Observing from beyond the solar system, a cultural outsider looks in.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Edwards Won Big in Nevada Debate!
“And by the way, Edwards, I thought he personalized...I thought he did a really good job tonight. I thought he, we talked about the fierce urgency of facts, right, that Clinton brought out. He was heart. He was the heart and gut campaign tonight. He was very good.”
Two days ago on Daily Kos, KingOneEye proposed that Edwards supporters everywhere try to beat Ron Paul's impressive $6 million dollar in one day grassroots fundraising effort. The theory here is that a big fundraising push would not only help the Edwards campaign financially, but help him break through the mainstream media blackout on Edwards news.
Perhaps you have noticed the deafening silence from the media on John Edwards, even though he is in a very close race with Clinton and Obama in terms of the number of pledged delegates, after having come in 2nd in Iowa and 3rd in New Hampshire. The delegate total is really the only number that matters, so they should by all rights be giving him equal time.
The goal is for grassroots supporters to raise $7 million for Edwards in one day on Friday, January 18th.
There's one caveat to this effort: because it's a grassroots effort not sanctioned by the campaign, we won't know how we did unless the campaign tells us afterwards. BUT, I hope Edwards supporters will forward this to all their friends and help us raise as much money as possible on Friday!
In other news, the Edwards campaign released 4 new ads in South Carolina today that challenge the media's framing of the race as a two person race. These are great!
Narrator: Who’s the only Democrat that beats all the Republicans in the recent CNN poll? John Edwards is the only one. John Edwards: I’m John Edwards and I approve this message
Narrator: Which Democrat opposed NAFTA and other trade deals that send American jobs overseas? John Edwards is the only one. John Edwards: I’m John Edwards and I approve this message.
Narrator: Which Democrat has never taken a dime of campaign money from Washington lobbyists? John Edwards is the only one. John Edwards: I’m John Edwards and I approve this message
Narrator: Who’s the only Democrat who would ban Washington lobbyists from the White House staff? John Edwards is the only one. John Edwards: I’m John Edwards and I approve this message.
This is going to be a very short diary, because I just want to give Edwards supporters some excellent news.
The race for the Nevada caucus is in a statistical dead heat, according to a new poll.
A new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows a neck-and-neck three-way race among Democrats for Saturday's caucus. On the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain has taken his first lead in Nevada of the election season, and Mitt Romney, who has been working Nevada harder than any other Republican, is trailing in fourth place.
A look at the top line results (more will be posted later this morning):
Exciting Pre-Debate Gathering Jan 15, 2008 3:30 p.m. Cashman Field Corner of Las Vegas Blvd & Harris Avenue Las Vegas, Nevada
**Our supporters and staff will gather before the debate to show all of the caucus goers and members of the local and national press on hand just how strong our grassroots campaign in Nevada really is. Click here to RSVP.
MSNBC Democratic Debate Jan 15, 2008 6:00 p.m. Pacific Cashman Center 850 Las Vegas Boulevard 55 E. Twain Avenue Las Vegas, NV
Town Hall Meeting with John Edwards Jan 16, 2008 12:30 p.m. Grand Sierra Resort, Silver State Ballroom Reno, Nevada Click here to RSVP
Town Hall Meeting with John Edwards Jan 16, 2008 7:00 p.m. Carpenters Union Hall 501 N Lamb Blvd, between Stewart and Bonanza Las Vegas, Nevada Click here to RSVP
Town Hall Meeting with John Edwards Jan 17, 2008 NEW TIME: 9:00 a.m. Henderson Convention Center 200 Water Street Henderson, Nevada Click here to RSVP
OK, John Kerry. It's time for a reckoning. Where's my money? Where's my Democratic president? And where's my country?
Let's review all the reasons why John Kerry was wrong and John Edwards was right in 2004, shall we?
First off, John Kerry went into the game in 2004 giving the Republicans a 40 point lead, by refusing to campaign in the South and the red states, and refusing to allow John Edwards to do so on his behalf. Do you know how many TV ads were run in North Carolina in 2004 with a North Carolinian on the ticket? Zero. Let's listen to Elizabeth Edwards talk about that for a moment.
People accuse Edwards of not winning North Carolina, as if people vote for the VP, but the fact that we didn't win North Carolina and other red states in 2004 can be squarely blamed on one person: John Kerry.
