Edwards may be the one
Aug 27
Within the Democratic primary, I’ve never paid too much attention to Edwards. I’ve always agreed with what I’ve heard of his positions but I assumed he’d get crushed by Hillary or Obama. Now I think he’s starting to distance himself from those two and while it’s risky there is a chance it could pay off. I think a lot of Americans really are hungry for some kind of real change.
This is from a recent Edwards speech:
“Real change starts with being honest — the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It’s rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it’s rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They’ll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are — not for the country, but for themselves.
[The system is] controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it’s perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don’t stand a chance.”
An article on the speech can be found here: Edwards Goes After the ‘Corporate Democrats’ — Is This a Turning Point for His Campaign?
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Aug 27, 2007 @ 10:06:06
I think that the factor which weighs most heavily against Edwards is that he has run before and lost. Americans don’t like voting for losers. They like fresh meat. They like Obama because he’s fresh, and they like Clinton because she’s got “presidential” experience without ever having run before.
I like Edwards’ rhetoric of two Americas, and his stance against the actions of the current administration, but I’ve heard them before. I’m unsure whether he would be able to act on his promises if elected. It’s easy to say the system needs to change, but a lot harder to change it once you get inside. But then again, any politician that follows Bush has his or her work cut out for them.
I bet it’s easy to run for office in a time like the late 90s, when the deficit was low, the budget was balanced, the economy was soaring, the country was at peace and the incumbent wasn’t going to run again. In that kind of environment, a politician could promise anything from an electric car in every driveway to a spaceport on Mars and it would sound plausible.
Now, it’s less about pie-in-the-sky ideals than it is about practical solutions. The deficit is soaring, the government is deep in debt, the country is at war on multiple fronts with no end in sight, the environment is beyond crisis, the infrastructure is literally collapsing, the people are sharply divided and the economy is exhausted from being stretched so thin for so long.
I don’t think there are any easy answers. If there were, Bush would have tried them by now. The next president will have to make some hard decisions, which will be criticized relentlessly by Fox News types, and make sweeping changes across a variety of sectors. I believe Edwards wants to do that. But does he have the credentials? Does he have the right knowledge?
What does a person do when he’s elected president and asked daily to decide on matters he’s never been educated in? Well, he either delegates the decision making to someone else, like the VP, or he solicits advice from the experts he surrounds himself with, who just happen to be wealthy corporate leaders who donated to his campaign so that they can give him advice that would make them wealthier and their corporations closer to monopolies.
It’s easy for a Democrat to lash out vaguely at “the corporations,” but I guarantee they’re taking plenty of donations from the entertainment industry, the only industry which doesn’t produce polution, unless you count Kangaroo Jack. Certainly Edwards is better than any Republican candidate, none of whom have ever mentioned the poor or the environment. But it helps for the candidate to have enough history for voters to discern for themselves whether he has the skill or character to follow through.
Aug 27, 2007 @ 23:46:47
Well gosh, Randy, John Edwards might just as well pack it in and go home to Carolina I guess! However I think that with guys like him around there just may be some hope left for our southern neighbour. Maybe John Edwards read this book:
http://www.conservativenannystate.org/
Aug 30, 2007 @ 08:05:57
I like Edwards! He seems like a nice enough guy. I certainly don’t want a Republican to win. However, after Edwards’ statement at the recent debate that he does not support gay marriage, I’m not sure he’ll have the full support of the liberal base. It’s not often a politician tells a demographic to its face that he will not make them any promises. It could be a sign of honesty and integrity, that he has a strong moral position and won’t budge from it to pander to some voters. But every other Democrat is pandering like crazy, promising all kinds of rights to gays. Will Edwards be rewarded for his integrity by the vast majority of voters who oppose gay rights? Or will his failure to pander cost him the primary?
Sep 26, 2007 @ 08:22:20
I agree with you Randy — I saw that debate with the GLBT community and the other Democratic candidates….his stance as being against gay marriage (and also civil unions if I’m not mistaken…) makes him not a viable Democratic candidate. At what point do we realize that we are still fighting for civil rights in this country? I think I’m going to be voting for Ron Paul…*sigh*