Albany TimesUnion: Mr. Edwards thinks again

[Catchawave]

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/storyprint.asp?StoryID=626610

First published: Tuesday, October 2, 2007

As a synopsis of how much money has polluted the American political system go, John Edwards' announcement last week that he's decided to accept public campaign financing after all is priceless.
Here's a candidate doing the right thing, namely agreeing to at least some limit on how much he can spend in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in exchange for federal matching funds. It's the some, in fact, that deserves the emphasis. Mr. Edwards still will be able to spend close to $50 million during the various states' primary elections and caucuses.

But here, too, are Mr. Edward's rivals using his decision to declare that his campaign is all but doomed. He won't have the money to be competitive in the early primary states, they gloat. Or, the same reasoning goes, if Mr. Edwards still manages to win the nomination, he'll be unable to fight back against attacks by the Republicans before the start of the general election.

His rejoinder is that "if you believe in public financing, you ought to be willing to take a stand for public financing." But it gets muffled amid all the obsession about money and tactics, at the expense of ideas and principle.

Mr. Edwards actually takes a bit of the punch out of his announcement with his assurances, even insistence, that he'll have all the money he needs. His goal is to spend about $40 million during the primaries.

more.....

[waiting for hope]

1. Thanks Catchawave!

There's another upside to this as well:

MBNYC points out that not only will the DNC be able to raise large sums quickly if Edwards is the nominee (with individual donations up to $28,500 permitted), DNC-funded advertising in support of Edwards would help to build the Democratic brand:

Then, there is the huge ancillary benefit of using this expected flood of DNC funding not just to promote Edwards as our nominee, but to build brand Democrat and other candidates as well. This because the DNC is limited to what the FEC defines, very loosely one might add, as party-building. Long story short, they can run as many ads on behalf of John Edwards as they like - provided such ads also talk about Democrats in general.

That's the crux of it: with Edwards as our nominee, we'll have months of a concerted effort to build up the entire Democratic Party, paid for by the Democratic Party - and that's what's going missing here. Strange that this enormous potential upside to a nominee Edwards has been overlooked, no? If you like the Fifty State strategy, John Edwards is your guy. Neither Obama or Hillary have given any indication whatsoever that they'd be even interested in a similar effort. Rather, they follow the traditional, by-the-books, Beltway-approved candidate-focused approach, while Edwards, creating a virtue out of necessity, will have to lead with a party-centric strategy. This effort will be of enormous value to downticket Democrats.

Kos is down for maintenance so here's the MyDD link: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/10/3/05750/5158#commenttop

Just think of all the Dems running for office that will benefit from this as well. With more Democrats in both the House and Senate, things could finally get accomplished!

K&R!!

[Catchawave]

3. Thanks hope !

It was a long day for Markos yesterday after his diary slamming Edwards' "plan". I think he got poor advice...cough..:evilgrin:

[waiting for hope]

5. Really? :cough:

Hadn't :cough: really noticed.....:spank:

[Catchawave]

6. LOL.....here's an

Interesting article in the Nation:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071015/howl

I think this may have been implied in the Albany editorial.

Diary that Markos !!

[Demeter]

2. Give Me a Man With a Plan Any Day! Keep Thinking, John!

John Edwards and Howard Dean could make a formidable Democratic Party foundation, and attract more effective and public-service oriented candidates to the cause.

[Catchawave]

4. Obviously, this article also calls out Sen. Clinton for change....

afterall, it's her homestate :)

[Demeter]

7. NO Harm In Trying