John Edwards as populist

[JohnLocke]

John Edwards as populist
Toledo Blade
Saturday, January 6, 2007
----
IN HIS first run for the presidency two years ago, former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina followed an orthodox course, emphasizing his own rise from poverty and the need to level the economic playing field for Americans. For a virtual unknown at the time, he did well enough in the Democratic primary campaigns to be chosen by Sen. John Kerry as his running mate.
(...)
But Mr. Edwards, running well behind the presumed favorites, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and freshman Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, has to start some time, and preferably with a fresh message. He can afford to be unorthodox in his tactics, at least for the time being, and he did that by kicking off his campaign in New Orleans, the principal victim of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Despite the inundation of much of that city, people are beginning to forget the scenes of destruction and death there, preoccupied as they are by other matters, whether it is the state of their pocketbooks or the wasting war in Iraq.
The candidate eschewed references to his own rags-to-riches story and did not, as President George Bush belatedly did during his various trips there to shore up support for his administration and his party, make overblown promises to rebuild New Orleans.
Instead, Mr. Edwards spoke in more general terms of the need for Americans to take their future into their own hands, to improve medical care for all citizens, reduce global warming, and eliminate poverty. These are themes that are easier to talk about than to bring about, but the populist shape of his campaign is becoming clearer.
(...)
If the Washington-wise media continue to concentrate on the horse-race aspects of the campaign, perhaps Mr. Edwards is exactly in the position he wants to be, for now at least.
----
Read the rest here.

[Superman Returns]

1. good article

though its one of the reasons I always had a soft spot for Edwards. I feel many Democratic politicians make the mistake when running for higher office, to move to the "established center" and try to woo over moderates and independents. In most cases, that means veering right for a limited group. Instead, I always thought that a populist message could make a campaign 3 dimensional; allowing you to compete for middle class, blue collar voters and traditional conservatives. It essentially allows you to run strong on economic issues, and take social issues off the table much like Webb and Tester did in their respective Senate races. Above all Populism is about style. It allows you take the anti-elitist, anti-establishment road without sounding radical or liberal, but instead as a "common person" disgruntled with the system. People don't think your against the Patriot Act because your weak on national security, but because like conservatives, you believe government should be limited. I really think Edwards tapped into something, and whether he wins or not, I hope the Democratic Party becomes inclusive to "Lou Dobbs Democrats" minus the xenophobia.

[nealmhughes]

2. Smart money says: watch what Schweitzer, Tester, and Big Jim Folsom did.

As Folsom had bragged: "I can only lose if they catch me in bed with a live boy or a dead girl" but actually, having a couple of swigs to "loosen up" on the new-fangled TV did him in...

So, Sen. Edwards, keep sober for that there red light on that TV camera, please! Otherwise, read your old Alabama and Montana notes and take them to heart.

[JohnLocke]

3. Kick (nt).

[Mikey929]

4. Hmmm

Wasn't there another local yokel who threw on a pair of jeans and a work shirt and tried to convince the nation he was a real down-to-earth regular guy? Oh yeah, it was George W.

Lesson: Don't be fooled by a pair of jeans and a nice southern accent. The man is a skilled manipulator of words. But if you want your "populist" to be a multi-millionaire Wall Street shill, then by all means vote for him. Consider yourself warned though.

[DaveinMD]

5. he's not a wall street shill

he became wealthy suing companies that harmed people.

[Mikey929]

7. Sorry

Yes, you are right. He is an angel who battles the evil corporations (whom he somehow is now in bed with on Wall Street).

Not to say you're gullible, but to believe that plaintiff's attorneys are somehow pure in thought and deed is a tad juvenile. I'm a trial attorney myself. Lot of nasty stuff goes on behind the scenes.

My point is this -- Edwards is a skilled orator and he knows how to tell a story. And when he puts on his jeans and goes to New Orleans for a speech, and plays up his accent, it is all part of the grand master plan. It's a marketing campaign. Some truth, some fiction, and a whole lot of calculated moves.

[DaveinMD]

8. I like the idea

of actually having a candidate who is good at politics. Then we can win.

[Catchawave]

9. Mikey - what are you basing your info on?

the "in bed with on Wall Street" part. Sounds juicy!

