Time to Step It Up for JRE

Folks, this year we have an amazing, unusual opportunity where the most progressive of the major candidates is also the most electable candidate in the Democratic field. I think it couldn't come at a more important time.

Let's face it. The Republicans have made a horrible mess during the past 13 years, ever since Bill Clinton lost the Democratic Congress in the midterm election of 1994.

The past 13 years of bad luck have been a time of doom, gloom, and despair for the entire country. As a result of bad trade policies like NAFTA, huge numbers of American jobs have gone overseas, including so many manufacturing jobs that you almost cannot buy anything made in the United States anymore. We've seen our Constitution shredded and our civil liberties taken away. We've seen an increasingly corrupt Congress selling legislation to the highest corporate bidder, while more and more Americans go without healthcare, housing, and even food. Meanwhile, nothing has been done about impending disasters like global warming. Make no mistake about it. This is one of the darkest of times in American history.

What we really need now is a leader. We need someone who will take bold and correct stands on the issues, lead the country in the direction it needs to go, and be willing to fight the special interests in Washington to get there. We are not going to get where we need to go or get ourselves out of this mess if we elect someone who is so enthralled with the idea of political negotiation and compromise that they're willing to give up a lot of what we need before negotiations even begin. In short, we are not going to get there with a political insider.

Enter John Edwards. John Edwards has spent his life fighting against big corporate interests. He made a living doing so as one of the most successful trial attorneys in the entire country. In fact, he was so successful at it that he joined a club comprised of the 100 most successful trial attorneys in the country at the age of 37 and was the youngest member to join. In case after case, he represented average people who had been hurt by the neglect of big corporations and, as he is fond of saying, he beat them, and he beat them, and he beat them again.

In both his legal career and his time in the Senate, Edwards has a reputation for standing up for the little guy against powerful corporate interests. It's exactly what we need, and it couldn't come at a better time.

Edwards has shown his leadership in the presidential race by laying out a progressive agenda based on carefully thought through, detailed policy proposals the scope of which lays out a bold vision for the future the likes of which I have never seen from a presidential candidate. This is the stuff American dreams are made of.

Best of all, head to head matchup polls done by various polling organizations throughout the year have shown Edwards as the most electable candidate against the likely Republican contenders. Not only would he beat the Republicans by wider margins nationally than Clinton, but he also would bring into play red states that neither Clinton nor Obama could hope to compete in. By winning some additional states and their electoral votes, Edwards increases the margin of victory and gives us some insurance against losing another election to Republican shenanigans.

I may as well say it: Edwards is my dream candidate. Edwards is exactly the kind of guy that I've always wished would run as the Democratic nominee, the kind of candidate we deserve, but never quite seem to get. This time around, we have an historic opportunity to elect a truly great president.

So I'm really excited about Edwards as a candidate, but time is running short. As of November 27, we have only 37 days until the Iowa caucus. The race is currently a dead heat in Iowa, according to polls. There are only 42 days until the New Hampshire primary, the first primary in the nation.

Last week, I was up in New Hampshire volunteering on the ground. A lot of voters in New Hampshire are still undecided, which means there is a big opportunity there.

I think it's likely that in all of the early states, there are a lot of undecided voters and that anyone could win in any of those states, but those states will determine the outcome of the presidential race. If you live in any of the early states, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina, or if you can travel to them or even make calls into them, now is the time to volunteer for Edwards.

You can sign up to volunteer here, but actually I wouldn't even wait for them to contact you. What I did was to find the contact information for the New Hampshire Edwards office and contact them and tell them I was coming.

Get in touch with the campaign in your early state of choice and volunteer. Give money if you can afford it.

We can have the president we really deserve. John Edwards -- a president who will really inspire us. But now is the time to make sure we make that happen.

Throughout the past 11 months, I've been blogging about John Edwards and his incredible platform for transformational change, and in the course of that time, I've met some fellow Edwards supporters who are real American heroes. Some of the Edwards ads talk about heroes of One America, well, my friends and fellow Edwards supporters are my heroes.

I want to talk about some of them today, because these heroes of One America are truly inspiring to me.

TomP, pioneer111, sarahlane, NCDem Amy, mdgarcia, edgery, Ellinorianne, Predictor, Clarkent, okamichan13, jamess, cosbo, jsamuel, ladylib, our wonderful artist in residence, RedJet, and the rest of the contributors and regular commenters on the Edwards Evening News team get the word out about John Edwards on Daily Kos and around the blogosphere on a daily basis and help abhor the vacuum of the mainstream media horserace news with the regular Edwards Evening News series as well as many other insightful diaries.

NCDem Amy, OneCarolinaGirl, sgary, ashlarah, and marratha are citizen journalists and video uploaders who regularly bring us news and video content about the campaign, much of it original.

I also look to other incredible bloggers and citizen journalists like David Mizner, Montana Maven, RDemocrat, Machka, Boadicah, Wade Norris, DK2, and benny06, as well as the many fine state blogs for Edwards.

Regular commenters on Edwards diaries and on the Edwards blog bring us updates from their efforts on the ground, including some people living and volunteering in the early states, such as RunawayRose, Im4JRE, desmoinesdem, and Smucci. Some regulars have been volunteering for John Edwards for years, like nannyboz, Persiflage, bettync, and suswa.

I know I have left some people out and I apologize for that. I couldn’t possibly list all of you who make a difference in your efforts to create One America that works for all of us. I didn't list some people by name because they may not have a blog that I can link to, or in some cases, I may just have forgotten. I know there are One Corps members all over the country and right in my own back yard in Maryland who are working hard to elect JRE. Thank you for all of your work. Each and every one of you is a hero to me. May your efforts come to fruition.

I also want to give a shout out to all the Edwards campaign staffers I’ve met, either online or in person. You all work very hard and I’m thrilled to have such a dedicated group watching the back of our future president day in and day out. One thing is for sure, Edwards supporters, volunteers, and staffers are an incredibly wonderful group of individuals. It makes me proud to volunteer for this campaign.