The WaPo has a “is he running in 2008?” piece on John Edwards that’s just chock-full of good quotes.
My favorite:
In his speeches, he uses the vocabulary of morality and social responsibility to talk about the nation’s persistent inability to narrow the gaps in income and opportunity.
In the process, he aims to signal that Republicans, and particularly the Christian right, do not have a monopoly on issues of faith or personal conviction.
“We believe in giving voice to those who have no voice. That’s what the Democratic Party is supposed to be all about,” Edwards told several hundred Democrats and labor activists in Chicago on Monday at a convention of Jesse L. Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
To an Iowa housing and homelessness group, he asked, “What does it say when we do nothing — nothing but turn our backs — for 45 [million] to 46 million people who have no health care coverage? These are not the signals . . . of what our collective moral values are.”
Damn skinny they’re not, John.
Pull your favorite quote below.
I’m impressed, and was during the campaign, with your focus on the “class” split, and lopsided wealth distribution in this country. But before I cast my vote next time, I need to hear:
It probably wouldn’t hurt to begin the process of coordinating your movement with the over 100 progressive organizations already working on various aspects of “poverty”.
CYA in ’08, and thanks for the good words.
“The vote”?
would that be the vote authorizing shock and awe?
“The vote” to authorize the war in Iraq, I think.
All our (Dem anyway) senators need to apologize for being so easily bamboozled into war.
I guess it points out a problem with running Senators for an executive position: there’s so damn many votes to take issue with…
You guys are so funny. Yes, the damn 77-23 vote for the authorization to use force. Sheesh. Good snark tho’. <grin>
You’re kidding. You’re excusing Edwards because he had to vote on so many issues?
He voted to give Bush the authorization because he — just like Kerry — didn’t have the guts to say it was all insane.
_____
ALSO: Tell Edwards to lay off Howard Dean.
I’m saying that he’s vulnerable to attack because unlike a certain twinkletoes who only had to sign a bunch of death warrants, he had to take a lot of votes in the course of everyday business.
Though the reference to “the vote” was obvious, it didn’t have to be. I wouldn’t have been surprised if rba had responded with a vote on an abortion bill…
he really should lay off Dean.
I watched & heard Edwards speak on a C-SPAN covered (Democratic?) event several weeks ago (I came in in the middle and couldn’t keep watching to identify it). I was very impressed.
I’d be stunned if he didn’t include a grassroots arm in a future run; in any case I’m not worried about it at this point. I truly believe that “Howard Dean changed everything.” We do need to lobby for grassroots place in the party and campaigns, but I think for the near future any serious presidential campaign will employ the roots.
that you believe in dialogue, not confrontation;
I’m extremely nervous about saying something this broad.
America is in the midst of a conquest by people who are along the way in taking over the world, to rule it rather than govern, to take away wealth and opportunity from the people and to terminate their ability to govern democratically. Every time over the past 3 decades that we’ve taken them to be less aggressive, we’ve come to see that we were wrong.
It seems something near madness to rule out confrontation in the face of what’s moving against us. Of course we need to advance with dialogue, cooperation and the offering of positive policies for the most part. But confrontation will be an essential tactic in appropriate times and places.
most importantly, what this country will look like for my grandchildren
Here, although I fervently agree, I don’t think we will see such a vision from any meanstream sources. I think all the really important factors were rendered unmentionable in public during the Reagan Administration and the early years of the visible Republican Revolution of public discourse. We have raised an entire generation that has never heard sane people speak in these terms openly.
For example we often hear warnings and complaints about our wealth distribution trends, but nobody in politics dares offer a direct judgement of our present distribution–much less a suggested ideal target range for it.
If anyone publicly concluded that wealth is too concentrated at the top, we’d have to discus either taking wealth away from the top end–the only quick remedy–or else setting growth at the top to zero or else vastly lower than for the rest of the population over the great length of time required to reach the proposed wealth distribution. We’d be forced to concede a timetable that many of us may never live to see concluded.
I think campaigning on limiting growth or wealth levels for the wealthiest Americans is completely impossible.
Coordinating with existing organizations?–you bet.
It also wouldn’t hurt to set up some partnerships with organizations of ethnic and demographic populations either.
First remember that dems are a numerical majority, even though they are an electoral minority. As to the “conquest”, the drivers are in an administration soon to be “officially” lame duck, a point not lost on the MSM. The fundies comprise approximately ten percent of those identifying themselves as “christian” in this country, and they are beginning to experience a much-deserved blowback from mainstream religious leaders.
Thusfar confrontation seems to be entirely too popular, as are negative attacks absent positive solutions. The democrats need to start acting like adults, even when the “other side” is not.
wealth distribution trends
What if they said
– “we believe that ‘working’ and ‘poor’ don’t belong together in the same sentence. In the 1930’s, people asked for laws to make sure that if you work in this country, you’ll not ever want for food, clothing or shelter. We got those laws on the books. Then as now, two hard working parents couldn’t rub two dimes together to feed their children. It’s still wrong. We can make sure that doesn’t ever happen again, but we’ll need your help.”
That’s my statement to be used as a lead-in to a discussion on transitioning to a “living wage”. No negatives involved, no direct tie to income distribution, no mention of living wage, but that’s the message. It’s also small enough for a soundbite.
The distinction between the last election and upcoming ’06 and ’08 elections is the networking capability of the roots. We have the tools, but the organization at the top hasn’t figured out the pyramid has been replaced by a flat plain. Information, power, and money move horizontally in this medium.
My favorite quote:
“We believe in giving voice to those who have no voice. That’s what the Democratic Party is supposed to be all about[.]”
Stuff like that just highlights why. (Though I did get a little concerned by a recent study I read about: swing voters tend to choose the candidate with the most “adult” face–strong chin, small eyes, large nose bridge–and Edwards comes up short in those areas.)
I’m trying very hard not to get super irritated at people who keep harping on “the vote”–especially when they assume that he didn’t have the “courage” to vote the way Democratic primary voters would have liked him to (that doesn’t even make sense). It’s just possible that he believed in that vote, and–as he has said in responding to questions about the war–that he’s “glad Saddam Hussein is out of power.”
-Alan
————————
Support Hugo Chavez: Fill up your car at CITGO!
————————