I went to a last-minute fundraiser for the Kerry campaign in San Francisco. It cost me $1000 to go. Mere weeks later, I learned that not a penny of that money was ever spent on the campaign.
Oh well, at least I got to see John Edwards and get my copy of Four Trials signed. That's one expensive autograph, and JRE would have given it to me for free any other time.
Where is my money, John Kerry?
Worst of all, there were serious problems with the 2004 election in Ohio and other states, and they may have been enough to throw the election to George Bush, but we'll never know, because Kerry refused to contest the election.
I don't have a link to the full passage, because I'm transcribing this from hardcopy, but this is from Elizabeth Edwards' book Saving Graces:
John came in around 1 a.m. and told me the campaign had heard that George Bush was preparing to declare victory. They wanted John to go out and speak to the crowd in Copley Square -- and the television audience -- before Bush went on the air.
"Just you?" I asked.
"Just me," he said. Senator Kerry was at his Boston home. He also spent the day thinking he had won, and the night had been hard on him. John agreed to do it. Hundreds, maybe thousands of supporters still stood outside in Copley Square, where it was cold and raining, and they deserve to hear from the ticket.
Finally, around 2 a.m. Peter Scher and John's other closest advisors came into our room with the speech someone in the campaign had written and the invisible "they" in some other room wanted John to deliver. I heard them in the next room. He couldn't give that speech, John said. It was too close to a concession, making it easier, not harder, for George Bush to declare victory while there were votes yet to be counted in Ohio. I listened from my bed as they try to rearrange the existing words into something accurate and strong. Finally, unencumbered by the suggested speech they were trying to edit, I yelled out from the bedroom: "We've waited this long. We can wait a bit longer."
John scribbled a note to himself, pulled up his tie, and headed out. I heard the roar from Copley Square as he came on stage 10 floors below me. "We've waited this long," he told the somber crowd. "We can wait a bit longer."
I woke up early the next morning. John and Cate and I had a few minutes alone to talk about all that had happened the night before and what would happen later that day, when we would all meet the Boston doctor who would later be my surgeon. I went to dress as John's staff and other members of my family started trickling in. I showered, and as I put on pants and a sweater I listened to John in the other room, arguing into a speakerphone that we could not concede until the votes were counted. "we promised," he said. "We told these people that if they stood in line and fought for their right to vote, we would fight to have them counted. We promised."
He was giving no room, but I could see that he was losing this argument to unnamed voices on the other end of the line. Someone would recite the latest numbers from Ohio, and John would counter. But he was alone, and the fight was lost.
"Our country and our Party are stronger because of John's service, and I respect his decision. When we were running against each other and on the same ticket, John and I agreed on many issues. I continue to believe that this election is about the future, not the past, and that the country needs a President who will fight aggressively to end the status quo and change the Washington system and to give voice to all of those whose voices are ignored in the corridors of power."
All I can say is, I'm glad John Kerry didn't endorse John Edwards. We don't need that kind of help.
John Kerry, where is my money, my Democratic president, my vote, and my country?
Happy New Year to everyone! I'm in Iowa volunteering for the Edwards campaign. I had a memorable New Years Day, and this will be my photo and video essay. There won't be much text in this diary, because I don't have much time today. Enjoy the photos and videos.
Yesterday morning I attended an Edwards town hall in Ames, Iowa. John and Elizabeth were there with their two youngest children, Emma Claire and Jack.
Elizabeth spoke briefly at the beginning. Here is an excerpt:
Jack came and stood next to his mother during part of her speech. He was a big hit without saying a word.
Elizabeth introduced Mari Culver, first lady of Iowa, who introduced John.
John spoke briefly, but passionately.
And then took several questions...
On whether he would have Colin Powell in his cabinet...
On third party candidates in debates...
On health care...
On disability, immigration, and energy policy...
Great event, and I have been very happy to meet some friends here whom I have previously known only online.
Later that evening, I went to a phone bank at the Steelworkers union hall. John Edwards came by and spoke briefly to a large and extremely enthusiastic crowd of volunteers (and media).
I'm off to do more canvassing and phone banking today and then there's the rally with JRE and John Mellencamp this evening...and of course, the caucus tomorrow.
