required reading in the Wharton School of Business Masters Program. His "All The News That's Fit To Spoof " column appears every Sunday on the L.A. Daily News Oped Page. Steve has appeared all over national TV and radio with his unique brand of satirical punditry and social observations appearing in national periodicals from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, to his own weekly Internet column "The Lords Of Loud," at AlbionMonitor.net and The Huffington Post.
Edwards attacks ‘corporate greed’
‘It's not divisive at all, it's uniting,’ he says of strategy
CARROLL, Iowa - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday defended his relentless assault on corporations and special interests, dismissing criticism that his pointed populist message is too divisive.
In an interview with The Associated Press, the 2004 vice presidential nominee argued that his oft-repeated theme would unite the nation and force a political realignment heading into November's general election.
"I believe it's true," Edwards said. "It's not divisive at all, it's uniting. Most Americans feel that the economy, the government is not working for them because corporate greed and influence have far too big an affect on issues that affect their lives."
Edwards is locked in a tight race in Iowa with rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. He plans an intense blitz in the closing days before Thursday's caucuses that includes a 36-hour campaign marathon beginning Tuesday. He is subtly shifting his message to assuages worries about his viability for a general election by arguing that all voters feel the economic pain he talks about on the stump.
"It's important because it can unite the country, it's important because it can unite voters," Edwards said in the interview. "In a general election it also affects the ability to get elected."
United against 'corporate greed'?
In Iowa, he told voters: "The corporate greed that is destroying the middle class in this country is stealing your children's future. It is stealing the future of Democrats' children, independents' children, Republicans' children. I'm telling you this is a message and a cause that we can unite America around, we can unite America next fall."
Conceding it was the first time he had used the argument, Edwards stressed the theme as he swept through western Iowa.
"This is a message of change that will sweep across this country," Edwards said. "It doesn't just work in Democratic primaries and caucuses, it's a message that will be powerful in the general election next fall when I am the Democratic nominee."
Edwards is counting on a big boost in the opening caucuses as he faces better-financed Clinton and Obama. More to the point, Edwards said, he needs to energize the country to accomplish the main themes of his campaign.
"To get things done against these entrenched interests, you have to galvanize the country behind you," said Edwards. "I think it will work everywhere."
----------------------------------------------------------
Is Edwards too "divisive"?
Can we begin to reverse the consolidation of money & power at the top that has occurred under the Bush administration without "divisiveness"?
Will Americans embrace a candidate who will be seen as "anti-corporate"?
Can such a candidate "survive" (figuratively & literally)?
I heard a report on MSNBC yesterday that Kucinich had instructed his supporters to caucus for Edwards. I have not confirmed it so far but I am trying.
Has been reported that Edwards is showing some signs of new life.
There are signs his campaign is at last gaining traction. The best indication may be in Iowa where the carefully calibrated campaign of Hillary Clinton has moved deliberately away from the Bhutto assassination - and foreign policy in general - to a fresh emphasis on domestic issues. With Hillary under savage attack and in near desperation, she is beginning to sound a lot like Edwards.
For months, Edwards has been pushing a slew of initiatives aimed at ending the disparity between the rich and poor in the two Americas. He alone talks of poverty. It is Edwards who openly embraces the mantle of Roosevelt's New Deal. He does not shy away from federal regulation. He demands that the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies step aside to make way for universal health care. He wants federal controls over interest rates and prosecution of those ripping off home owners facing foreclosure due to sub-prime mortgages.
LINK (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2007/12/finally_edwards_on_the_move.html)
Jennifer_SFBA
06/07/08, 02:36 pm
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2560
"Johnson also selected John Kerry’s running mate John Edwards in 2004 after Edwards had impressed Bilderberg elitists Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller with a speech he gave at the globalist confab in Italy that year."
AND
Who Is James A. Johnson anyway?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Johnson_%28businessman%29
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