On Monday, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law released its 2007 Congressional Poverty Scorecard. The President of the Center, John Bouman, noted that in states with the highest poverty rates, their congressional delegations tended to score the worst.
"Poverty is everywhere in America, but it is interesting that in states with the highest concentrations of poverty, the Congressional delegations seem least interested in supporting initiatives that fight poverty," said John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, which released the study. "This appears deeper than simply opposing spending. A member could have opposed any of the measures we analyzed that called for new spending and still could have voted to support half of the poverty-fighting measures on our list."
"We can get the national leadership and we can get the congressional leadership we need," Edwards said. "But first voters need to be educated as to who is doing the work and who is not."
States whose delegations had the worst voting records and highest poverty rates were South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arizona.
Most of the proposals that were considered for calculating the grade on the scorecard did not pass the House and Senate. The Senate in particular had trouble passing these bills due to filibusters or the threat of filibusters by Republican members. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who received a grade of A+, explained as follows:
"That's something I don't think the America people understand," said Sanders on Monday, adding Republicans are "obstructing" the work of the Senate. "A lot of these votes were not yes or no on the specific bill. They were yes or no to end a filibuster."
Edwards said that progress on poverty will only come with leadership, but added that both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have promised him that they will make poverty an issue in their campaigns and focus on it in the White House, if elected.
The report considered bills on a variety of issues affecting poverty.
The votes we selected cover a wide range of subject areas, including affordable housing, budget and tax, civil rights, early and higher education, health care, immigrants, labor, legal services, prisoner reentry, and rural poverty. In some important subject areas such as assets policy, we did not include any votes because we determined that no votes important to fighting poverty occurred in that subject area in 2007.
The report considered fourteen votes in the Senate and fifteen votes in the House. Members were scored on "yes" or "no" votes and absent votes were eliminated.
The center was able to provide a score for 92 out of 100 Senators. Eight Senators received no score because they had not participated in enough of the votes. In many cases this was because they were running for President, though one was ill and one had arrived in the Senate partway through the year. They were also able to rank 424 out of 435 House members, with the few who were not scored also not voting enough times for similar reasons.
Click here to see which bills were considered and how your own Congressional representatives did.
Health care is a human right. In my own definition of the progressive movement, I count that as a basic progressive principle.
For various reasons, from my own personal perspective, it is simply unacceptable to settle for anything less than true universal health care. Some of those various reasons are my experiences with health care in the United States, as well as those of my friends and family, some of whom have serious or chronic conditions.
In tonight's EENR for Progress, we look at why we need universal health care, proposals for universal health care, and what progressives can do to achieve it.
It's true that I feel very strongly about the need for universal health care, but I am not a health care expert. The research presented here is not comprehensive, but it is the best of my understanding to date.
Why we need universal health care
Why do we even need universal health care? Here's a quick review, just in case anyone remains blissfully unaware.
45 Million Uninsured Americans: There are 45 million uninsured American residents, nearly one in five non-elderly residents. For these people, preventive care is expensive and even major illnesses may go untreated until it is too late. An estimated 18,000 uninsured people die every year because they lack access to care, according to the Institute of Medicine. [Census Bureau, 2006; Institute of Medicine, 2002]
Tens of millions more Americans are at risk of losing coverage. One in three non-elderly Americans goes without insurance at some point over a two-year period. Some families see their claims denied or insurance cancelled after they incur large bills. Half of US bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses, even though two-thirds of bankruptcy filers had health insurance. Insured Americans also pay higher premiums – $922 on an average family policy and $341 on an average individual policy – to pay for the cost of treating the uninsured. [Families USA, 2005; LA Times, 9/16/2006; Warren et. al., 2005; Hacker, 2007]
Spiraling Health Care Costs: The U.S. health care system is needlessly expensive. Health care costs have consistently grown faster than wages for almost 50 years. Over the past six years, families have seen premiums grow by nearly 90 percent while benefits have been cut. One in four Americans say that they or a family member have had trouble paying a medical bill in the past year. More than a quarter of low- and middle-income households with credit card debt have charged medical expenses. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 2006; Demos and Access Project, 2007]
Furthermore, inadequate available and affordable health care leads people to ignore health problems, eventually turning into higher costs.
A 2007 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at retired California public employees on Medicare, and its findings contradict some of the basic assumption of the consumerist movement.
The study’s authors--from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Oregon-- found that chronically patients who are asked to shoulder more of their health care costs deferred, neglected, or opted-out of doctor’s visits and drugs when the price got too high. This short-term cost reduction led to long-term catastrophe, as their hospitalization rates were significantly higher than other patients suffering from chronic diseases. Immediate savings ultimately led to a greater—and otherwise preventable—use of more expensive care. Oops.
It's even worse for those already in poverty.
In 2003, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities cited research from the RAND corporation that found “low-income adults and children reduced their use of effective medical care services by as much as 44 percent when they were forced to make co-payments, a much deeper reduction than occurred among those with higher incomes.”
Clearly universal health care that everyone can afford is important if we want to help lift people out of poverty and prevent the middle class from falling into poverty. Having a healthy population is also important to businesses, which would benefit from having a healthy work force, and even to national security.
Our every-man-for-himself attitude toward health care is a security threat on a par with unsecured ports. In Canada, people go see the doctor if they're sick for more than a day or two. It was this easy access to early treatment, along with the much tighter public health matrix that enables doctors to share information quickly, that allowed the country's health care system to detect the 2003 SARS epidemics in Toronto and Vancouver while they were still very localized, act within hours to stop them before the disease spread any further, and track down and treat exposed people before they got too sick to be helped. In both cases, the system worked flawlessly. The epidemic was stopped within days and quashed entirely in under a month, potentially saving of millions of lives.
In the U.S., that same epidemic might easily have gone unnoticed for critical days and weeks. If the first people to get sick were among those 75 million without adequate insurance, they probably would have toughed it out a few extra days before finally dragging their half-dead carcasses into an ER somewhere. Not only would they be much farther along in the course of the disease -- and thus at greater risk of death themselves -- every one of them could have infected dozens or even hundreds of other people in the meantime, accelerating the spread of the epidemic.
Worse: America's underfunded public health system might have taken several days to piece together the whole picture of an epidemic; and perhaps another week or two might have passed before the E. Coli conservatives in charge (having thrown out the science-based management plans thoughtfully developed by the bureaucracy) cooked up some kind of half-assed ideology-driven decision about how to proceed. (It would, of course, involve spectacular amounts of lying to the public.) By that point, tens of millions could have been infected, leading to a death toll that would make 9/11 and Katrina look like minor statistical blips.
Proposals for universal health care
All of the health care plans proposed this year by the major Democratic presidential campaigns were based on the "Health Care for America" plan proposed by Yale University political science professor Jacob S. Hacker, including the plan by John Edwards, which was the first and best of the plans proposed. Of course, any of the Democratic plans is better than the Republican plan.
