Edwards Puts the Working Class At the Center of His Campaign

[JohnLocke]

Edwards Puts the Working Class At the Center of His Campaign
By Janet Hook--Los Angeles Times
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
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WASHINGTON--When Elaine Ellis began her rounds as a New York nursing assistant one morning this spring, she had an improbable companion: John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate, who had accepted a union invitation to spend the day with a low-wage worker.

When Ohio steelworkers went on strike last fall to protest a plant closing, who joined their rally? John Edwards.

Next month, low-income survivors of Hurricane Katrina will have another visit from Mr. Edwards, who announced his presidential campaign amid the storm rubble of New Orleans.

For more than two years, Mr. Edwards has been building his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination around an issue long shunned by leading candidates: the plight of the poor and working class. He has backed his public appearances with unusually detailed proposals to provide universal health care, raise taxes on the rich, and eliminate poverty over the next 30 years.

"This is a huge moral issue facing the country," Mr. Edwards said in a telephone interview as he headed into a Memorial Day weekend campaign swing through Iowa. "I don't see in polls that it is a driving issue , but it is for me."

In adopting poverty and low-wage work as his themes, Mr. Edwards has struck a far more combative, populist tone than in his 2004 presidential campaign. And that has helped him elbow into the top tier of a field dominated by better-financed candidates Senators Clinton and Obama — and even has boosted him to a lead in polls in the early voting state of Iowa.
(...)
Mr. Edwards also spent much of the past three years building bridges to organized labor. He campaigned in six states for 2006 ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage, and he traveled to help labor-organizing campaigns for janitors and hotel workers. He won an AFL-CIO award for making big contributions to the labor movement.

It remains to be seen, however, if his heavy bet on labor will pay off in securing formal endorsements. The AFL-CIO and other big unions often hold off on making endorsements until the likely nominee becomes clear. In 2004, UNITEHERE, the union of textile and hotel workers, was the only union to back Mr. Edwards.

Mr. Edwards also has developed a detailed anti-poverty agenda that he hopes will cast him as the candidate of big ideas.

"What I am offering are very clear, bold policy initiatives that I think the country needs," he said in the interview. "I don't think small, incremental steps are enough."
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Read the rest here.

[Big Pappa]

1. nevermind.

[sandnsea]

2. Working Class, proud and loud

We should hold every candidate to it. If they mean working class, say working class. If they mean the ten percent professional class, then say that. None of this wishy-washy middle class bullshit that everybody thinks they're part of.

I may just support Edwards yet. Obama isn't doing enough for working folks yet, I'm getting tired of waiting.

[JohnLocke]

3. Kick (nt).

[Catchawave]

4. My working class conservative friends

support JohnE's message now. That's a good sign from Pat Robertson's Neighborhood!

[nealmhughes]

5. But we're Democrats, we can't talk about class out loud!

Here is a blog entry I wrote last year. It still holds the test of time.

The New C-Word

http://screechingrats.wordpress.com/2006/09/15/the-new-c-word-or-an-open-letter-to-the-working-people-of-the-usa/

[JohnLocke]

6. Kick (nt).

[ultraist]

7. K&R for transformational change!

:kick:

[draft_mario_cuomo]

8. K &R for finishing what FDR and LBJ started. Let's be Democrats, not Republican-lite in 08'