Recently in Edwards 2008 Category

Of the various efforts being undertaken to rebuild New Orleans, few are as vocal as activists opposing the demolition of public housing projects. Their passion is strong, and their cause just. I wrote about my problems with this movement yesterday. I'm a firm believer in the notion that you can't bring back people who live in poverty to New Orleans at this stage in the city's reconstruction. It's easy for folks who have homes, jobs, health insurance, and schools for their children to advocate a course of action that will almost certainly have no direct impact on their lives, even if that course of action worsens the quality of life for those directly impacted.

It makes more sense to restore the governmental services necessary to lift those living in poverty to a living-wage level.

Easier said than done, of course. City government is still a mess, two years post-storm. State government hasn't been much more help, with its focus on home owners (Road Home Program). The involvement of state government in New Orleans' return is going to be even worse with the election of an unsympathetic ultra-conservative as governor.

Somebody must take ownership of New Orleans, accept the situation we have here, and work with us to make it better. There are three people in a position to do something about New Orleans, assuming we can hang on until January 20, 2009. Those three people are the leading Democratic candidates for President.

Taking them in order of their current popularity, let's look at whether or not they will step up and take ownership of New Orleans.

Hillary Clinton - If you go to www.hillary.com, there's a button for "Issues" that drops down a number of choices:

• Strengthing the Middle Class


• Providing Affordable and Accessible Health Care


• Promoting Energy Independence and Fighting Global Warming


• Fulfilling Our Promises to Veterans


• Supporting Parents and Caring for Children


• Restoring America's Standing in the World


• A Champion for Women


• Comprehensive Government Reform


• Strengthening Our Democracy


• Reforming Our Immigration System


• An Innovation Agenda

Hmm...worthy topics all. Why no mention of New Orleans, or the Gulf Coast in general? Have the consultants advising Sen. Clinton told her to blow us off? After all, Mississippi and Alabama were too red for her to be bothered with pre-storm, and Louisiana is viewed as turning redder post-storm. Certainly one could argue that some of these meta-topics listed above can include support of New Orleans, but not seeing the re-building of a city destroyed by a federal flood and ignored by uncaring Republicans would be on the radar. No doubt Bill Clinton would be more concerned with the future of New Orleans. Perhaps some of you Hillary supporters can clarify this seeming lack of interest in New Orleans.

Barack Obama - Sen. Obama's got one of those neat "Issuse" buttons, too:

• Strengthening America Overseas


• Plan to End the Iraq War


• Creating a Healthcare System that Works


• Fighting Poverty


• Environment


• Energy


• Technology and Innovation for a New Generation


• Fulfilling Our Covenant with Seniors


• Improving Our Schools


• Immigration and the Border


• Protecting the Right to Vote


• Honoring Our Veterans


• Cleaning Up Washington's Culture of Corruption


• Strengthening Families and Communities


• Reconciling Faith and Politics

Nice list. Maybe if I didn't get a food of water in my house and things here were going smoothly, I'd look at this and see a candidate who could improve things. What I see from this is someone who is talking in generalities when a 300-year old city dies. Oh yeah, and those public housing residents who are about to have their apartments demolished? They're 99% African-American.

John Edwards - Sen. Edwards has an entire page of proposals to deal with New Orleans:

• Addressing the nursing shortage and supporting the proposed biomedical corridor


• Providing new resources to make the city's streets safe


• Fully funding the "Road Home"


• Putting someone in charge


• Appointing a Special Gulf Coast Inspector General


• Passing "Brownie's Law," so agencies like FEMA get the job done.

So, we've got two candidates who make no mention of New Orleans and a third who actually talks about fully funding Road Home.

At least Edwards and his consultants aren't suffering from "Katrina Fatigue."

I challenege every Clinton and Obama supporter to ask those in your campaign organizations, what is your candidate's position on New Orleans?

I know where my candidate stands.

I'm also confident that things would not be as screwed up right now here if "Vice President Edwards" was running right now rather than former-Senator Edwards.

Dear Senator Landrieu:

I'm a bit disappointed that we have not heard any comment from you on Rep. Boehner's very insulting remarks to our troops. Given that so many Louisianians have given life and limb in Iraq, and given the extent to which LA National Guard deployments in Iraq hobbled rescue efforts in the wake of the two hurricanes of 2005, I find your silence at this point rather disturbing.