John Edwards wins Republican debate - without even showing up!
Last night in a surprise upset, Democrat John Edwards won the Republican debate without even showing up! Check out this reaction among CNN's panel of undecided Republican voters.
She's not alone. I've had several Republicans tell me that if John Edwards wins the Democratic nomination, they would vote for him. Electability, for sure!
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.
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.
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.
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.
After weeks of intense lobbying by the top three Democratic presidential candidates, Edwards has come away with the endorsement of the New Hampshire SEIU.
The endorsement will help Edwards considerably, providing him with financial resources and volunteers in the Granite state. It will also prevent other state chapters from sending volunteers to New Hampshire to campaign for either Obama or Clinton.
This is the 12th state SEIU endorsement Edwards has won; the others include Iowa and California.
Wow! So that's several key endorsements in some very key states. He now has SEIU worker power locked up in both Iowa and New Hampshire, as well California and 9 other states. This should be very helpful going into the early caucuses and primaries.
Here's a video from October 15th, when he won the endorsement of the SEIU in 10 of those states.
Service Employees International Union (SEIU) state councils from Iowa, California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio and Oregon announced they have endorsed Senator John Edwards for president, totaling close to one million SEIU members. Representatives from several of the ten state councils joined Edwards for a press conference at the Eckstein Medical Research Building in Iowa City. The endorsements will allow these SEIU state councils, which collectively represent over 930,000 members, to organize efforts to turn out caucus goers on Edwards' behalf within Iowa, and in any other state where the SEIU state councils have also endorsed Edwards. SEIU state councils across the country will be determining their endorsement decisions in the coming weeks.
UPDATE: I was reminded, thanks to the comments at Daily Kos, that this means 90,000 SEIU members from neighboring Massachusetts, where SEIU has also endorsed Edwards, can come to New Hampshire to help out.
The news from Oct. 18th:
The Massachusetts council of the Service Employees International Union on Thursday joined 10 other state chapters endorsing Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
The council, which represents 90,000 workers in Massachusetts, cited Edwards' record on health care.
Also, I really should have included this video of John Edwards' closing remarks at the SEIU convention in Washington, DC in the original post.
SEIU New Hampshire is obviously important (and is getting wooed to death), but also important will be SEIU Massachusetts, with 75,000 members a couple of hours (at most) from New Hampshire. If a candidate can get both the Mass and New Hampshire locals, he or she should get a real boost.
John Edwards to Hillary Clinton: Tell the Truth on Iran
I applaud John Edwards for continuing to point out that Hillary Clinton is going along with the Bush administration's push toward war with Iran. My gawd! Someone has to! Here's his statement from today:
"When Senator Clinton voted to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, she only aided and abetted George Bush and Dick Cheney's march to war.
"We now have clear confirmation that the administration is planning attacks on Iran. This morning, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters on a flight back to the United States last night that there are 'contingency plans for an attack on Iran' and that 'the planning has been done.'
"Republican candidates are also beating the drums of war. In an interview yesterday, Rudy Giuliani also said the military stage is 'closer than some of the Democrats believe.'
"Even though she's cozying up to the Republican approach when she's inside the Beltway, when she's in Iowa, Senator Clinton tells a different story. But with a question so critical, the American people deserve the real truth, not more doubletalk. And they need members of Congress to stand strong and fight the president on his march to war with Iran - not quicken the pace."
The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street's favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.
Mrs Clinton's wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.
Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.
Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.
After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most warlike of all the candidates – Democrat or Republican.
JRE endorsed by half of Maine's congressional delegation!
I just got off of a press conference call with the New Hampshire Edwards campaign. Representative Mike Michaud from Maine's 2nd district is endorsing John Edwards! Maine only has two representatives in Congress, so he represents half their congressional delegation. As Maine is right next to New Hampshire, I would think that this is a pretty important endorsement.
Mike Michaud is a lifelong millworker. He made the point that John can win in red states, because of his message. He believes that the other Democrats will not be able to win in red states, so that if we want to elect Democrats down the ballot, we need John as our presidential nominee.
It's pretty clear that corporate lobbyists have too much influence in Washington, DC, and that the corruption caused by big money interests giving legalized bribes to politicians is out of control.
