Why I'm for Edwards
Anyone reading the blogs on the liberal/Democratic side of things is awash in posts and "diaries" about why their candidate is the only one to save us and about why everyone else's candidate is a total loser who will destroy the country if s/he wins the primaries. (To be more accurate, they usually portray the voters as total losers or fools; the nominee gets the blame for ruining our future lives.) I'd like to avoid that hyperventilated rhetoric, for one simple reason: every single one of the Democratic Party candidates--even (or especially, in some cases) the ones who've dropped out--would make a saner, safer, and more palatable President than any of the Republicans who are running. That hasn't been the case for a long time, if ever, imho. So let's not tear each other apart over who gets the chance to keep our country from destroying itself.
That being said, I do have a strong affinity for John Edwards, and since Al Gore stubbornly refused to answer my pleas, I'm going to vote for him in our primary. I think Edwards is the only liberal left in the field, and he's the only one with concrete plans in place that speak to the issues I care about most--the role of government, tax policy, national trade and our growing division of wealth, and the costs of health care. He's definitely the only one interested in fighting the corporate powers that have taken over the nation (and its politicians, which makes this a vital stance to take), he's the only candidate talking specifically about the tanking economy, and he's the only one that seems to care about the base of the Democratic Party. He has apologized--I think quite sincerely--for his foolish and highly misguided vote to authorize Smirky's wars, he has experience in speaking truth to power based on his legal background suing corporations on behalf of injured customers or citizens, and he has demonstrated the most consistently positive national appeal in head-head polling against the Republican candidates. (In fact, he's the only one of the top 3 Dems that can be shown to potentially defeat all of the Repubs in any state you might choose to pick--even those in which he polls behind the Repub he still outdistances the other Dems.)
He's got two major problems, though, which will most likely cost him the nomination. 1) Because he is the scariest (from a Republican point of view) Democrat running, the right-wing media has chosen the most effective method of killing his chances--they are completely ignoring him. How many stories did you see that omitted any mention of the fact that Edwards came in second in Iowa? How many stories in the traditional media have you seen detailing his campaign or his appeal? I bet nowhere near as many as you saw telling us about Clinton's tears, or Obama's roller coaster ride from Iowa to New Hampshire, or even Richardson's "will he/won't he" retirement from the race.
2) He's a white man. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I imagine a lot of Democrats/liberals are genuinely excited (and for good reason) to vote for a credible African-American or woman in a Presidential race. The problem with that is that these are not the most liberal of A-As or women. Obama is actually boasting that he will work with Republicans--completely ignoring the demonstrably vituperative and caustic policies of that entire Party that have wrenched our country so far off the rails of democracy. Clinton's "centrism" is well-known; she is following in her husband's footsteps of trying to position herself squarely in the middle of the political spectrum--without realizing that by doing so, she allows the nutjobs on the right to continually shift without resistance even further rightward on most issues. She still proudly refers to herself as a "Goldwater Girl", after all; it's an extremely sad commentary on what has happened to our political landscape that a Goldwaterite can now be appropriately considered a Democrat!
To repeat: I will fairly happily vote for any of these three in November, because all of them recognize that we have taken almost too many steps down a perilous path and we are in danger of permanently "breaking" our country--at least in comparison to what any of the Republicans are saying. I just happen to think that of these three, only John Edwards "gets" the severity of our crisis and is angered by it. Just like me.
That being said, I do have a strong affinity for John Edwards, and since Al Gore stubbornly refused to answer my pleas, I'm going to vote for him in our primary. I think Edwards is the only liberal left in the field, and he's the only one with concrete plans in place that speak to the issues I care about most--the role of government, tax policy, national trade and our growing division of wealth, and the costs of health care. He's definitely the only one interested in fighting the corporate powers that have taken over the nation (and its politicians, which makes this a vital stance to take), he's the only candidate talking specifically about the tanking economy, and he's the only one that seems to care about the base of the Democratic Party. He has apologized--I think quite sincerely--for his foolish and highly misguided vote to authorize Smirky's wars, he has experience in speaking truth to power based on his legal background suing corporations on behalf of injured customers or citizens, and he has demonstrated the most consistently positive national appeal in head-head polling against the Republican candidates. (In fact, he's the only one of the top 3 Dems that can be shown to potentially defeat all of the Repubs in any state you might choose to pick--even those in which he polls behind the Repub he still outdistances the other Dems.)
