I want to like Edwards. Help me

[Renew Deal]

John seems like a great guy. I am a Carville fan and I trust his judgement. I have spent some time on his site because I wanted to see him speak. He is great. I have a few questions. What are Edwards positives? What are his negatives? Why did he help write the Patriot Act? Can he pull in the far left (I know about his deal with DK)? What issues is he strong on?

I know nothing about this guy except he is running a positive campaign and some fine details. Help me out.

[JohnLocke]

1. This might help

Much has been made of Edwards' votes for the Patriot Act and IWR. However, those people fail to understand that the IWR passed by 77-23*, and the Patriot Act passed by a wide margin. Edwards has taken a reasonable stance on the latter, saying that he wants to keep the parts that makes sense (and there are many; most provisions just bring law up-to-date) and throw out others that are repressive.

*Source: http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/

[Renew Deal]

3. OK, got anything else?

I asked a lot of questions.

[AP]

5. What's your most important issue?

[Renew Deal]

10. Questions

What are Edwards positives? What are his negatives? Can he pull in the far left (I know about his deal with DK)? What issues is he strong on?

[AP]

14. Positive:

He has a coherent, internally consistent set of policies, which are also externally consistent with his persona. As a package, he'll make a great deal of sense to voters.

He has an ability to convey complicate ideas to people in a way that leads them to chosing to do the just thing. That's the skill he had as a lawyer. But the first time I decided I like the guy was when he used those skills to convince people at a NH house party how progressive taxation works. When I saw heads nod vigorously in a discussion about TAXES I knew this guy was a winner.

He has the most liberal policies on the key issues which, to me, are the policies that will promote the downward and outward distribution of POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL power. Pick your favorit issues and the Edwards supporters will explain to you how he'll do that.

[spooky3]

17. Re: Can he pull in the far left?

I think this depends on several factors.

1) IF he is the nominee, will they take the time to compare all of his positions with *'s and see the huge difference? I don't think the far left currently has to make this decision. They can continue to support the candidate who best matches their views. Later, the decision is different.

2) If 1) plays out, will they understand that they are much better off to support him than to allow * to continue in office? To me, it is like contemplating exercise. If I refuse to do it because it's a pain, and I will never look like (pick your favorite body here) or because it merely reduces my odds but does not guarantee I will not get a heart attack, I am harming myself. Much better to get half the way there than nowhere.

I do not think that any candidate will succeed in winning an election if he or she does all the things the far left wants (and I don't believe they are correct on every issue, so I don't want him to), any more than a candidate who panders to the right will be, unless that candidate is willing to engage in all types of power-grabbing, lying, and otherwise corrupt behavior we have seen recently. An authentic candidate will have to appeal to some of the large number of voters in the middle. She or he can and should try to persuade the middle that his/her positions are the right ones, and some of these are going to be the positions that would be taken by the far left.

[AP]

28. Ask Kucinich.

[KittyWampus]

11. Leadership Isn't About Running With The Herd

and Edwards showed none.

[AP]

15. Leadership is about stepping up for people on the downside of opportunity

and being a good enough politician to win an election so you can do the right thing for them.

Kucinich knows this.

[KittyWampus]

21. No, That Is Political Opportunism and Self Interest

Big Difference.

Edwards still have Shelton on his team?

Nice how Shelton came out against Paul O'Neill last week, wasn't it?

And the people who are on the "downside of opportunity" do NOT include the Pentagon.

Although Edwards is just hunky dory with them misplacing TRILLIONS.

Edwards after all wants a "Strong America".

[AP]

29. Edwards & Shelton went to same college and have known each other for years

It would be crazy to avoid the guy after having a decades-long non-political relationship with the guy.

Because the penatagon isn't on the downside of opportunity, Edwards voted against the 87 bil handout to Halliburton and Bechtel (which Dean favoured).

Because soldiers are on food stamps, Edwards and Clark want to make the army stronger by making sure soliders, not useless, expensive weapons programs get the money they need.

Edwards wants a strong America? As Sangha says, 'please shout that from the rooftops.'

[Dr Fate]

25. Edwards is Clinton w/o "the sex"...

A handsome, Southerner with a sprinkle of JFK for good measure.

He seems just as passionate as Dean, but w/o the anger...

He can pull in a LOT of female votes and a chunk of Southern white males too...

He has good DEM credentials on the issues- and he is a self made man...

Personally, I prefer him for VP...

[AP]

2. I like Edwards. I want to help.

Donate through my sig line!

[Renew Deal]

4. How about helping with my questions

before you ask for cash.

[AP]

6. Elizabeth Edwards blogged that her husband did not author any part of PA

So you can cross that one right off your list as a lie and rumor propogated at DU.

