The reason I'm for Edwards from Washington Post

[DemDogs]

Edward Walsh article at <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28251-2003Nov11.html?referrer=email>

Edwards Aims To Focus on The Positive
Candidate Says Anger At Bush Won't Prevail

Democratic presidential contender John Edwards said yesterday that beneath their deep anger at President Bush, Democratic voters have a strong yearning for a positive message that the party's eventual presidential nominee must convey to have any chance of defeating Bush next November....He said that Bush may be hampered next year by the state of the economy and the situation in Iraq, "but as long as we're not getting people inspired and excited about what we can do for this country, we will not win this election."
...
"But remember, we're going through a process here and people are looking for a president. ... They're looking for someone who can inspire them and lead them. ... Come January and February, they're looking for a leader."
...
In campaigning for president, Edwards said, he has learned that middle-class Americans are most concerned about jobs and, to a slightly lesser extent, health care, and that "George Bush will carry the weight of that. The way they think about it is they're scared," Edwards said. "They know they're too much in debt, they know they're having trouble paying bills . . . and these aren't poor people, these are middle-class working families and they know if something goes wrong -- this is one of the reasons they worry about health care -- they're off the edge, they're falling off the cliff. There's been a big sea change in this country in the last 20 years, and Bush doesn't see the sea change."

It's a long article. More at the link.

[chimpymustgo]

1. Answers with optimism. John Reid Edwards.

Yep, we're all angry. But the American people just aren't going to vote for somebody yelling and pointing a finger at them. Maybe it gets some of the Democratic based fired up - but it ain't gonna play in Preoria. Matter of fact - I don't like it either.

I do like a candidate who wants to listen. Who understands our frustrations and our needs and offers well thought out solutions. And offers them with warmth, with caring, with hope - dare I say it - with a smile.

That's the way we win in November.

[dfong63]

2. great, now explain his IWR vote

[AP]

3. The senate intelligence committee on which he sits

saw a lot of compelling information which the media is ignoring and which is not part of the debate.

Clinton and Gore both have said there was good reason to take SH seriously. Blumenthal says the same thing in The Clinton Wars.

The media is presenting the War in a way which encourages an anti-war Dem to win the primary. Once that happens, we'll be inundated with the evidence which will make people think that maybe the invasion was a good idea.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, you have said that you thought that Saddam Hussein could have nuclear weapons within six to nine months. What did you base that on?
SEN. EDWARDS: Over a decade of efforts of Saddam Hussein to gain nuclear capability. As you know, Tim, I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee and there’s a significant accumulative body of evidence about his efforts over an extended period of time to get nuclear capability, and I might add-you heard the booing in the background. I will say that I do—and I’ve continued—you asked me about the $87 billion earlier. I think it is enormously important for any candidate for president of the United States to be consistent and stand behind what they believe in no matter who their audience is and I knew when I said—I brought this issue up. I wasn’t asked about it, at the California Democratic Convention. I raised it myself because my view was these people, even though I knew would disagree with me, deserved to know where I stood on this issue.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you regret your vote in giving George Bush in effect a blank check for the war in Iraq?
SEN. EDWARDS: No, I voted for what I believed was in the best security interests of the American people.
MR. RUSSERT: Where are the weapons of mass destruction that you spoke about? Biological, chemical, and a nuclear threat within six or nine months—Where’s the evidence of that?
SEN. EDWARDS: Well, that’s a serious—that’s a very good question. What we know is that a lot of what the intelligence and the information we were given before the vote on the congressional resolution has not been found, has not been found on the ground. Which means we, those of us who not only are candidates for president, but those of us in the Congress, we have an enormous responsibility here, which is to find out why is there a discrepancy between the information we were given beforehand and what we’ve now found. Did, in fact, somebody misrepresent what was there? Did, in fact, somebody exaggerate what was there? Is this just a failure in intelligence? All those are important questions because if either of the first two are true, we have to hold responsible and accountable the people who did it. If the latter is true, it’s enormously important going forward.
I mean, right now, Tim, you were asking earlier about the security situation on the ground in Iraq. One of the critical things that we’re missing in trying to be successful in providing security is we don’t have an adequate intelligence operation in Iraq right now. We need to strengthen that operation. So what went wrong before the congressional resolution, and why did it happen, and how do we make sure that it doesn’t happen in the future because we depend, not only on our military operations, but in our policy-making, on the information that’s given to us by the intelligence community. It has to work.
MR. RUSSERT: There were dissents with the intelligence community, the National Intelligence Estimate, which, as a member of the Intelligence Committee you see, had this from the State Department. “...The activities we have detected do not...add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what” the ” would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons.” Why do you believe that? And why weren’t you more demanding of the administration to provide evidence that their notion of a nuclear threat was real?
SEN. EDWARDS: Because you can’t look at any isolated piece of information, Tim. You have to look at what Saddam Hussein had been doing over the course of a decade. I mean, there was a long and very powerful body of evidence that this was a brutal, sadistic dictator who had been doing everything in his power to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and, ultimately, his goal was to have nuclear capability. And that would have completely changed the stability of that region of the world. And I’m—I was convinced then, I’m convinced now, that for a long period of time he was trying to acquire nuclear capabilities.
MR. RUSSERT: But if we cannot find the biological or chemical weapons, or evidence of an advanced nuclear program, what was the threat and why did we have to go to war when we did?
SEN. EDWARDS: The threat was that this was a man who we knew was going to do everything in his power to acquire nuclear capability. And he was a different and distinct, unique kind of threat, because of his history, because of having started a war. We know that over a long period of time we made the effort, whether he, in fact, has them, had them at the time the war began or not, we know that over a long period of time he had been trying to acquire that capability. It is an obvious and serious threat to the stability of that region of the world. And Saddam Hussein, Tim, with nuclear capability, completely changes things.