Lucky for Bill Clinton, Edwards is a skilled orator:

http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.statements/edwards.html

Smart too, he didn't use notes :D

[Mikey929]

10. wall street

Because he went to work on wall street maybe?

[citizen snips]

13. link?

[Mikey929]

15. Business Week Online

October 13, 2005 story. I don't know computers so I can't do a link. He was hired by a Wall Street firm in 2005.

I googled "John Edwards" Wall Street, and it was the first link that popped up.

[LSK]

20. and what did your google turn up on "Fortress Investment Group"?

:shrug:

[citizen snips]

26. which is not a corporation

[Catchawave]

14. Need more info....

Thanks :hi:

[ultraist]

16. pffft...

Some of the strongest voices against poverty were wealthy people. So what. How classist to dismiss someone due to how much money they do or don't have.

BTW, Edwards brother is an electrician. He does not come from blueblood roots.

[Strawman]

21. that's true, but privileged pols who try to act like they are not are phony

like Chimpy. Someone like RFK knew he was rich kid. He was sympathetic to the poor but he didn't front like he was poor himself. When Edwards uses populist rhetoric, he is not fronting. He speaks from experience. I suspect we agree, but I think it's important to distinguish between those two types of wealthy politicians that play the populist card.

And Edwards is not some patrician pol. He came from working class roots and made his money suing greedy corporations. He understands the problems working class families face first hand and I don't think it's wrong or classist to consider that a plus when wages have been stagnant for the bottom 80% of the labor force in this country since 1970. In and of itself, it's not important, but when combined with a populist economic program, it makes the commitment to that program appear more credible to me. Another thing worth mentioning to the person trashing JE upthread is that Edwards isn't exactly riding an anti-poverty bandwagon. Quite the contrary, the pollsters have always said poverty is non-starter as an issue. Edwards is making this into his issue, I believe, out of conviction.

[ultraist]

22. Well said, Strawman! n/t

[LSK]

19. the whispering campaign begins n/t

:eyes:

[saracat]

28. I know John Edwards, and he is NO shill. This is a disgusting post and

with nothing to back it up.Most shills of the nature you mention do not give much of their time and effort to the betterment of others.John Edward's is a rich man.He could have just walked away .He has chosen instead to invest some of his wealth to ensure the education of hundreds of poor kids in his state so that they might have the possibility of his success.

And he is a "skilled manipulator of words". So what? Isn't that what being a good trial lawyer is about? Shame on you. We need someone who can speak in the White House. We certainly don't have one now. And to compare the silver spooned Bush from Conn. with Edwards is the most ridiculous analogy I can think of. John's accent is genuine and when he wears jeans he is usually doing actual work not clearing fake brush for a photo op.
You will forgive me if I trust my own experience with John and Elizabeth other than a nasty post by an anonymous internet poster.

[ChiciB1]

6. Go, Johnny, Go! n/t

[underpants]

11. Go John

Yaaaaay!

[citizen snips]

12. K&R

[ultraist]

17. Keep on rockin' in the free world!

:kick:

[citizen snips]

24. whats up

:hi:

[ultraist]

25. Hi MATTMAN!

Good to see you.

:hi:

[LSK]

18. Go John

[ultraist]

23. Noticed your Dean avatar...

The Edwards for President Campaign recently hired former Dean Campaign Internet Director, Mathew Gross.

http://www.bluenc.com/matthew-gross-web-maven-to-john-edwards

[LSK]

27. thanks for the link

[JNelson6563]

30. Good move

:toast:

[dk2]

29. I think John Edwards skill is exactly what is

needed in the Whitehouse, it will come in real handy while trying to clean up some of the Bush Admin's mess. Just about everything will need special attention. John Edwards all the way to the Whitehouse 2008!

[malikstein]

31. Here is Sam Smith's appraisal of Edwards and populism:

Sam Smith at Progressive Review has given Edwards a good looking at and put him in the context of the progressvie movement and the party formerly known as democratic. I'll drop a few quotes here and send you on your way to the full, rather long, article at http://prorev.com/populist.htm

JOHN EDWARDS has done the Democrats an enormous favor. He has retrieved the party's reason for existence from the attic where it has been stowed lost and forgotten for some four decades.