[KittyWampus]

13. Edwards Had Access To It While It Was Being Written

[AP]

16. He didn't write any of it. Not one part of it. Legislation floats around

DC for years before it becomes law. If you were to be blamed for something just because you SAW it, nobody would have clean hands.

[KittyWampus]

20. Edwards Had Access While It Was Being Written

and should have been prepared to oppose it or abstain.

[AP]

30. Right.

You're going to need a much longer and complicated argument addressing how legislation is made and passed, and how voters think before you convince me that the vote itself is a problem. And you're going to have ignore a lot of evidence since that vote to convince me that Edwards LIKES the Bush crackdown on the political, economic and cultural power of people outside Bush's ruling class.

A MUCH longer argument.

[AP]

7. Negative: can he raise the cash without taking PAC and DC lobby money?

Thus my post. He's going to have raise money from people who aren't looking to buy him. That could be a problem.

[KittyWampus]

18. Funny How Lobby Money Is Qualified By "DC"

Why does Edwards always preface his tirades against Lobbyists with the word Washington?

Maybe because he benefits from Lobbyists that aren't DC?

Bank on that being the answer.

He has been recieving donations in larger increments.... where Dean, Clark and Dennis have been getting smaller amounts from more people.

[AP]

31. Because that's the problem with America. People who are supposed to

represent their states are selling out to super-powerful lobbyist interests that are NATIONAL and GLOBAL rather than regiounal.

Edward's donors are the second poorest on average (now that CMB is gone) and they give the largest % of their income.

Those are great nmbers.

I read through Dean's first list of disclosures. In a single three month period there were DOZENS of names where people with posh addresses in Beverly Hills were giving 6 or 7 small donations rather than one large.

[Lindsay]

8. This won't answer your questions

but I'll tell you what first really impressed me about Edwards. (Yeah, I'm in NC, but I'm a fairly recent transplant.)

I saw him on C-Span on a campaign stop in July or August. They were in an elementary school, it was clearly very hot, there was like one fan for the whole room, and a lot of the audience was comprised of older people.

Edwards stopped his speech at one point and told the audience that he'd understand if they wanted to go out for some air, and that he'd be there to answer their questions later.

As I recall it, he said it again after he'd spoken for a while longer.

The man was genuinely concerned for their health and comfort. Not something I expected to see in a politician.

We now return you to your quest for genuine information.

[spooky3]

9. What issues is he strong on?

In general he has an extremely detailed platform (as you have seen on his website), and to me that alone is a plus (as is most of the content). He knows that some people will not like what he is proposing but is being honest enough to enable you to judge. I'm not the best spokesperson but maybe I can stimulate others to jump in to correct and/or improve on this.

Here are some:

--He wants to remedy tax inequities, such dividends and capital gains being taxed at lower rates than earned income
--He believes strongly in a balanced budget because he knows that deficits will harm us in the near term and future generations in the longer term. So rather than promising the sky, he tells you on his website how he will pay for everything he proposes, and it sounds reasonable to me. No demagoguery here.
--He has wonderful proposals for remedying the malpractice-insurance-is-driving-good-doctors-out-of-practice problem, that are far superior to the Rethug punish-the-victim proposals.
--He wants to encourage higher education and offers tuition payment proposals.
--He is concerned about the many uninsured people and offers an alternative that blends public and private funding and insurance, which may appeal to people who are terrified of the all-government proposals.
--He has specific suggestions for how to enhance homeland security, e.g., increasing security at vulnerable spots such as nuclear power facilities.
--He is firmly opposed to the go-it-alone, alienate the world cowboy foreign policy positions of Bush et al.

And, Ashton Kutcher met him and likes him (per the Today Show). Isn't that enough for you? :-)

[JI7]

12. how can anyone not like edwards ?

well, powerful corrupt people and organizations have reason to not like him. but other than that ?

[anti-bush]

19. Pros: He is a good hearted family man

Edwards definitely has strong family roots, whether it's his continuing fight for the middle class people like his parents, or his great love of his wife and kids.

He fights for what he believes in, and doesn't back down when political pressure, and big money try to sway him. He wants to get rid of the lobbyists and PACs that have taken the democracy from the people, and given it to the corporations.

And finally, he is very charming and telegenic, and I would enjoy watching him on TV for the next four years.

[beaconess]

22. It's hard to top AP's eloquent explanations . . .

But one of the primary things that sold me is that his commitment to civil rights and equal opportunity is so innate, so much a part of who he is that it permeates everything he does. Civil rights for John Edwards is not a discrete issue for him - it informs everything he does.