John Edwards has never taken a dime from a Washington lobbyist, not only in this campaign, but in any political campaign he has ever run, since his first race for the Senate. In this, he is different from the other candidates, and way ahead of them, in my opinion, although Obama has, to his credit, also rejected lobbyist money for his first time in this presidential race.
At Yearly Kos, John Edwards challenged Hillary Clinton to stop taking campaign contributions from lobbyists, and she refused.
MODERATOR: Senator Edwards has a very straightforward question here, which is will you continue to take money from lobbyists?
CLINTON: Yes, I will. I will. Because you know, a lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans. They actually do.
Later, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Clinton asserted that the solution to the corruption in Washington is public campaign financing. We already have a public campaign financing system in place for presidential elections. John Edwards then committed to take public campaign financing for the primary, and challenged the other candidates to do the same. Once again, Clinton has refused (as has Obama).
In an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Clinton said the following when asked about her connection to disgraced donor Norman Hsu:
CLINTON: I think that we've done all that we can do at this point, including returning the money, but I believe that the only answer to this entire set of circumstances is public financing, something that I strongly support, that I'm going to try to do when I'm president, because there is no doubt that the cost of campaigns, particularly trying to get on television with our advertising, and all the things that people have to do in a modern campaign, are just out of control. It's not good for the country, and it's not good for the system.
Perhaps Hillary Clinton is actually in favor of some ideal form of public campaign financing that we don't have yet, however, we do already have a public campaign financing system in place for presidential elections. The existing public campaign financing system for presidential elections does not require mandatory participation, however, because the Supreme Court has ruled that mandatory participation in that system would be unconstitutional.
Many people, including John Edwards, have said that they would support an improved system of public campaign financing. Hillary Clinton appears to support that, too, although it's not clear what her proposal is.
A true commitment to public financing would involve both being willing to work within the existing public financing system and proposing serious reforms that would strengthen our existing public financing system, and obviously it would be easiest to actually accomplish this if it can be done in a way that could be upheld as constitutional. Although I'm no constitutional expert, it seems that John Edwards has done both.
Here's a little bit of history on our current public financing system for presidential campaigns, from Wikipedia:
All of these efforts were largely ineffective, easily circumvented and rarely enforced. In 1971, however, Congress passed the Federal Election Campaign Act, requiring broad disclosure of campaign finance. In 1974, fueled by public reaction to the Watergate Scandal, Congress passed amendments to the Act establishing a comprehensive system of regulation and enforcement, including public financing of presidential campaigns and creation of a central enforcement agency, the Federal Election Commission. Other provisions included strict limits on contributions to campaigns and expenditures by campaigns, individuals, and other political groups.
The new law was immediately challenged on First Amendment grounds in Federal Court, resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision, Buckley v. Valeo. The Buckley decision recognized that regulation burdened the rights of free speech and assembly, but held that the compelling government interest in preventing corruption or its appearance justified some restrictions on free speech. The resulting decision upheld contribution limits, so long as they were not so low as to prevent campaigns from amassing the resources necessary to communicate effectively with the public, disclosure requirements, and voluntary public financing. It found limits on expenditures to be unconstitutional infringements on free speech. It also restricted the reach of the law to speech by candidates and parties, that is, groups established for the purpose of electing candidates, and to communications that expressly advocated the election or defeat of a candidate, using phrases such as "vote for," "vote against," "support," or "defeat."
I understand this quote to be saying that the Supreme Court has said campaign finance law can limit the maximum amount of donations, in order to prevent corruption or even the appearance of corruption, but cannot require candidates to participate in a public financing system, and cannot limit their spending. On Friday, John Edwards proposed a new public financing system that would go much further toward preventing corruption, but would fall into these guidelines.
Reforming Campaign Finance to Strengthen Small Donors: John Edwards believes elections should be about ideas rather than money. Few Americans can afford to make $4,600 contributions to gain access to presidential candidates, and the integrity of our campaign financing system depends upon smaller donors continuing to play an important role in the political process. Edwards' campaign is built upon the support of small donors – in fact, 93 percent of the campaign's donations come from donors contributing less than $100. As president, Edwards will create a new Grassroots Presidential Financing System to match small donations under $100 by eight to one, making two $100 donations as valuable to a campaign as a single $1,000 donation. He will also reduce the maximum contribution from $2,300 to $1,000 per person, to better reflect the incomes of most Americans. Edwards will create a system of full public financing for Congressional candidates and require corporations to disclose their political activity and spending.