Senator, there is no reason for you to be silent on the subject of the war, unless you are part of the less-than-one-third of the country who support this President and his war plans. There is noone else who will speak for Louisiana at this point. Our other senator is a national laughingstock whose party would gladly throw him under the same bus they're throwing Sen. Craig, were it not for the fact that Gov. Blanco is a Democrat. I'd like to think that, after eleven years in the Senate, you've grown weary of being rolled by these people. They're not your friends. They opened up on you with both barrels in 2002, and will do so again next year. Laying low and hoping they'll go away isn't a very sensible option at this point.

It's been difficult over the last eleven years to defend you and the positions you take when confronted with them by more liberal members of our party. Many wonder why you just don't switch party affiliations, that way the Democratic party can begin the discussion of who would be a good candidate that would truly represent our interests. My standard response has always been that it's tough for you to be as progressive as they would like in a state with such a strong conservative electorate.

The catch is, even that electorate rejects this President and his war. They know it's a bad idea to continue occupying Iraq. They want our troops to come home. In particular, Louisianians want their National Guard in place to support the state in times of emergency and national disaster. Nobody in metro New Orleans wants to wait again for the Wisconson and Pennsylvania National Guards to get here for assistance. It's time for you to take a very public stand on these issues. It's time you stood toe-to-toe with Senator Liebermann and demand that his committee seriously review FEMA and other DHS policies that impact Louisiana. We, the voters of this state need you speaking for us.

But taking a strong stance on the Iraq occupation isn't about politics, it's about Louisiana lives. You've been in the Senate almost as long as my 13-year old has been alive. If you and the rest of the Senate majority allow the Republicans to establish a permanent presence in Iraq, you are assisting them in placing my son and his friends into harm's way as well as all the men and women who are already risking their lives for a failed policy.

Please, Senator Landrieu, join other Democratic senators who have taken a strong public stance against the Iraq occupation. Stand up to men like Rep. Boehener and do not let their offensive remarks go unchallenged.

Either that or let us elect someone who will.

Sincerely,
YatPundit

Markos asks:

Will Obama and Clinton hide in the shadows until the final minutes of this pre-emptive capitulation bill before voting against it, or will they show some leadership and help craft a real solution to this disastrous war?

This is why I support Edwards. Obama and Clinton are running "consultant" campaigns.

John Edwards turns on his fellow Democrats

yeahyourite. Clinton is truly becoming BushLite and Obama stands for nothing. It's high time Edwards takes it to them. The Dem establishment has a goddess-awful track record, 2006 notwithstanding. Taking the campaign past DC Dems to the people makes good strategy for Edwards:

Behind the scenes, Edwards' advisors continued to highlight the differences in the Democratic field. Trippi claimed the other presidential campaigns opposed banning lobbyist contributions because they did not want to upset Democratic leaders like New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who is in charge of fundraising for the party's Senate candidates, a task that depends heavily on lobbyist contributions. "We are talking about really ticking off some of the Democratic Party establishment," Trippi said. "The tougher step is to say if it's good enough me and it's good enough for Barack Obama, [why] isn't it good enough for the Democratic Party?" Trippi said he believed Obama was not working to ban all lobbyist money because "he has to walk into the Senate cloakroom."

This is why sitting senators are sitting ducks. Both of the sitting senators are playing not to lose.

Democrats want and need a candidate who wants to win.

Very compelling video of John and Elizabeth on the stump in Portsmouth, NH (home of the Press Room, a neat jazz pub, btw):

It's going to be a shame when the Secret Service won't let EE run and give people in the crowd hugs anymore when John gets the nomination. Understandable, of course, but still...

Question from the clip that should indeed be asked of every candidate, Republican and Democrat:

"How many people in will be uninsured when your healthcare policy is enacted?"

EE is right, if the answer is NOT zero, you need to get yourself another candidate!

While many people believe that our next President will be a Democrat, the process still has to play out. That means someone has to win the nomination of the Democratic party. For all that pundits and writers are discussing who will win a general election, somebody's got to win state primaries, caucuses and conventions. They've got to put delegates into seats for next year's party convention in Denver.

It's for that reason I find articles like Alex Koppelman's interview of Drew Westen in Salon yesterday curious. Westen is the author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation." According to Koppelman, "Westen thinks the Democrats need to rely less on logic and more on emotion, and they need to understand that strength is less a function of defense policy than of backbone."