What Edwards does with the discovery remains to be seen, but the mere removal from storage of the populist notion that Democrats are meant to serve the little guy has a significance that is hard to overrate.

To understand why, you have to look at some of the party's other lost and forgotten history, a history that directly challenges the myths of the moment.

For example, there have only been two Democratic presidents over the past three-quarters of a century who have gotten significantly more than 50% of the vote: Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, each of whom received 61% in one election.

...

In short, the only thing that has really worked for the Democrats have been campaigns heavily populist in nature.

...

It was the end of the nineteenth century, though, that institutionalized populism, and gave it a name. The issues are familiar: economic concentration, unfair taxation, welfare and democracy. Critics are quick to point out that they also included racism and nativism, which was true in some cases, but it has been traditional for liberal historians to emphasize these aspects while overlooking the rampant class and ethnic prejudices of the more elite politicians they favored.

In the end, the most debilitating, discriminatory and dangerous form of extremism in this country is found in the middle -- with its cell meetings held in the committee rooms of the US Congress, its slogan "Not Now" and its goal of maintaining the temerity of the people towards their leaders. A true populist revival could change this but the merchants of moderation will do what they can to control and blunt it.

...

In the end, however, neither ideological socialism nor pragmatic populism could hold their own against the emerging dominant style of contemporary liberalism, which espoused human rights and civil liberties even as economic welfare was carefully constrained by a prohibition against the redistribution of wealth or power.

...

Here lies the great hope in the rediscovery of populism. More than any other political philosophy it offers potential for those who serve this country to seize a bit of it back from those who control it. It emphasizes the issues that should be emphasized: economic justice, decentralized democracy and an end to the concentration of power.

...

All pressure groups - farmers, labor unions, women, ethnic groups - have grabbed a piece of the cake. But the citizens at the bottom of each of these causes - the poor farmer, the unemployed laborer, the tip-dependent waitress, the slum dweller - has hardly been allowed a bite. We have created the superstructure of a welfare state without providing its supposed benefits to the people who need it most.

Not even the organizations supposedly dedicated to correcting this imbalance have been up to the task. The Black Congressional Caucus remains silent as the toll mounts of black young men sent to prison or to their death thanks a war far more deadly to them than Iraq, namely the war on drugs. The major women's groups are far more interested in Nancy Pelosi than in women working at Wal-Mart. In fact, the most effective women's and minority groups in the country are unions like SEIU and Unite Here, which actually help some of those most in need.

...

Yet when Howard Dean made his comment about wanting to get the votes of people who drove pickups with confederate flag stickers, he was immediately excoriated by Kerry and Gephardt. By any traditional Democratic standards, this constituency should be a natural. After all, what more dramatically illustrates the failure of two decades of corporatist economics than how far these white males have been left behind?

...

So what might a populist agenda look like? Let's look at two examples - neither a paragon of virtue - yet far better, and stunningly so, than any of today's politicians in starting programs that helped large numbers of people. Their legacy was not to be found in their own amply noted inadequacies but in the adequacies they made possible for others. In a time of shallow political celebrities incapable of even modest achievement, these men remind us what democracy was meant to be about.

The first was Governor Huey Long of Louisiana.

...

The other example is Lyndon Johnson.

...

What would a new populist program look like? It might include things like this:

- Universal healthcare with no trough-slopping by insurance companies

- A housing program in which the federal government would be an equity partner with lower income house purchasers. It would be a self-sustaining program as each partner would get their equity back when the house was sold.

- An end to usury in credit card lending.

- Pension protection

- A revival of high quality vocational training

- Election reform including instant runoff voting and public campaign financing

- Expansion of cooperatives and credit unions

It is possible that we have so fouled our own nest that nothing like LBJ or Huey Long will ever be possible again. And there is no guarantee that John Edwards, having discovered the populist treasure in the Democratic attic, will use it well. But there are so few real reasons to cheer about our politics these days, news that one candidate is seriously interested in programs that do the most good for the most people - an almost extinct goal in the Democratic Party - deserves a big cheer. And if he abuses this new found treasure, grab it from him and put it to better use .

[techno-nubian]

32. Maybe, but he has this metro appeal I'm not feeling....