Eight to one matches for small donations would sure go a long way toward maximizing the power of small contributors, while a lower maximum donation of $1000 would limit the influence of wealthy people and corporations. Edwards would also prevent lobbyists from giving campaign contributions, again, to prevent corruption.
Ending the Unique Power of Lobbyists: Edwards will prohibit all candidates and federal office holders from accepting contributions from lobbyists and will prohibit federal lobbyists from acting as fundraisers or bundlers for federal candidates. He will limit the ability of lobbyists to secure lucrative earmarks by enacting a Constitutional version of the line-item veto, where the president can require an up or down vote on special-interest spending. Edwards will close the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street by reinstating the five-year ban on lobbying by former top government officials and by banning former lobbyists from taking executive branch positions related to their former clients. Finally, he will curb lobbyists' influence by increasing disclosure requirements for lobbyist activity and by prohibiting government executives from accepting gifts and travel from lobbyists and their employers.
Strengthening the Voice of Ordinary Citizens: To ensure everyone's vote is counted, Edwards will require that all voting machines, including electronic ones, use paper ballots that can be verified by voters. He will also give D.C. residents voting representation in Congress, allow Election Day Registration in federal elections, fight voter suppression and intimidation and end the disenfranchisement of former prisoners who have served their time. In order to increase citizen engagement, Edwards will ask one million citizens to participate in biennial Citizen Congresses – national town hall meetings where regular Americans tackle national issues together, without the filters of interest groups and the media. Similar projects have given citizens a voice in community solutions across the country, including in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards unveiled a "One Democracy" initiative last week to enlarge the role of ordinary Americans in politics. The "Citizen Congress" is the most original part of this policy. If elected, he would convene millions of Americans in town halls throughout the country every other year to deliberate and advise public leaders on difficult issues such as healthcare, poverty, and foreign affairs.
The idea that government should talk directly to citizens about political issues, and that citizens should talk to each other, has the potential to reinvigorate American democracy. Citizen participation through influential assemblies such as Citizen Congresses would address three critical failings of the political system.
Here's a citizen journalist video report of John Edwards proposing his One Democracy Initiative, recorded by YouTube user dteubner. These are parts 2 and 3 of the speech, which gets into the meat of his proposals. Part 1 can be found here.
If you're interested in hearing more from that day in Keene, NH, you can download an MP3 here that includes the speech, as well as a question and answer session that followed it. Also, here is part of a Q&A session with CSpan viewers that aired before the speech (I didn't tune in early enough to catch it all).
Edwards has been talking up public financing and government reform and deriding the corrupting influence of lobbyists for quite some time now. Here he discusses these issues on a recent edition of Meet the Press:
"California SEIU members know that John Edwards will be the best labor president in the history of the United States," said Sal Rosselli, president of SEIU United Healthcare Workers West. "His proposals are far and away the best among the candidates on the issues that matter most to working Americans. Edwards has taken principled stands on workers' behalf, when others took more cautious positions on issues that demand bold action."
This brings his labor union support up to nearly 3 million union members nationwide.
Friends of the Earth Action enthusiastically endorses John Edwards for President. He has led the way among the candidates in addressing global warming and ruling out a new embrace of nuclear power. He has also demonstrated himself to be the top-tier candidate most likely to stand up to the powerful, corporate polluters and their lobbyists. After seven years of the most destructive environmental president in modern history, we feel strongly that John Edwards will fight for a healthy and just planet as President.
Edwards, who has an excellent plan to stop global warming, get us off our addiction to oil, and create a new energy economy, was the first candidate to commit to an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, and he is running a carbon neutral campaign. His environmental platform has been widely praised by environmentalists, and he won the MoveOn town hall on global warming earlier this year.
Friends of the Earth Action will run an independent campaign to educate their members and other environmentalists about Edwards' platform and to get people out to vote, particularly in New Hampshire.
Here's a video of the endorsement bye Friends of the Earth Action:
And here are John's remarks at the event, video by YouTube user guerillavlogger:
John Edwards doesn't trust Bush. Hillary Clinton does.
