Last night, John Edwards posted a diary on DailyKos, and hung around to answer some questions for a little over an hour. As you can probably guess, the thread exploded, eventually garnering nearly 1000 comments (hell, it may be over 1000 at this point).
I was impressed enough with his answers that I thought I would put a little bit of effort into sorting through the thread, and translating them into green. Questions and answers, after the flip.
philgoblue: I’ve written diaries (1 2) about your “College for Everyone” program at Greene Central High School in rural North Carolina in the past and, as a professor, I wonder how you see this program developing in the future?
Edwards: For those who don’t know, College for Everyone is a concept that we implemented in a small, rural and very poor county in Eastern North Carolina — Greene County.
The idea is to make college available to anyone who has graduated from high school who is qualified to go to college and commits to working 10 hours per week.
The program has been in place for a year and has been extremely successful so far. We’ve given out hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships, and a huge percentage of graduating seniors signed up last year.
As to the future, the whole idea of College for Everyone is to do it on a national scale — which of course requires the government’s involvement. The Bush administration has cut billions in aid for college students at the same time that they’ve given billions in subsidies to the biggest oil companies in America. It’s a travesty, and it’s one of the resons these elections are important.
College Progressive: What are your plans regarding Universal Heathcare for all Americans?
Edwards: I believe very strongly that our party has to lead and show strength. One of the ways that we can lead is to commit to universal health care — not just access to health care or affordable health care, but true universal health care. In fact, I’m working as we speak to develop a plan that will do exactly that.
North Central: Of particular interest to me is minimum wage. I find it to be criminally low, but for whatever reason, I hear very little buzz about it at “street level”. It’s clearly a point we can hammer the GOP on…
Interested to hear your take.
Edwards: We’re dead right about this and the country supports us. To put pressure on the Congress, I’m helping to lead minimum wage ballot initiatives in 6 states. I’m very optimistic that we’ll win in all 6 states in November, because the country supports raising minimum wage.
And you’re right — it is criminally low. I’d like to see the members of Congress who vote against minimum wage try to live on $5.15 an hour.
Kidspeak: Here in Michigan, and elsewhere in the U.S., the difficulties in the auto industry have generated great hardship among factory workers – with more layoffs in sight. There seem to be no easy answers to this rising unemployment.
Similar problems are occuring in the South, as well, where poverty has been a particular hardship for many years.
What do you suggest for dealing with urban and rural poverty? Is it possible to come up with solutions that do not divide citizens by region, by ethnicity, and by urban vs. rural?
Edwards: This is a great question.
Unfortunately the answer is not simple. We will never eliminate poverty in America unless we do it comprehensively and nationally. This is another place for big ideas in our party — no more incrementalism.
We should start with simple things like raising the minimum wage, strengthening the earned income tax credits, and strengthening the ability of unions to organize their workplace. We should help people create assets by establishing matching savings accounts, and cracking down on predatory and payday lenders. We should radically revamp our national housing system, so that we no longer concentrate poor people in one area. We can do this by transforming HUD and creating a million new housing vouchers, to allow lower income families the ability to move into better neighborhoods. And I’ve already talked about College for Everyone.
Finally, we have to address the societal and cultural issues surrounding poverty — particularly teen pregnancy and the plight of young African American men in our inner cities. Our drug laws, particularly crack vs. powder cocaine, are not fair to young African American men, and we don’t have a support system (rehabilitation, counseling, retraining, etc) to help in the transition from the prison system back into society. Just building more prisons will never solve this problem. But it is also fair to expect that those we are helping will help themselves, and act responsibly.
Sam Spencer for County Commissioner: I wanted to ask about the progress you’re making on updating your foreign policy portfolio – the next person in the White House is going to have a lot of repair work to do with our allies and a lot of problems from more than just the Middle East. I once asked Bill Clinton what the next President had to do to repair our relations with Europe alone and he didn’t have the full answer.
I think Elizabeth is the person to hang Laura Bush’s portrait in the East Wing, but what would you do as President to further the cause of enduring global security and world peace?
Edwards: Repairing our relations requires more than talk. We have to prove that we will lead on issues that are beyond our own self interest. For example, kids are being born in Africa today with AIDS because their mother can’t afford a $4 dose of medicine. How can the richest nation on the planet allow this to happen? This is just an example on a long list of ways that America can change the way the world views us. The truth is that America is better than this, and our people are better than this. Our people are not the people of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo; we as a people want to lead on global poverty, genocide, and the spread of AIDS, not just because it’s in our own interest (which it is) but simply because it’s the right and the moral thing to do.
Sakuraba: I wanted to get your take on the the Bush Adminstration’s diplomatic allergy to bilateral talks vis-a-vis Iran and North Korea. Why is the outsourcing of these critical diplomatic negotations not in our short-term and long-term interest?
Edwards: For some reason — it makes no sense — the Bush administration apparently believes that direct discussions with Iran and North Korea are a sign of weakness. They’re dead wrong, and America and the world are paying the price.
The Bush administration has abdicated responsibility for years, to the Europeans on Iran and the Chinese and others on North Korea. Their policy, as in most of their foreign policy, has been an abysmal failure.
To put it simply, we should be willing to negotiate directly with the Iranians and the North Koreans. There is nothing about the willingness to negotiate that indicates that we cannot be tough and stand our ground. But when the preeminent power in the world is unwilling to talk directly with these nations, it is very hard to accomplish anything.
HeyMikey: Assume you win in ’08 and have Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. (Here’s hoping!) What will your top legislative priorities be?
Edwards: Domestically, our country’s top priorities should be universal healthcare, energy independence, ending poverty, and having an economic system that creates fairness and opportunity for everybody — not just a few.
Internationally, the President of the United States must make it completely clear that as the most powerful nation on the planet, we will look out for the interests of America — but that we will also look out for the interests of humanity by demonstrating that we are not only strong, but that we will lead on issues like global poverty, global warming, and the genocide in Sudan. We will not only have the strength to lead — we will have the moral authority to lead, and other nations will naturally rally around the U.S. when international crises occur. This change is not about feeling good — it is critical to the security of America.
MasonLee: I would appreciate your thoughts on predatory lending, especially with respect to whether you think we need a stronger federal law and/or a federal law that preempts the various state laws that are out there.
Edwards: We need preemption only if it allows state law to remain in place if state law is stronger. But the answer is that yes, we desperately national predatory lending law that cracks down on these lenders who are preying on our most vulnerable families. We also should completely revamp our financial system as it applies to low and moderate income families, who are being taken advantage of at every turn. More on this if you’re interested….
PattiM: I have to admit that Al Gore’s movies scared me. I even bought a hybrid. What does the government plan to do to move the country away from our oil addiction? It appears that many people are waiting for “leadership” on the issue.
Edwards: This is another place where our party must lead — not just for our party, but for America and the world.
The starting place is an Apollo project to invest in clean, alternative sources of energy — wind, solar, biomass, biofuels. But that must be married to truth-telling. We cannot innovate our way out of this problem. We should ask the American people to be patriotic about something other than war. We should ask them and require them to sacrifice and conserve and drive fuel-efficient vehicles, because it is in the long-term interest of the economy and security of America.
klarfax: Military spending is out of control under this administration, and there is no accountability. Do you have any proposals for making our military more efficient?
Edwards: Star Wars, which has never been proven to work, is a great starting place. On a simpler level, why don’t we stop giving billions of dollars in tax payer money to the President’s cronies at places like Halliburton.
And finally:
Mikesco: Do your aspirations for higher office continue? Are you thinking about 2008?
Edwards: I’m thinking very hard about it, but haven’t made a final decision yet. I will in the next few months.