The Health Care for America plan is an insurance-based system that seeks to leverage what we already have, create efficiencies, and close gaps in coverage. It's not a terrible plan. It could work to cover everyone, and there are indications that it would reduce costs.
WASHINGTON – A health care plan that combines the best elements of the current employer-based system and the Medicare model would create big savings, offer more choices and guarantee affordable coverage to all U.S. residents, according to a new cost and coverage analysis of the plan by the Lewin Group, a nationally respected nonpartisan consulting firm.
Health Care for America, developed for the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) by Yale political scientist Jacob S. Hacker, would achieve these goals and maximize consumers’ health care choices without unraveling existing health security, forcing individual to obtain coverage on their own, pressuring patients into health savings accounts or using inadequate vouchers.
Lewin estimates the proposal would cover 99.6 percent of all Americans without raising total national health spending. It would also save hundreds of billions over time – more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years – in national health spending, according to Lewin.
The argument can certainly be made that it is much more politically feasible to fix what we have already than it is to put health care for profit out of business and start from scratch. The problem with that is, what we have is really broken, and if we improve upon a shaky system, we are likely to cause that shaky system to become more entrenched.
Virtually all the gradual reforms being touted would reinforce a multi-tiered health care system with as many standards of care as there are dollars to purchase them, and further lock us into a private insurance-based model that holds our health hostage to the HMOs and big insurance companies for years to come.
The public is ahead of the politicians and policy wonks. A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 64% said the government should guarantee health insurance for all, 55% identified it as the top domestic priority for Congress and the President.
Now that I no longer have a dog in the hunt, however, I admit that I have always favored a single-payer (Medicare for All) system, and I believe that is what we should really be striving for.
Excerpt from Michael Moore's Sicko
What Sicko taught America is that health insurance is not health care. Coverage is not care, because the holes in the coverage are large enough to slip through and die. So when Senator Obama says that he would support a Medicare for All system if we were starting from scratch, the nurses, patients, and Michael Moore can attest that we are all starting from scratch. As a nation, there is no health care system.
That's right, folks. We don't HAVE a health care system. What we have is a hodge podge of services that cover some of the people, some of the time, in some circumstances, maybe, but only if you can cut through the red tape. That's not a system. That's chaos.
Could we fill some of the gaps between services, legislate against the worst abuses, pull some of the pieces together, and make sure everyone has some kind of coverage using parts of what little we've got? Sure. We could do that. That's what all of the plans based on "Health Care for America" are saying we should do. Perhaps they're even right that it woul be easier and more likely to succeed than starting from scratch, but again, we'd be building on something that's broken.
Sixty-five percent of those polled said the United States should adopt universal health insurance that covers everyone under a program such as Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers. - Recent AP/Yahoo poll
1. Canada's health care system is "socialized medicine." False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150. And that insurer is the provincial government, which is accountable to the legislature and the voters if the quality of coverage is allowed to slide.
The proper term for this is "single-payer insurance." In talking to Americans about it, the better phrase is "Medicare for all."
By that definition, none of the proposals mentioned in this article qualify as "socialized medicine," including Medicare for All.
I highly recommend reading all of Sara Robinson's Mythbusting article on Canadian Health Care, Part 1 and Part 2. If that doesn't make you want to move to Canada, I don't know what will. If it does make you want to move to Canada, the U.S. will have to pay to cover one less person whenever we finally get around to providing universal health care, and please, send us a postcard! But seriously, folks, her article includes all sorts of reasons why we should not fear single-payer health care, including less stressed and less overworked doctors, healthier patients, and wait times that actually aren't noticeably longer than in the U.S.
But don't doctors suffer under single payer systems? This guy doesn't seem to think so:
Interview with a British doctor from Michael Moore's Sicko
There is currently a Medicare for All bill in Congress, H.R. 676, proposed by Congressman John Conyers and supported by 88 cosponsors, including former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
In 2003, Representative Conyers first introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI). This bill would establish a unique American universal health insurance program with single payer financing. As a publicly financed, privately delivered health care system that improves and expands the already existing Medicare program, it would be available to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories.
“It’s equally, perhaps even more, important on this issue that people across the country elect members of Congress who support” Conyers’s bill, Moore said. “The Democratic president is not going to veto that bill,” he said. “At that point, they’re going to have to ride the wave.”
To sum up, there seem to be 2 main types of plans being discussed on the national scene in a big way. One is some variation on the "Health Care for America" plan, which is a combination of employer based health care, insurance, and Medicare and builds on whatever it is we've already got. The second is single payer or Medicare for All.
The "Health Care for America" type of plan may be much easier to enact, primarily because it throws insurance companies and drug companies a bone that maybe they shouldn't be thrown and builds on our existing broken system, patching it up. It would be MUCH better than no improvement at all, however, and is the only type of system being currently proposed by the major presidential candidates.
The Medicare for All or single-payer type of system is a better system in many ways, but the opposition to it by entrenched insurance and drug company interests would be even more fierce than the opposition they would raise against the "Health Care for America" system, which is going to be fierce enough as it is. A recent survey shows that 65% of the American people favor this kind of system, but even so, mustering strong enough political will to pass it would be very difficult. There's a lot to be said for doing things right the first time, though, especially if you consider that with the mess we already have, we essentially ARE starting from scratch. There is a bill for this type of system currently in Congress, H.R. 676.
In any case, there's no excuse for not providing everyone with health care. The "universal" in universal health care means everyone is covered. To remind us of that, I give you one of the most poignant videos released during the Edwards campaign.
A Survivor's Question
I'm somewhat agnostic about the difference between "Health Care for America" and Medicare for All. My bottom line is that I want to see some form of Universal Health Care in America within the next president's first term. I prefer Medicare for All, but if "Health Care for America" is what gets passed, I'll be ecstatic for a while, at least until it becomes painfully obvious that it was nothing more than a patch to a broken system and we still need to work toward single payer.
I'm not a purist, and I think that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good here.
The truth is, the families and individuals who are suffering from lack of health care or inadequate health care, or inability to afford health care can't wait. We need to do something, and soon.
What Progressives Can Do
So, what can we do?
Write your Congress critters and tell them to pass H.R. 676, Medicare for All. Here's a sample letter you can use:
Dear (decision maker):
I am writing to ask you to cosponsor H.R. 676, Medicare for All. It's time for Universal Health Care, and recent AP/Yahoo poll indicates that 65% of Americans favor a single payer system.
In Obama's case, he has said that he would support a Medicare for All system if we were starting from scratch, so convince him that we ARE starting from scratch. In truth the "starting from scratch" argument is a little bit of a straw man since no health care system ever started from scratch since the time the first healer picked the first medicinal herb. There was always an existing way of doing things that needed to be supplanted by a new way. We need a new way.
Keep in mind also that it will take a strong Democratic Congress to pass Universal Health Care, so work for the progressive congressional candidates of your choice.
Stay tuned for the first EENR candidates endorsement diary coming on Monday from Sarahlane!