I hope you saw the debate last night on MSNBC. Last night proved that John Edwards would end the war in Iraq, and would not get us into a new war with Iran, unlike Hillary Clinton the hawk.
The end of the quarter is coming fast! Please give to help put an anti-war president in the White House!
John learned something from his mistake in voting for the Iraq war. Among other things, he learned that George Bush cannot be trusted.
Hillary Clinton did not learn the same lesson. On September 26th, 2007, she voted for the Lieberman – Kyl amendment, which is a first step toward war with Iran. According to ThinkProgress:
By a vote 76-22, the Senate passed the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, which threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran via “military instruments.” Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) called the amendment “Cheney’s fondest pipe dream” and said it could “read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action.”
Hillary Clinton voted for this!
John Edwards called her out for it in the Democratic debate on the night of September 26, 2007:
But I want to come back to a discussion that took place a few minutes ago to make everyone understands what Senator Gravel is talking and Senator Clinton was talking about. Because there was a very important vote cast in the United States Senate today. And it was, basically, in a resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.
I voted for this war in Iraq, and I was wrong to vote for this war. And I accept responsibility for that. Senator Clinton also voted for this war.
We learned a very different lesson from that. I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran.
And I think that vote today, which Senator Biden and Senator Dodd voted against, and they were correct to vote against it, is a clear indication of the approach that all of us would take with the situation in Iran because what I learned in my vote on Iraq was you cannot give this president the authority and you can’t even give him the first step in that authority because he cannot be trusted.
Watch the video:
Barack Obama DID NOT VOTE AT ALL on Lieberman-Kyl, because he was at a campaign event in New Hampshire. This is after all his rhetoric about how he would have voted against the Iraq war!
Please support the only major Democratic candidate who will keep us out of another war. Please support John Edwards!
It is almost the end of the fundraising quarter. Can you give to help put an anti-war president in the White House?
"Tell Congress you know the truth," Edwards says. "They have the power to end this war and you expect them to use it. When the president asks for more money and more time, Congress needs to tell him he only gets one choice — a firm timeline for withdrawal."
Yet Another Union Endorsement for Edwards: Transport Workers Union
Today, John Edwards received his fourth union endorsement: the Transport Workers of America. Edwards has more union support than any other presidential candidate. With the addition of the Transport Workers Union, which represents over 200,000 workers, he has now been endorsed by unions representing over 2 million members.
The Transport Workers Union is a national union based in New York City. Hillary Clinton may have expected to get this endorsement, based on the location of their headquarters, but instead it went to Edwards.
"Some candidates seem to be figuring out how to best triangulate on campaign issues," said TWU President James C. Little. "John Edwards takes on subjects such as job security, health care, retirement and the growing gap in wealth between the rich and the middle class in a straight forward way that the country and working families desperately need."
Almost half of the Transport Workers Union's members live in states that will vote on or before February 5, including 8,000 active and retired workers in Nevada. This adds to Edwards's powerful organizing presence in the early states.
"I'm proud to stand in New York with members of the Transit Workers Union, who keep the city moving and help keep New Yorkers safe," said Edwards. "The men and women of the TWU serve on the front lines of our country's homeland security, protecting public transportation users, the nation's railways, and skies. These are the workers who get us to our jobs and our families.
"For too long, these good union men and women and millions of other working families have been ignored by a broken system in Washington. I'm looking forward to campaigning with them in early primary states and key general election battleground states, and as president I'll fight for them every day, so we can honor their hard work and make our transportation infrastructure safe and secure."
John Edwards has also been endorsed by the Carpenters Union with 520,000 members, the Steelworkers Union with 1.2 million members, and the Mine Workers Union with 105,000 members.
Check out this awesome video from the Steelworkers Union!
Edwards endorsed by Steelworkers and Mine Workers Unions
Today, John Edwards won the endorsement of the Steelworkers and the Mine Workers Unions. I have previously reported that the Steelworkers Union was set to endorse Edwards today, but the Mine Workers Union came as a pleasant surprise. These two great organizations join the Carpenters Union in endorsing Edwards. This makes him the candidate with the most union support so far. These three unions combined represent almost 2 million workers.