He's got two major problems, though, which will most likely cost him the nomination. 1) Because he is the scariest (from a Republican point of view) Democrat running, the right-wing media has chosen the most effective method of killing his chances--they are completely ignoring him. How many stories did you see that omitted any mention of the fact that Edwards came in second in Iowa? How many stories in the traditional media have you seen detailing his campaign or his appeal? I bet nowhere near as many as you saw telling us about Clinton's tears, or Obama's roller coaster ride from Iowa to New Hampshire, or even Richardson's "will he/won't he" retirement from the race.
2) He's a white man. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I imagine a lot of Democrats/liberals are genuinely excited (and for good reason) to vote for a credible African-American or woman in a Presidential race. The problem with that is that these are not the most liberal of A-As or women. Obama is actually boasting that he will work with Republicans--completely ignoring the demonstrably vituperative and caustic policies of that entire Party that have wrenched our country so far off the rails of democracy. Clinton's "centrism" is well-known; she is following in her husband's footsteps of trying to position herself squarely in the middle of the political spectrum--without realizing that by doing so, she allows the nutjobs on the right to continually shift without resistance even further rightward on most issues. She still proudly refers to herself as a "Goldwater Girl", after all; it's an extremely sad commentary on what has happened to our political landscape that a Goldwaterite can now be appropriately considered a Democrat!
To repeat: I will fairly happily vote for any of these three in November, because all of them recognize that we have taken almost too many steps down a perilous path and we are in danger of permanently "breaking" our country--at least in comparison to what any of the Republicans are saying. I just happen to think that of these three, only John Edwards "gets" the severity of our crisis and is angered by it. Just like me.
Labels: Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Primary election, Republican Party
posted by bryduck at 7:31 AM
7 Comments:
Dear Mr. Surly,
Yeah, I'm going for Edwards. He's the closest to my Gore as I'm gonna get. I like his wife, too. I loved it when she told Ann Coulter to shut up. But I do wish Al was running. *sniff*
Love,
The Towel Thrower
Maybe if nobody gets a majority of delegates, Al can be drafted at the convention!!
(A guy can dream, can't he?)
I agree that any of the three represents a vast improvement for our country (let's call that the understatement of the year). I feel more confident, I think, than you might that any one of the three would also actually make a decent president, not just a President Not Bush. My only genuine issue with Edwards—my less fair ones being his unspectacular showing at the bottom of the 2004 ticket and the fact that I want our next president to present a totally new face for America to the world (I admit that it's unfair to ding him on this, but he looks a lot like every other U.S. president ever)—is that I feel he's the weakest on the separation of church and state. He flat-out told an LGBT audience that the reason he opposes same-sex marriage is his Christian faith. That lost him a lot of points with me. All that said, I'd certainly vote for him without acrimony if he got the nod.
He flat-out told an LGBT audience that the reason he opposes same-sex marriage is his Christian faith.
Yeah, that bugs me too. But he is against the constitutional amendment so I suppose I can live with it. At least he was honest about it. :/
Sincerely, The Towel Thrower
Yeah, none of the big 3 are perfect on the LGBT front, actually. Obama's notorious palling around with McGurkin (a virulently anti-gay near-crackpot) is a big strike against him, and Clinton has been verrrry, um, shall we say, "political" in her responses on the gay marriage issue. Otoh, all of them support the concept and legislation regarding the civil union concept.
Do you REALLY think ANYBODY as president can turn things around? What about all those candidates that got elected on promises of bringing our poor armed forces back home? Nothing changed.
GOM
With a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, I think things can change. The reason we haven't been able to end the war--even given the Congressional Dems disappointing moves--is because Smirky is still the Constitutional Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. He can, in theory that has yet to be properly challenged, order them to stay as long as he wants them to, and barring a military coup d-etat, they have to stay. Don't get caught up in blaming the Dems for Republican intransigence, however frustrating it has been.
Now, if President Clinton or President Obama (hey, I have no illusions) refuses to pull the troops out, we have a serious breach of promises and we're in deep, deep trouble as a nation.
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