Best wishes to Michael Moore and Sicko at the Oscars tonight and the best of health and health care to the American people!
As you might imagine, I have been quite depressed about the failure of Democratic voters to see through the media spin and elect the real progressive candidate, John Edwards, as their nominee. The other day, a good friend of mine, Random Factor, forced me to see a little bit differently.
I had a long conversation with Random Factor on the phone the other day. I told her about my frustration and despair that had resulted from the loss. To my surprise, she took me a little bit to task for looking at it so negatively.
She gave me a passionate pep talk about how surprised she had been that a completely grassroots campaign, ignored and marginalized by the media, had managed to gain 10% to 15% support nationwide in the polls on the strength of grassroots action alone. Not only that, but as a result of that strong showing, Edwards was able to set the agenda for the other Democratic candidates, make them fight for his endorsement, and force them to move to the left.
Random Factor told me in no uncertain terms that she thought Edwards supporters should be proud of what we have accomplished.
I have to admit, she's right. Edwards controlled the message in this primary season, in spite of the fact that the media tried their best to ignore him. The fruits of his labor and our labor may not be immediately apparent, but it's hard to say what their seeds may bear in time. We may have sown the seeds of real change here.
At the risk of sounding like Cassandra (a prophetess who spoke the truth but was never believed) or Eeyore (a donkey who was always depressed), Democrats are not going to win the presidential election in 2008. I will celebrate if I'm wrong, but perhaps I'm making this post right now because I want to have at least bragging rights if I'm right.
There are multiple reasons why I believe I'm right about this. For one thing, we need to have a candidate that appeals to rural, southern, and red state voters. Failing to embrace this fact again and again, Democrats always seem to choose someone with solidly blue state appeal. Sadly, I also very much doubt that we have overcome sexism and racism to the point where they won't be factors in the general this time around, though on this, especially, I would like to be proven wrong.
One of the very saddest reasons that I believe the Democrats won't win, however, is that we have become so timid that we tend not to nominate candidates who stand for anything. We had a candidate this time around, John Edwards, whose ideas were so bold and progressives that he had a strong hand in setting the agenda for the other candidates. Unfortunately, he is out of the race, and now we're left with two candidates so timid and triangulating that they seem to have few ideas of their own and have adopted the mildest of his.
You might not believe Cassandra, and you might not believe polls either, but there are already polls out showing both Clinton and Obama losing to McCain, and that is before the Swift boating and cheating starts.
I'm so convinced that we won't win in 2008, that I'm already starting to think about how we win in 2012, and win with a real progressive.
It was clear from the media coverage of Edwards, or more specifically, lack thereof, that there are certain things that you cannot talk about in a presidential campaign without being marginalized by the media, and that those taboo subjects constitute some of the most fundamental reasons our democracy doesn't work. It was also clear that the media itself is a big part of this problem, and is undermining our democracy by actively trying to tell people who they can and cannot vote for.
Some of the things that Edwards talked about that got him shunned by the mainstream media, but loved by many progressives, were corporate influence on our government, lobbyists corrupting the system, campaign finance reform, election reform, and the problems with media consolidation. Edwards told us that the system is rigged, and the fact that his progressive message was so thoroughly shut out of it proves his point.
So how do we make it possible that a real progressive like Edwards could win in the future? Here are some of the things I think we need to do:
Elect progressives to positions of importance below the presidency within the Democratic Party, so that the party insiders are progressives. This means Congress and other positions (like those positions that currently are the superdelegates). Kick the DLC (the corporate wing of the party) out of the Democratic party to the extent that it's possible. Having more Democratic Party insiders who are actually on our side will create the infrastructure for a progressive win.
Demand fair, unbiased, and intelligent media coverage, and equal coverage of candidates. This takes exposing the problems with our media and maybe boycotts of bad media. It means opposing media consolidation and rolling back the media consolidation that has already happened, so that more voices are heard. It also may take developing media outlets of our own. Blogs are a small but important step.
Enact strong campaign finance and election reform. Get rid of the lobbyists, enact effective public campaign financing, and make sure election results can be verified.
All this may seem like a Catch-22. We couldn't elect a presidential candidate who talked about these things, therefore we will have trouble making these reforms. We will have trouble making these reforms, therefore it will be difficult to elect leaders who can help us. Nevertheless, this is what needs to be done.
All of the above will be exceedingly difficult, and it won't all happen before 2012. With luck and persistence, some of it will happen before 2012, increasing the likelihood of electing a real progressive president. The more progress we make on these issues, even if it's a bit at a time, the more likely it becomes that someone like John Edwards, a candidate who stands for something, could succeed.
John Edwards dropping out of the presidential race has left me suddenly with a lot of time on my hands and a need to reorient myself. This blog will probably start to cover a wider range of topics. More to come.
Quite honestly, it should have been a heck of a lot more exciting to vote for the best presidential candidate I've ever seen in my life. I couldn't possibly have done otherwise. Voting for him was the only way to truly express my voice, because I agree so strongly with most of his platform.
It was a bittersweet experience, though, because the guy should have won. He should be our next president. The fact that it's not going to happen is just maddening.
Anyway, I feel completely at peace about my vote for having voted my conscience.
“There is a lot John and I have in common. I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do in the White House.”
As of this moment, I still plan to vote for John.
If he does endorse before I vote, I will listen to and consider what John Edwards has to say, and I will take it very seriously since I will have to assume any candidate he endorses has made a serious commitment to his issues, but I have one thing to say right now.
John, if you or Elizabeth are reading this, I want you to know that I would have great difficulty voting for a candidate who doesn't have a real universal health care plan, with or without your endorsement, and that the celebrity hype surrounding our remaining candidates makes me not hopeful for our country, but frightened that we do not vote for rational reasons.
There's one major reason that I haven't been able to get behind either the remaining candidates since John Edwards dropped out of the race, and you can read a summary of it here. It is the most comprehensive and smartest platform I have ever seen a presidential candidate put forward. It also comes with the rare understanding that there are certain problems, such as corruption of our government by corporate special interests, that currently stand in the way of any real reform on any other issue.
My own top concerns are as follows, although which one takes precedence varies depending on the day:
1) Universal Health Care. 2) Stopping Global Warming. 3) Ending Poverty. 4) Restoring Democracy in the United States. 5) Removing the Corrupting Influence of Corporate Money from our Government. 6) Ensuring Verifiable and Democratic Election Results. 7) Reforming the Media and Guaranteeing Net Neutrality. 8) Ending the War and Preventing Future Wars.
To one degree or another, John Edwards addressed every one of these issues during the course of his campaign. On most of these issues, he was the first candidate, or sometimes the only candidate, to address them, and furthermore, he understood and could articulate the interrelatedness of all these problems.
There is now a widespread acknowledgement, even among the slow-witted punditocracy, who should have noted it BEFORE John Edwards dropped out of the race, that Edwards set the agenda for the Democratic Party and its candidates in this election. His is the original vision, and the deepest understanding of that vision. The other candidate's platforms are truly but pale imitations.