OK, I'll buy that, and I might just buy the book, but the first question of the interview has me scratching my head:

What have you thought about the message that the candidates have been sending during the campaign so far?

If we focus on the people who are realistically most in this race, the three who have the best shot at this point, who I think are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards ... they're all looking at how the voters who decide elections are the voters in the middle. The way Clinton and Obama are trying to do it is with centrist messages ... Obama is trying to capture the center by saying, "Why can't we all get along?"

Edwards is taking a different tack ... an alternative way of trying to reach the center. The center right now is actually pretty down on the [GOP], and independents right now don't like the Republicans and they don't like the war ... What Edwards is doing much more is saying: "These aren't people who you compromise with ... I'm not going to compromise with the people who've given you the Iraq war, and I'm not going to compromise with the people who don't want you to get healthcare because it's not in their interest, and I'm not going to compromise with the people who are ripping you off at the gas tank."

Westen makes an assumption that is way off base here. He's assuming that Edwards is reaching for voters in the center of the electorate by talking up populist themes. For someone who considers themselves knowledgable on our electoral process, it seems like he's missing the point of the current campaign efforts of all the Dem candidates. Put simply, they need to get nominated.

The way to win primaries is to have a message that primary voters want to hear. Those voters are not necessarily the center that Westen talks about. They're the hard-core caucus-goers, the political insiders and central committee members who attend state conventions. They're the voters who will go to the polls to vote on Super Tuesday and other primary dates.

That's why we still hear the entire Republican field of candidates talking like madmen--they need to convince their party's base to vote for them. It's no different for the Democrats. What we see here is a total difference in style between the sitting senators and the former senator. Clinton and Obama are not playing to win, they're playing to "not lose." Anybody who is a futbol fan understands this--think Brazil vs. Italy in the World Cup final in 1994. Nobody takes an aggressive position that can put you out on the edge and get you in trouble.

Edwards, on the other hand, is going for the base. He's the white trial lawyer, so he can't assume people will come out to vote for him in droves because he's black or because he's a woman. He's trying to get the party faithful to come out for him because he's talking about the things they want to hear about. When you're behind in the game, you have to play aggressive to win.

That's the kind of candidate I want running against the Republicans. I've had enough of play-it-safe Democrats. Obama's campaign reminds me of Mary Landrieu's from 2002, and Clinton sounds more like a moderate Republican than a Democrat.

John Edwards is giving the keynote address at the state Democratic party's "Jefferson-Jackson" dinner on Saturday night in Baton Rouge. In conjunction with this appearance, the Edwards campaign is asking that supporters come out and welcome the him when he arrives:

Please join us at 5:00 PM at the Hilton Capitol Center at 201 Lafayette Street in Baton Rouge. Once we've gathered, we'll walk together to greet and cheer on John when he arrives.

If you can make it, RSVP at this link:

http://johnedwards.com/r/23323/917561/

The Jefferson-Jackson Dinner is a fundraiser, but cheering Edwards on is free. :-)

Media Matters spanks NPR's Renee Montagne for her approach to interviewing John Edwards last friday on Morning Edition. Clearly Edwards has a solid position on the Iraq war, and it's dead-set against it.

What's odd is Montagne's position that there's nothing else to talk about other than the war. That's not even a Republican talking point. In fact, most Republicans standing for election next year would prefer that the conversation move away from the war--it's such a loser for them.

But Democrats also know there's more messed up about Republican control of government than the war. Even if BushCo would somehow miraculously "win" the war, there are still numerous issues where it makes a lot of sense to get the GOP the hell out of power.

What's great about Edwards is how he's hitting those points home. He's playing to win here, when his opponents are playing not to lose. Emulating RFK is a good way to galvanize the part of the base that has cash and will part with it for the right cause. At a time when Obama and Clinton are falling over themselves to chase corporate contributions, Edwards is talking about poverty and New Orleans. He's talking the talk black voters want to hear. By regularly returning to New Orleans, he's also walking the walk black voters want to see.

This is why sitting senators have a lot of difficulty winning the White House (only McKinley and JFK in the 20th century). It's more than just having the free time to go to New Orleans when his main opponents are tied down in DeeCee mumbo-jumbo. It's about not having to straddle fences.

YatPundit supports the Edwards campaign. You've probably figured that out from comments I've made over the last few months, but this puts it in no uncertain terms, I'm with Edwards all the way. I see him as very electable, and the best choice of the Democratic field.