John Edwards' populism, focus on poverty is a risky bet

[draft_mario_cuomo]

I am glad he is being a leader and taking these risks. It is a shame that most Democratic candidates don't even bother to mention poverty in their brilliantly crafted speeches, let alone offer any policies to help the poor. What has happened to the party of FDR, LBJ, and RFK? 37 million of our fellow citizens suffer each day in wretched poverty and we, the Democratic Party--the last best hope for the downtrodden, destitute, and despairing--refuse to even acknowledge their existence!

By Janet Hook, Times Staff Writer

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

"This is a huge moral issue facing the country," 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, 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 Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) — and has even boosted him to a lead in polls in the key early-voting state of Iowa.

But Edwards' 2008 strategy carries risks, in part because it speaks most directly to a slice of the electorate that has notably little political clout. Perhaps the last major presidential candidate to make fighting poverty a central theme was Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.) in 1968, before his assassination that June. Some analysts warn that an agenda that might suggest "class warfare" risks alienating middle-class swing voters and moderate Democrats who do not want to revive criticisms that theirs is the party of the poor.

"It is very brave to take on an issue that he himself says has no constituency that has power, but it's a tough road to be trodding to the White House," said Matt Bennett, a vice president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic research organization.==

Read the rest of the article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-edwards28may28,1,4952318.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&track=crosspromo

[Fovea]

1. 'might suggest "class warfare" risks alienating middle-class'

The middle class has largely figured out where the class warfare has come from.

It is coming from the investing class and its political hacks and enablers.

[roguevalley]

10. you know, someone in this race having ANY KIND OF AN IDEA

and PUSHING IT HARD is a good idea. Just sayin'.

[ryanmuegge]

12. Well said.

Edwards is my candidate out of the realistic Democratic field.

[madfloridian]

2. Quoting Matt Bennett and other centrists expressing concern...

over Edwards stances is just so weird.

It is a strange article.

[illinoisprogressive]

3. I don't think it's risky. I think he is looking to make the party the way it was

taking it back to it's roots. I think he is pushing it to do so and move away from it's DLC flirt.
I think it's courageous and not at all risky as this is the right time to do so.

[smalll]

4. What with the recreation barn and all -

just saying. :shrug:

[ToeBot]

5. Not just risky, down-right crazy!

Imagine a Democratic candidate pandering to the traditional Democratic base. What nutty thing is he going to do next, support Unions? The guy's off his nut.

[draft_mario_cuomo]

6. Let's face it. It is risky. Why do you think HRC and Obama aren't doing it?

It is a bold risk that shows leadership. I am glad he is doing it. We need Democrats to be Democrats again.

[StudentsMustUniteNow]

7. I like you

You tell it like it is. Even though I haven't signed onto Edwards yet, I think you have an analytic no-nonsense style.

[LBJDemocrat]

13. He does

Draft_mario ranks up there with WilliamPitt as one of my favorite DU contributors.

[Fovea]

14. In any game with stakes

there is an element of risk, otherwise it is not worth playing.

Two years ago it seemed like most folks were telling me that running against Bush's occupation of Iraq would be a risk too.
I say, you risk nothing, you win nothing. and never mind the folks who thought the 50 state strategy was going to lose big.
Even the DLC could not spin Rahm into the big strategic winner for the Dems. Without Dean hanging it out, we would be way in the minority this term.


So let's take risks, and lets draw blood. The party of Rove is cowardly and corrupt. They are full of bluster and contempt because that is h0ow they hide their fear.

They know they cannot win, but they believe that if we cower in a corner, we can lose.

[athebea]

20. It is a risk...

...if you define fund raising as the be all and end all of campaigning.

In the age of the Internet and YouTube the message can be put across in ways that don't cost a fortune.

[NastyRiffraff]

8. He'll be accused by the media

It's not that the middle class hates the poor, like the media will have you believe. The media itself hates people who champion the poor. They've already started on John Edwards, calling him a hypocrite basically because he's rich. The millionnaire media...pundits, columnists, etc....believes it's downright traitorous to one's class for a rich person to champion the poor.

FDR got the same thing. He was called a traitor to his class because of his New Deal programs.

[sojourner]

11. except today there is hardly a voice to be heard above the clamor of the

punditry in the msm. i say we vow to do the opposite of what the media is trying to get us to do...

[DemDem07]

9. Why the hell ask a centrist anything about the base.

They only acknowledge the base long enough to disparage it. I respect Edwards for his championing of the issue.

[wyldwolf]

15. what base?

[DemDem07]

16. Since you don't recognize it, I can't help you

:eyes:

[wyldwolf]

17. since you can't define it, I'll consider it meaningless

[DemDem07]

21. Like most of your posts?

:eyes:

[Forkboy]

18. The "base" is a mixture of both,not one or the other.

[leftofthedial]

19. it certainly is not reflective of RNC, er, DLC, values

he's toast

[amandabeech]

22. Very few voters identify themselves as poor, but many identify with

the feeling that they're working harder to stay in place financially. There are many issues in common with those below the 60th percentile, and the difference is in degree only.

IMHO, and what do I know, he'd be better off saying that he's talking about people who are working for a living and those who want to be working but are having a hard time finding steady, decent employment. That way he could say a lot of the same things but include the working, lower middle and middle middle class issues as well as those directly aimed at the poor.


I like Edwards, by the way, and would like to see him do well.