I miss his voice. I miss it sorely. Probably almost nothing could convince me that John Edwards was not the best person to lead our country at this time. He should have been our president. This is why, barring a statement from Edwards himself that changes my mind, I am casting my vote for him tomorrow in Maryland.
From NBC's Mark Hudspeth and Mark Murray When asked about the AP report that Obama and Edwards meeting is not happening today, the Obama campaign told us to talk to the Edwards camp. However, when pressed, they said it wouldn't be inaccurate to report that the meeting will not happen today or tomorrow.
A source close to Edwards confirms that the meeting has been canceled. But the source doesn’t know the reason behind it; it could be something as simple as a scheduling conflict.
Opinion Pieces I Love. These Make It Almost Bearable.
I can't imagine anything that makes me less hopeful for our country than the exit from the race of the best presidential candidate I've ever seen in my life and the Democratic Party's rush to embrace a Reagan-loving Bush-Cheney Lite trojan horse.
Does the Democratic Party have Stockholm syndrome? Have we been held captive by the right wing for so long that we have become sympathetic to our captors? Depressing thoughts abound in the days since my progressive hero John Edwards "suspended" his campaign.
I want to share some opinion pieces that made me smile a little, because they helped me to know that my work for the Edwards campaign was worthwhile and that the fight really does go on.
The first is by the lovely and wonderful Madeleine Stowe. Madeleine, who you may know from films like Last of the Mohicans and Twelve Monkeys, is one of Edwards' celebrity supporters, who went on the campaign trail with him. I met her in Iowa, and when I call her lovely and wonderful, I am not referring merely to her physical beauty or her talent as an actress. She is also a kind and thoughtful human being.
I particularly like Madeleine's portrait of John Edwards for her insights about his character. She writes:
But John Edwards is tough. Perhaps this is what the pundits have either failed to understand or willfully neglected to point out. His campaign has faced challenge after challenge and his personal life has been struck by tragedy, yet he remained in the race long past the media's expectations, unbowed. Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, understand what the passage of time means in a life, and they've made hard and clear decisions about how they're going to live.
I observed the candidate on the campaign trail when reporters weren't around during each of the four primaries and found that he was always strikingly calm in spite of the whirl around him. Edwards, I've been told, is guided by a faith that runs deep but which he refuses to unleash on the general public. During his tenure as a senator from North Carolina, at a prayer breakfast in D.C. where he was said to have given a moving speech, he was advised to bring up his faith again and again as a political tool. Edwards said, "No," and has been intractable on the matter ever since.
In the month before the Iowa caucuses and just before the start of a town-hall meeting of more than 300 people, an aide took me backstage to say hello. Edwards was standing alone in a large, dark room. He smiled brightly, manners impeccable, but there was a slight vulnerability emanating from him. While he's been described by those close to him as supremely confident, in that moment I felt something else. He reminded me of the "good son," the man who still wore the aura of wanting to please his father, to give the task at hand his best. It was an oddly touching quality, and something told me to politely leave him be. He was gracious to a fault, hands in his pockets. Before leaving, I muttered, "You're on the right side of things," and he nodded with a certainty that was not at all cocky, but instead youthful in its hopefulness, replying, "Yes. I think I am."
Thank you, Madeleine.
The second opinion piece that has made this loss more bearable, is Paul Krugman's. Not surprisingly given his track record, Krugman gets it right.
At the beginning of 2007, it seemed likely that the Democratic nominee would run a cautious campaign, without strong, distinctive policy ideas. That, after all, is what John Kerry did in 2004.
If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit.
It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.
Krugman has reminded me that if the Democrats succeed in providing universal health care during the next administration, every single person who worked on the Edwards campaign will be able to consider it a personal achievement. Unfortunately, we are still a long way from there.
Edwards shaped the 2008 race, offering the first universal healthcare plan from a major contender, proposing the first economic stimulus package, making an issue of war profiteering. And he was heard. Obama's rhetoric has grown more powerful and effective as he has borrowed Edwards's policies as well as his populist phrasing. And when Clinton tells urban audiences she is campaigning to help Americans "lift yourself and your family out of poverty," it is impossible to miss the Edwards echo. Even Republicans like Mike Huckabee sounded like they'd been reading Edwards's position papers on trade policy. Now, as a noncandidate, Edwards can and should continue to shape the race. The desire of Clinton and Obama for his endorsement will get his phone calls answered. But perhaps an Edwards endorsement is of less consequence than his continuing presence. Forget the empty speculation about him as a vice presidential prospect; Edwards's best role will be as the voice of conscience for a party that has yet to recognize that its historic commitment to economic justice must be renewed in a time of recession.
One thing I will always be proud of and count as an accomplishment in my life, is that I stood with John Edwards when it mattered.
I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.
We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.
-John Edwards
Today, John Edwards suspended his campaign for the presidency. In a way, I like that word "suspended." It means the struggle lives on.
His speech today reminded us all of why we've been fighting for his campaign in the first place - because each one of us is as valuable as the next, and each of us deserves justice.
Read his words:
Thank you all very much. We're very proud to be back here.
During the spring of 2006, I had the extraordinary experience of bringing 700 college kids here to New Orleans to work. These are kids who gave up their spring break to come to New Orleans to work, to rehabilitate houses, because of their commitment as Americans, because they believed in what was possible, and because they cared about their country.
I began my presidential campaign here to remind the country that we, as citizens and as a government, have a moral responsibility to each other, and what we do together matters. We must do better, if we want to live up to the great promise of this country that we all love so much.
It is appropriate that I come here today. It's time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path. We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history. We will be strong, we will be unified, and with our convictions and a little backbone we will take back the White House in November and we'll create hope and opportunity for this country.
This journey of ours began right here in New Orleans. It was a December morning in the Lower Ninth Ward when people went to work, not just me, but lots of others went to work with shovels and hammers to help restore a house that had been destroyed by the storm.
We joined together in a city that had been abandoned by our government and had been forgotten, but not by us. We knew that they still mourned the dead, that they were still stunned by the destruction, and that they wondered when all those cement steps in all those vacant lots would once again lead to a door, to a home, and to a dream.
We came here to the Lower Ninth Ward to rebuild. And we're going to rebuild today and work today, and we will continue to come back. We will never forget the heartache and we'll always be here to bring them hope, so that someday, one day, the trumpets will sound in Musicians' Village, where we are today, play loud across Lake Ponchartrain, so that working people can come marching in and those steps once again can lead to a family living out the dream in America.
We sat with poultry workers in Mississippi, janitors in Florida, nurses in California.
We listened as child after child told us about their worry about whether we would preserve the planet.
We listened to worker after worker say “the economy is tearing my family apart."
We walked the streets of Cleveland, where house after house was in foreclosure.
And we said, "We're better than this. And economic justice in America is our cause."