"I am especially honored to receive the support of the Steelworkers and Mine Workers unions," said Edwards, "These are the workers who built the middle class in America, and they are the backbone of the American labor movement. They understand how important it is to fight back when jobs, safety, standards and our values are at risk—and they know what's at stake in this election."
"These workers have felt the negative impact of a broken system in Washington that is rigged against America's working families for far too long—whether it's the tragic lack of oversight in mine safety, trade agreements written to benefit multinational corporations while they ship American jobs overseas, or the millions of working Americans who still can't afford health insurance," added Edwards. "As president, I will proudly lead the fight on behalf of working families with their support—and together we will win."
Check out what the union leaders had to say about Edwards:
"Senator John Edwards is committed, as he has been throughout his life, to going to bat for everyday Americans and to changing a broken political system that leaves millions of Americans without a voice in their government," said Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard. "Edwards is right on the issues that matter to us, and he's the candidate with the best chance of winning in the general election. The big corporations don't need another president who does their bidding. It's time we had a president who will fight for working people—and that's what John Edwards will do."
"Senator Edwards' positions on the issues of importance to UMWA members make him the best fit of all the candidates for president," UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. "We need a president who cares about ordinary working people instead of the richest Americans and the big multinational corporations. We believe John Edwards is that person, and we will work as hard as we know how on his behalf anywhere and everywhere we can."
I'd like to thank these great unions for supporting John Edwards, the best candidate for president of the United States. Happy Labor Day to everyone!
While the media appointed front runners preen their superstar images and bicker between themselves, and the corporate media trivializes the issues, the Edwards campaign, from the candidate himself all the way down to the volunteers, fights on in a battle to save America, and by extension, the world. For anyone paying attention, there is no doubt that John Edwards is correct when he says "Washington, DC is broken. The system is rigged, and it's rigged against you." Among the presidential candidates, only John Edwards has vowed to fight and beat the corporate lobbyists that now control our government (as opposed to negotiating with them to take away their power, which won't work), and only John Edwards has the needed experience fighting and beating corporate interests repeatedly in his lifetime. Only John Edwards has never taken money from Washington lobbyists or political action committees (PACs) in any of his political campaigns, including his very first one for the Senate.
His fight won't be easy, but he's up to the challenge. Edwards has been taking on abusive corporations for over 20 years. His career as a trial lawyer proved that he's not afraid to fight and win battles that others think are unwinnable.
It's no exaggeration to say that the corporate interests in Washington, and their mouthpiece of a party, the Republicans, noticed this a long time ago and have been trying to take Edwards down ever since. It's no accident that almost every time the corporate media covers Edwards, they include some slur about his looks or his hair designed to make the former football player and courtroom tough guy look effeminate. It's no accident that they overemphasize his wealth and constantly remind us that he lives in a big house, inaccurately calling him a hypocrite. It's no accident that they fan the flames of anti-lawyer prejudice. Edwards is a real danger to their continued control of just about everything. They fear him greatly, so they will do anything they can to smear his good name and tarnish his image.
It's a testament to the man's integrity that they have never, thus far, found anything he has done that is actually dishonest, unethical, or illegal. They don't have much to attack him on, but they're prepared to be awfully inventive in their efforts to harm John and US.
John Edwards's battle against the corrupt corporate influences in Washington is truly a David versus Goliath struggle. John is well on his way to winning it, and he can, if enough average Americans have the good sense to help him. A recent Gallup poll showed that three quarters of Americans agree that politicians taking money from lobbyists is unacceptable, but whether or not that translates into support for John remains to be seen.
Democrats couldn't ask for a more perfect candidate. Intelligent, honest, and well spoken, easy on the eyes and easy to relate to, kind and accessible in person, tough, determined, and indomitable when it counts.
That pretty much sums up John Edwards, and when you add to that the fact that he's from the South, which has produced every successful Democratic presidential candidate in over 40 years, you have a man the Democratic Party would be foolish not to rally behind.
But thus far the Democratic Party has not rallied behind him, and this can be attributed to the corporate media's influence, plus the growing rift between traditional Democrats and DLC corporate controlled centrists. The battle John Edwards is fighting is not only a battle for the survival of American democracy, but also a battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. Will the Democratic party choose to represent the people, or the corporations? It remains to be seen. I'm supporting Edwards - the people's candidate.