In some ways, his complete comfort level with it is a problem since he doesn't parade it around as if he just discovered it, therefore, he often doesn't get credit for it. A good example was seen in a piece in GQ Magazine:

"In two minutes time {during the lengthy interview}, we had covered the trifling subject of race in the South in the time of John Edwards and were now on to weightier matters . . . Was he really that insensitive, or inattentive, or averse to introspection? James Ferguson {a close friend who is African American} had assured me that this was this was not the case . . . Perhaps, I decided, Edwards preferred not to presume to understand a pain of which he was ignorant . . .

"It occurred to me only days later that I had been deaf to a continuing refrain espoused by virtually everyone who knew Edwards well, including him. The press had taken to fashioning the senator as a populist, even an us-against-them populist. Edwards understood how a listener could develop this impression of him. But, he told me, 'in my mind, there's a difference between being for the little guy and against people who've done well.' To Edwards, class warfare is demagoguery, and demagogues are, among other things, phonies. So it wouldn't be his nature to burn with outrage and stoke it in others. His cases, and now his policies, sought remediation - a leveling, not blind vengeance. And I remembered, Edwards did not always broadcast his remedies, any more than he politicized his grief over his son's death. Sometimes he just did what he had to do, as when he rented a U-Haul after a devastating hurricane, filled it with a thousand dollars' worth of food and provisions, drove it to Myrtle Beach, dropped off the contents at the Red Cross and drove back to Raleigh. I returned to my notes, wondering if I had missed anything.

"A black classmate of the senator's had told me about an African-American protest for representation on the homecoming court but he had offered no other details. Another high school chum, Edwards's eventual college roommate, Bill Garner, had brought up the subject as well. The few blacks at North Moore High had staged a sit-in on the campus lawn, Garner told me. And, he said, Johnny Edwards had walked up to the group and spoken with them. Then he sat down with them.

"Edwards had not volunteered that detail. Perhaps he didn't remember it. Perhaps he deemed it puny in scope. This was not, after all, a lunch counter or the front of a bus. Only a stupid homecoming-court sit-in. A little thing. That's all there was to do. So he did it - spur of the moment, sitting down for the little guy."

GQ Magazine, December 2002

[AP]

32. Those are subtle but POWERFUL statements about race in America.

And I didn't want this little nugget to get lost:

Sometimes he just did what he had to do, as when he rented a U-Haul after a devastating hurricane, filled it with a thousand dollars' worth of food and provisions, drove it to Myrtle Beach, dropped off the contents at the Red Cross and drove back to Raleigh.

[HFishbine]

23. I don't know where you stand on the war

but Edwards is unapologetic for his support of it.

[beaconess]

24. Which has actually earned him a lot or respect

I think that's one reason Kucinich aligned with him. Although they disagree about the war, Kucinich and many others respect Edwards for standing by his decision.

[DjTj]

26. ...so I wrote this essay...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/19_edwards.html

[Renew Deal]

27. Thanks, I forgot about that.

I will read it ASAP.

[AP]

33. It's not all about you, Bleachers7. There are other people who will read

this thread.

[joefree1]

34. Negatives

He's Clinton without the experience or charity. From the New York Times.

He represented many sympathetic plaintiffs, among them some horribly crippled children. He became rich doing it, racking up more than $175 million for his clients from 1985 to 1997 and amassing a personal fortune of at least $38 million, according to North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.

At the same time, he did little or no pro bono work. Nor did he pursue public-interest lawsuits. While he speaks passionately about civil rights and the bravery of civil rights leaders, for instance, he has never used his legal skills to fight against discrimination through the courts.

Neither was he active in politics for the first 44 years of his life, except for the occasional donation to a Democratic candidate. He never ran for office or worked on a campaign. Indeed, before he burst onto the political scene in 1998, he did not even vote in several local elections, because, he says, he was too busy with his legal work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/politics/campaigns/12EDWA.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5062&en=422c04ad8c2ada87&ex=1074488400&partner=GOOGLE

[AP]

36. The absurdity of the 'pro bono' argument: Edwards DID do pro bono work...

...when he LOST!!!! When he lost, he got nothing. When he won, which he did often, he got paid, and he forced legislatures to change laws, and he forced hospitals to change policies, and he saved lives and reduced misery.

Do you think Legal Services lawyers need to do pro bono work ON TOP of their jobs? Do you think DAs and public defenders need to do pro bono work?

Lawyers who NEED to do pro bono: criminal defense lawyers for the mob and drug dealers, ALL corporate lawyers, insurance comany defense lawyers, medical malpractice lawyers.

Edwards's entire life as a lawyer and as a senator has been "pro bono" -- ie, FOR GOOD.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. Keep trying. You can probably develop a taste for pablum.

The DLC serves up quite a lot of it and convinces a lot of people that it's filet mignon.