And we spent a day, a summer day, in Wise, Virginia, with a man named James Lowe, who told us the story of having been born with a cleft palate. He had no health care coverage. His family couldn't afford to fix it. And finally some good Samaritan came along and paid for his cleft palate to be fixed, which allowed him to speak for the first time. But they did it when he was 50 years old. His amazing story, though, gave this campaign voice: universal health care for every man, woman and child in America. That is our cause.
And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us. The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.
For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.
We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.
Now, I've spoken to both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. They have both pledged to me and more importantly through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency. And more importantly, they have pledged to me that as President of the United States they will make ending poverty and economic inequality central to their Presidency. This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause.
And I want to say to everyone here, on the way here today, we passed under a bridge that carried the interstate where 100 to 200 homeless Americans sleep every night. And we stopped, we got out, we went in and spoke to them.
There was a minister there who comes every morning and feeds the homeless out of her own pocket. She said she has no money left in her bank account, she struggles to be able to do it, but she knows it’s the moral, just and right thing to do. And I spoke to some of the people who were there and as I was leaving, one woman said to me, “You won’t forget us, will you? Promise me you won’t forget us.” Well, I say to her and I say to all of those who are struggling in this country, we will never forget you. We will fight for you. We will stand up for you.
But I want to say this -- I want to say this because it’s important. With all of the injustice that we’ve seen, I can say this, America’s hour of transformation is upon us. It may be hard to believe when we have bullets flying in Baghdad and it may be hard to believe when it costs $58 to fill your car up with gas. It may be hard to believe when your school doesn’t have the right books for your kids. It’s hard to speak out for change when you feel like your voice is not being heard.
But I do hear it. We hear it. This Democratic Party hears you. We hear you, once again. And we will lift you up with our dream of what’s possible.
One America, one America that works for everybody.
One America where struggling towns and factories come back to life because we finally transformed our economy by ending our dependence on oil.
One America where the men who work the late shift and the women who get up at dawn to drive a two-hour commute and the young person who closes the store to save for college. They will be honored for that work.
One America where no child will go to bed hungry because we will finally end the moral shame of 37 million people living in poverty.
One America where every single man, woman and child in this country has health care.
One America with one public school system that works for all of our children.
One America that finally brings this war in Iraq to an end. And brings our service members home with the hero’s welcome that they have earned and that they deserve.
Today, I am suspending my campaign for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency.
But I want to say this to everyone: with Elizabeth, with my family, with my friends, with all of you and all of your support, this son of a millworker’s gonna be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine.
And I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard – all those who have volunteered, my dedicated campaign staff who have worked absolutely tirelessly in this campaign.
And I want to say a personal word to those I’ve seen literally in the last few days – those I saw in Oklahoma yesterday, in Missouri, last night in Minnesota – who came to me and said don’t forget us. Speak for us. We need your voice. I want you to know that you almost changed my mind, because I hear your voice, I feel you, and your cause it our cause. Your country needs you – every single one of you.
All of you who have been involved in this campaign and this movement for change and this cause, we need you. It is in our hour of need that your country needs you. Don’t turn away, because we have not just a city of New Orleans to rebuild. We have an American house to rebuild.
This work goes on. It goes on right here in Musicians’ Village. There are homes to build here, and in neighborhoods all along the Gulf. The work goes on for the students in crumbling schools just yearning for a chance to get ahead. It goes on for day care workers, for steel workers risking their lives in cities all across this country. And the work goes on for two hundred thousand men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America, proud veterans, who go to sleep every night under bridges, or in shelters, or on grates, just as the people we saw on the way here today. Their cause is our cause.
Their struggle is our struggle. Their dreams are our dreams.
Do not turn away from these great struggles before us. Do not give up on the causes that we have fought for. Do not walk away from what’s possible, because it’s time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one.
Thank you. God bless you, and let’s go to work. Thank you all very much.
Some of you may be curious what this does to the race for the Democratic nomination, and in that regard, I found this report from AP interesting.
Edwards, trudging through mud toward a Habitat for Humanity House he was to help work on, told reporters he would meet again with Clinton and Obama before deciding whether to make an endorsement. He set no timetable for deciding whether to endorse either candidate.
The impact of Edwards' decision will be felt in one week's time, when Democrats hold primaries and caucuses across 22 states, with 1,681 delegates at stake.
Four in 10 Edwards supporters said their second choice in the race is Clinton, while a quarter prefer Obama, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo poll conducted late this month.
Edwards amassed 56 national convention delegates, most of whom will be free to support either Obama or Clinton.
As expected, Edwards said he was suspending his campaign rather than ending it, but aides said that was simply legal terminology so that he can continue to receive federal matching funds for his campaign donations.
In suspending his campaign — instead of terminating it — Edwards keeps all 26 delegates he won in the Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina contests. After he officially exits, 10 of those delegates will be dispersed to the other candidates, with Obama getting six and Clinton getting four. Under party rules, Edwards will maintain a say in naming the other 16 delegates.
What Edwards brought --and we can't lose with his exit--is that fighting moral spirit to take back our government from corporate power and interests. It's up to progressives to ensure that Obama and Clinton heed Edwards' words --and that we keep driving the issues of economic fairness, justice and dignity into the next primaries and election.
The Future of EENR
The Edward Evening News Roundup, EENR, began in April 2007 and we've continued it every night since then. We love the family of Edwards supporters that we've come to know, and we don't want this to end.
We know that the struggle for economic and social justice in America does not end, and so we cannot stop our struggle.
Those of us on the EENR team want all of you to know that we intend to continue. Now that the Edwards campaign is over for now, we expect that we won't have enough news for a nightly diary. But we intend to continue EENR as a weekly diary on Sunday nights that will focus on the progressive causes that John Edwards and all of us are fighting for.
We are renaming it EENR for Progress. At least for now.
We hope you will continue to stand alongside us in this fight.
Now, if you'll excuse me for adding my own 2 cents here, I have something to say.
I will not endorse one of the remaining candidates in this race, but I want to say something to all those who are inspired by a figure who thinks you can sit down with corporate lobbyists and let them buy a seat at the table.
As John Edwards said, "you can't nice these people to death." Some of you may be too young to remember, but some of the folks in the generation just before my own tried that. They were called the flower children. They thought they could melt the hearts of the forces of darkness by offering flowers. Their innocence and generosity was beautiful, but the people in that generation and the generations before who accomplished something were fighters.
Because of people like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., John Lewis, and Harry Belafonte, we got the Civil Rights Act.
Because of people like Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, and Kate Michelman, we had a national conversation about equal rights for women that nearly resulted in the Equal Rights Amendment and has enabled us to gain and to keep reproductive rights for women in spite of a right wing onslaught.
Because of people like Mahatma Gandhi, India is now the largest democracy in the world, free of colonial rule.
Because of people like John Lennon, we now realize that music can be a clarion call for justice, not just entertainment.
The struggles of those people and others have resulted in a black man like Barack Obama and a woman like Hillary Clinton finally being taken seriously as candidates for president of the United States. Maybe those candidates are not the fighters we had hoped for, and maybe there is something about being the first that demands appeasement to the status quo, but we will continue the struggle.
Flowers will not be strewn in our paths as we continue the fight for social justice. But we will fight. And we will win.
I have one flower for all of you, however, and it turns its face toward the light. And that light is YOU!
Thank you Edwards supporters everywhere! Thank you John and Elizabeth, Cate, Emma Claire, and Jack, Bobbie and Wallace, and all of the Edwards campaign staff!
P.S. I think you will find this diary on Democratic Underground interesting. It reports a conference call that Truth2Tell says happened with John and Elizabeth Edwards. I'm not quoting it here until this information is confirmed by an official source.
John Edwards spoke today at the NAACP's King Day rally at the Dome on the grounds of the state Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina. He spoke passionately about the importance of speaking out for all the disenfranchised in our society. He emphasized that all of us are in this together, and that we can no longer stand silent in the face of oppression.
UPDATE: See letter to John Edwards from MLK III at the end of the diary.
Edwards speaking today at the King Day rally
“I had the privilege about a year ago of speaking at the Riverside church in Harlem, a place where Dr. King had spoken 40 years ago. He had come there to speak about the war in Vietnam. And the words he used, he said there comes a time in all our lives, where if we stand quiet, if we stand silent when our conscience tells us to speak, that our silence is a betrayal. It is a betrayal of ourselves, it is a betrayal of the country we love so much. Brothers and sisters we can no longer stand silent. We have to speak out and we must speak out together.
“It is time for us to not remain silent about this war in Iraq,” Edwards continued. “It is time for us to bring our men and women home from Iraq. It is time for our voices to be heard loud and clear. It is time that we no longer stand silent because silence is betrayal to 37 million people who wake up every single day in America living in poverty, worried about feeding and clothing their children. This is the great moral issue of our time. It was the central issue, along with equality, in the life of Dr. King.
“Here in South Carolina, we talk about the Corridor of Shame. Brothers and sisters, we must turn the Corridor of Shame into a corridor of hope and opportunity for the people of South Carolina. We as a nation have an opportunity to deal with this great moral issue. So brothers and sisters, my message for today, is that we’re in this today. We are united in this effort to create hope and opportunity, and it is time for us to say enough is enough. We’re better than this. The United States of America is better than this. It is time for us to stand up, speak out, rise up together as one people and create the kind of America that all of us believe in and all of us are fighting for.”
No stranger to the fight for justice and opportunity for everyone, John Edwards has laid out an impressive platform to bring balance and equality and close the income and opportunity gap throughout South Carolina and throughout our whole society.
Guarantee health care for every American and address the shameful racial and ethnic health disparities.
Strengthen schools so every child gets a great education, provide universal early childhood education classes for four-year-olds, and make college more affordable.
End the disgrace of two criminal justice systems and support alternatives to incarceration for first-time, non-violent offenders as well as reentry programs.
Create safe and affordable housing near good jobs, promote economically integrated neighborhoods and crack down on the scourge of predatory mortgage lending.
Protect the right to vote by restoring the right to vote in all federal elections to ex-offenders who have served their sentence and supporting secure and accessible voting ballots for all voting machines.
End poverty in America by strengthening families, help workers save and get ahead, reach overlooked rural areas, and expect people to help themselves by working whenever they are able.
Help small businesses by increasing federal contracting opportunities for minority-owned small business and use the power of the federal government to help small business.
Ensure environmental justice by maintaining access to the courts, disclosing the risks of plants, and enforcing the Clean Air Act strongly across the country.
Enforce civil rights laws by strengthening the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, choosing judges who are committed to protecting civil rights, and appointing officials who vigorously enforce our civil rights laws.
Close the digital divide by establishing a national broadband policy with a goal of giving all U.S. homes and businesses affordable access to real high-speed internet by 2010 and prohibiting telephone and cable companies from discriminating against rural or low-income communities in building their networks.
All of this goes right to the heart of why I have been supporting John Edwards throughout his campaign. Four years ago, he was the one candidate to bring the issue of poverty onto the national stage. He has awakened a desire in our national conscience to do what's right, by relentlessly pushing this issue.
Edwards understands that justice never comes without a fight. We are all in this together, but we need a leader who will stand strong with us.
If you missed his inspiring speech at Riverside Church last January for Martin Luther King Day, here are some excerpts:
We Shall Overcome!
UPDATE:
Today, John Edwards received the following letter from Martin L. King III after a meeting with him at the King Center in Atlanta. PDF
January 20, 2008 Martin Luther King, III President and CEO
The Honorable John E. Edwards 410 Market Street Suite 400 Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Dear Senator Edwards:
It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father’s legacy.
On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father’s legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.
I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice.And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.
You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don’t have lobbyists in Washington and they don’t get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.
From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.
So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father’s words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
I've been away from my home for three weeks. I was in New Hampshire helping the Edwards campaign, then I went to Michigan for Christmas, then I was in Iowa for the caucus. It was a lot of fun, and a lot of hard work. Sometimes it was an emotional roller coaster. Many things happened during that time, but through it all, one thing never changed: I will support John Edwards through the convention and beyond, no matter what.
I was glad to hear him reiterate last night what I first heard him say on George Stephanopoulos’ show: that he plans to stay in through the convention and to the White House. I will support him all the way.
Here's a quote from his speech last night:
Because of those who have called, and knocked on doors, and worked tirelessly on behalf of this cause, this cause to create the America that all of us believe in, because of that, I want to be absolutely clear to all of you who have been devoted to this cause, and I want to be clear to the 99% of Americans who have not yet had the chance to have their voices heard that I am in this race to the convention, that I intend to be the nominee of my party. And I am in this race until we have actually restored the American dream, and strenthened and restored the middle class of America, and so I ask all of you here and all of you who can hear the sound of my voice, the 99% whose voices have not yet been heard in this democracy to join us in this grassroots campaign to create the kind of America that all of us believe in.
This is the first time in my life that I've ever had such utter, unswerving loyalty to a candidate. There are a lot of reasons for it, but I've been struggling as to how to distill it down to the essence so I can communicate the reason to others. It boils down to my principles.
There are certain principles I've held throughout my life, and my support for John Edwards is a vibrant and clear expression of every one of them, because he embodies these principles with his actions and his policies.
Liberty - All Americans, and certainly all American politicians, give at least lip service to Liberty. How many of us really believe in it?
How many of us really believe in freedom of speech, even when we disagree with what is said? How many politicians are willing to show their respect for freedom of speech by being willing to answer hard questions on any subject? John Edwards never tries to silence dissent, and he encourages tough questions.
Edwards is not just passively in favor of freedom of speech, he actively encourages it. Throughout this campaign, he has encouraged bloggers to create political dialogue on the Internet. He has stood up for net neutrality, speaking clearly about the importance of the Internet for our democracy. He has spoken in opposition to media consolidation, even sending a letter opposing media consolidation to the FCC during a public comment period at a time when the FCC was considering adopting rules that would allow further media consolidation.
When you have Liberty, Democracy necessarily follows, since if you are free, you deserve a say in your government. How many of us really believe in democracy, even when we don't like the outcome? How many times have you been told that you have to fall in line and support the front runner, even if you disagree with them? How many times have you been told to support the person with the most cash, because fund-raising is going to determine the outcome? These are profoundly anti-democratic sentiments, but some I've heard them repeated a lot in the past 6 months.
John Edwards has repeatedly stood up for the right of every person to have a voice in this democracy. He has repeatedly stood up for the right of all people to be heard, regardless of whether they have money to give to campaigns. He has supported public financing by taking it himself, and he has never taken a dime from a Washington lobbyist. He is standing up for our right to be heard now, by staying in this race and fighting for the nomination.
Edwards believes in freedom of religion, too. I heard him speak at the Sojourners conference in Washington, DC earlier this year. That was a religious audience, and he didn't pander to them, in spite of the fact that he is religious himself. In fact, he stated clearly that people of all religions and people without a religion all deserve an equal voice in our democracy.
At every turn in this campaign, it seems to me that Edwards has always sought to empower people -- to enfranchise us at a time when we have become so accustomed to disenfranchisement.
Equality - This may be the deepest of my core principles. I haven't always expressed it perfectly, and I haven't even always understood it perfectly, but I know that few things outrage me more than people being treated unfairly and inequitably by others.
I think perhaps a principle takes root more deeply when you have struggled to understand it. I know that when I was a child, the assertion that "All Men Are Created Equal" puzzled me. The first thing I wanted to know was, why was it men? I can still remember my mother telling me that in that case "men" meant all of humanity. Given the sexism of the time when the Declaration of Independence was written, I'm not sure that was really what it meant, but it is certainly the only acceptable interpretation now.
Beyond my concern about the use of the word "men," I was still puzzled. Surely some people are more intelligent than others, some people are more attractive than others, some people are more healthy than others, some people are born with more wealth than others. So what does it really mean?
The answer that I have come to, and which I have stuck with, is that the statement "All of Humanity Is Created Equal" is true at a spiritual level. Regardless of their personality, gifts, or abilities, each person is born with equal worth. Each person has the same rights by nature or, as the Declaration says, each person is "endowed by their Creator with" these rights. In other words, you have basic human rights simply because you exist. Each person is equal to every other person simply because they are human. Nobody is better than another.
I know that John Edwards believes this to his core like I do, because I have seen the way he treats other people. It doesn't matter who you are. You could be a farmer, a schoolteacher, a blue-collar worker, a white-collar worker, a lawyer, a doctor, a senator, a person who is struggling to get by, or a wealthy campaign donor. You could be a woman or a man, you could be white, black, yellow, or brown, or any other color. John Edwards will treat you exactly the same as he treats everyone else -- with utmost respect for your humanity – and no matter who you are, if you’re his opponent, he’ll be tough on you.
I know some will say that if Equality is so important to me, why not support the “first” woman candidate or the “first” black candidate (and I could have sworn I voted for Jesse Jackson in the '80s, but according the media, I must have imagined it). The thing is, when you really see people as equal, you evaluate them on their merits. JRE is the best candidate. His gender and race are irrelevant to me.
Compassion - I think it's rather simple. If you think of all people as being equal, how can you not have compassion for them? If they have as much worth as you do, how could they possibly not merit compassion when they are suffering? To me, compassion goes along with the idea that all are created equal. Equality seems to me to imply that we are all in it together, and therefore should have compassion for one another.
As the candidate who has put poverty back on the national agenda pretty much all by himself, Edwards embodies compassion. And if everyone is of equal worth and deserves compassion, then it seems to me that universal health care is a right. Edwards will give us universal health care.
Integrity - I’m tired of all the lies. I tell the truth. I want a president who will do the same. John Edwards tells the truth. I don’t want to go negative here, but I don’t believe that about any of the other candidates in this race. Time for some truth. I trust John.
Respect for the Earth – This is fundamental. We live on this planet. We need to respect it. It is not to be bartered away to the highest bidder. We need to take care of it.
JRE has the best plan to fight global warming and develop alternative energy and he is the only one of the major candidates who opposes nuclear power. His rural agenda supports family farmers and opposes big stinky factory farms. He is the only candidate to get an endorsement from a national environmental organization, Friends of the Earth Action.
This is the right thing for me to do.
I haven't often had a sense of purpose in my life. I've spent many of my years on this earth wondering what I should be doing. I’ve been relatively successful at times, but I admit that sometimes I have felt rudderless. Not this time.
I saw what kind of man JRE was during the 2004 campaign, and I know he would be a great president for our country. When he got into this race, there was no question in my mind what I needed to do. I have been volunteering on his behalf for just over a year now and for most of that time, I’ve been doing it at least 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.
During these last few weeks and months, I've had a deep sense of peace within myself and a feeling that I was doing exactly what I was put on this earth to do. No matter what happens in this presidential election, I know I have done the right thing by supporting John Edwards. I will always be proud of that.
This is the time to fight with all we've got for the candidate who will really change this country. America needs John Edwards.
For more information... http://www.johnedwards.com/
John Edwards - Fighting Powerful Interests (N.H. debate)
Edwards rocked in last night's New Hampshire debate. Check out this quote from George Stephanopoulos on ABC:
“The exception was John Edwards. I think he showed passion and vitality and energy tonight. He was on-message. He had a strategy tonight. I think this was one of his best debates.”
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.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne open a town hall in Lebanon, New Hampshire for John Edwards. They played to a very enthusiastic crowd at the Lebanon Opera House, which seats 800 people, and from what I could see, it was pretty nearly full. The main floor was entirely full. I'm not sure about the balcony, but in any case, it was at least 500 people -- a good-sized crowd for a New Hampshire town hall.
At the start of the show, Peter Coyote, the actor, introduced Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.
Raitt and Browne opened their short but sweet set with "World in Motion." The lyrics were right on target for the setting.
Sun going down in the USA Down on Main there's a family sleeping in a doorway Around the corner you can hear the sound People dancing around the golden calf Those who have not, those who have
On the billboards and the T.V. screens They got food and cars and toys and trucks and jeans Like a homeless child's fitfull dreams Smiling faces free from wanting Life's abundances beyond counting
World in motion -- speed your changes Close your distances, find your angels Lose your fears and meet your dangers World in motion
Bonnie Raitt talked about why they are touring with Edwards, and said they don't give their endorsements lightly. She talked about Edwards being a man of integrity and said we have to get him elected. Then she dedicated the next song to Elizabeth - "Angel From Montgomery."
They played at least one other song that I don't know the name of, but my video camera is really a digital camera with a 2 GB card that can take some video. I had to conserve space on my card so I could get some of John's speech. So I took some photos instead during their 3rd song.
There was no way I could resist recording this song, one of my favorites by Bonnie Raitt - "Thing Called Love."
After Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne played about four or maybe five songs, Elizabeth and Cate Edwards came out on stage.
Elizabeth was looking very well. She spoke about the way her husband's platform comes deeply from his own personal experience. Specifically, she told a story about how John's mother Bobbie was forced to leave her dream job refinishing antiques when the mill that John's father worked in closed, and their family needed health care. She said that nobody should have to stay in a job they hate or leave a job they love for healthcare.
I recorded some of her introduction on video, but I still had to deal with those limitations of my camera. I had to cut it short to have room for some of John's speech.
Elizabeth is just so straightforward. You know she's not telling you any bullshit. And she's so sweet, with a nurturing "mom" kind of energy. I could just tell everyone in the room loved her.
She introduced her husband, and as he came out I captured this lovely photo of the two of them.
The real star of the show, however, was John Edwards, who gave a fiery passionate speech about the need to reclaim America from corporate interests.
I recorded a good portion of his speech on video. He was really on fire! Talk about showing some passion for the cause! The speech was incredible. Well, you should just check it out...
After a brief, heartfelt speech, he took several questions from the audience on issues ranging from ending the war to health care, to Israel and the Palestinians to Social Security. He gave detailed, specific answers to all of them. I wish I'd been able to record those too, because I think he was really connecting with the voters.
I hope those New Hampshire voters heard what I heard, because what I heard was a man who will fight with everything he's got for you and me, because that's just who he is and that's what it means to be true to himself.
If you can be in Manchester, New Hampshire this evening, there is a similar event at 6:30 p.m. at the Palace Theatre.
I think there may be some dispute between supporters of different candidates about who has the coolest celebrity endorsement, but for my money, the best one so far this campaign season is the endorsement of John Edwards today by Harry Belafonte.
Belafonte, who became famous in the 1950s by popularizing Calypso music from the Caribbean, has been a long time human rights activist. Among other things, he worked with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He hasn't stopped working for the betterment of humanity since.
The Life of Harry Belafonte
Belafonte with Sidney Poitier and Charlton Heston at the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington
Like Robeson and other African-American entertainers, Belafonte's success in the arts did not protect him from racial discrimination, particularly in the South of the United States. As a result, he refused to perform in the South of the U.S. from 1954 until 1961. In 1960, President John F. Kennedy named Belafonte as cultural advisor to the Peace Corps. Belafonte was an early supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and one of Martin Luther King's confidants. He provided for King's family, since King made only $8,000 a year as a preacher. Like many civil rights activists, he was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He bailed King out of the Birmingham City Jail and raised thousands of dollars to release other imprisoned civil rights protesters. He financed the Freedom Rides, supported voter registration drives, and helped to organize the March on Washington in 1963.
In 1968, Belafonte appeared on a Petula Clark primetime television special on NBC. In the middle of a song, Clark smiled and briefly touched Belafonte's arm, which made the show's sponsor, Plymouth Motors, nervous. Plymouth wanted to cut out the segment, but Clark, who had ownership of the special, told NBC that the performance would be shown intact or she would not allow the special to be aired at all. American newspapers published articles reporting the controversy and, when the special aired, it grabbed high viewing figures. Clark's gesture marked the first time in which two people of different races made friendly bodily contact on U.S. television.
And there's a lot more...
In 1987, he received an appointment to UNICEF as a goodwill ambassador. Following his appointment, Belafonte travelled to Dakar, Senegal, where he served as chairman of the International Symposium of Artists and Intellectuals for African Children. He also helped to raise funds, alongside more than 20 other artists, in the largest concert ever held in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1994 he went on a mission to Rwanda, and launched a media campaign to raise awareness of the needs of Rwandan children. In 2001 he went to South Africa to support the campaign against HIV/AIDS. In 2002, Africare awarded him the Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award for his efforts to assist Africa. In 2004 Belafonte went to Kenya to stress the importance of educating children in the region.
I've been a fan of Belafonte for many years, ever since my mother introduced me to his music when I was probably in junior high school. One year, my sisters and I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and she told us she wanted a copy of Harry Belafonte's hit record from the 1950s, "Calypso." That was the first time I ever heard of him, and this great album quickly became one of my favorites. I got to see him in concert probably least about 20 years ago now, and it was a wonderful concert!
Since I am a fan of Harry Belafonte, I want to share with you a couple of entertaining videos of him that I found on YouTube. I hope you will enjoy these!
Harry Belafonte on the Smothers Brothers Show
Harry Belafonte on the Muppet Show
Harry Belafonte and Nat King Cole
Belafonte's endorsement of John Edwards today
Here's what Harry Belafonte had to say about John Edwards when he endorsed him today in South Carolina. (Article and Video here.)
Belafonte is a likable, friendly man: one genuinely concerned with people and the state of this country. He says John Edwards is the only candidate also concerned and compassionate enough to try and deal with it.
"I've looked at his platform on education, healthcare, poverty, what young people are going through and I have come to believe he's the best candidate," Belafonte said.
He says all the other candidates talk about the plight of the middle class, While only Edwards talks about the poor.
"I also happen to believe that had he not so forcefully and precisely put the issue of poverty into this campaign, I don't think we'd be talking aobut it as much as we are," Belafonte said.
Belafonte feels Edwards was sincere when he announced his candidacy in New Orleans, saying it showed a commitment to the people devastated by hurricane Katrina.
"I've talked with John Edwards. I've looked into heart and his soul," Belafonte says.
He added that Edwards has the makings of a great president. Belafonte attended a rally with Edwards at the College of Charleston.
Thank you to this great humanitarian, Harry Belafonte, for recognizing and supporting the promise of another great humanitarian, John Edwards.
President Bill Clinton crashed Belafonte’s birthday party, which was taking place as the Democratic presidential contenders battled for the African-American vote. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were in Selma, Ala., for the 42nd anniversary of the famous voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery. [Bill Clinton went to Selma to join his wife for the commemoration.]
In his remarks, Clinton toasted Harry: “I was inspired by your politics more than you can ever know. Every time I ever saw you after I became president, I thought that my conscience was being graded, and I was getting less than an A. And every president should feel that way about somebody as good as you.”
I asked Harry how he felt about Clinton showing up: “I’m very flattered, OK, but I’m mindful of all the things that need to be done.” In his succinct reply, a lifetime of struggle remembered, a keen-edged skepticism. “He knows what I think. He said I didn’t give him an A.” I then asked him about both the Clintons and Obama going to Selma.
“We are hearing platitudes, not platforms. What do they plan to do for people of color, Mexicans, for people who are imprisoned, black youth? What are their plans for the Katrinas of America?”
Health care is a human right. In my own definition of the progressive movement, I count that as a basic progressive principle.
