I'd like to see Edwards expand on his 2 America's theme

[bushwakker]

As much as I agree with and admire the sentiment of JE's 2 America's theme, I think it's a ticket to nowhere in a general election. Trying to appeal to cash strapped middle income swing voters by asking them to sacrifice something for those less fortunate just won't get him anywhere. I'd like to see him start talking about a "middle class squeeze" or something along those lines. I think there is a sense among two earner, middle income familes that, although they may have jobs, each month it gets harder and harder to make ends meet. After mortgage payments, car payments, health care costs, tuition payments, cable and telephone bills there ain't much left. There is a sense that average folks are getting screwed over by insurance companies, banks and telecom companies. Would like to see a candidate agressively talk about this monthly squeeze. This is where the votes are and AWOL is very vulnerable here because he is beholden to the very concerns that are nickel and diming all of us to death.

[spooky3]

1. Bushwakker, I interpret his speech differently from you.

I hear him putting the poor, the working class, and the middle class together in America #1, and the upper-middle class (e.g., $200000 income and up) and wealthy in America #2. He talks a LOT about the squeeze those middle income families are in and you'll see a lot of proposals to help them on his website. But I think you are right that maybe he needs to talk more about this and deemphasize a few other things.

I'd also like him or another candidate to address how hard it is to make it on one income (buy a house in a nice neighborhood, pay for rapidly rising health care costs, student loans, a car, insurance, etc.) in much of America given that salaries are not keeping up with these costs. There are a lot of tax and benefit inequities on the job, too. 40% of the adults in this country are unmarried and most of them are not living with other people. Singles/divorced are a forgotten demographic because some people make it sound unAmerican not to be in a "family." But there are a hell of of lot of single voters.

[bushwakker]

2. He is becoming too identified with fighting against poverty

This is just a flat out losing strategy for the GE. Whether it's fair nor not the media is starting to pidgeonhole his campaign as an RFK=esques anti-poverty crusade. Basing a campaign on getting the votes of those living in poverty or those who's main concern are those living in poverty will get us slaughtered in GE. I'm thinking of the two earner couple. They've got maybe two kids. One's in college the other in high school. They make Ok $$ - maybe $150,000 a year between them - but it really ain't enuf. Tuition costs are thru the roof, property taxes are thru the roof (thanks to fed tax cuts for the rich), the kid in high school has to pay user fees to play on the football team, their office co-pay for a doctor's visit is 50 bucks, they open their cable or phone bill and it's $3.00 more than last month, they get some $1.50 fee to use the ATM. In short they are getting nickel and dimed to fucking death and they are not gonna join up for some crusade in favor of the small percentage of Americans who are living in shelters or their cars. Bill Clinton made an overt appeal to the "forgotten middle class" and JE needs to do the same. He is uniquely suited to do this but he needs to do it soon lest he become too identifiel with being a crusader against poverty.

[elsiesummers]

7. I feel zero, nada, niet sympathy for that family you describe.

Trying to summon some sympathy <fingers pressed to temples - eyes closed> for that poor family nickeled and dimed on 150K a year but no - nothing - not going to happen.

Maybe that's why I'm a John Edwards fan - he knows better than to try to elicit sympathy for any family making over 100K a year.

[bushwakker]

8. $150,000 doesn't go far these days with a couple of kids

Used to be that kind of $$$ put you and the misses on easy street but times have changed. If you are saying these people are wealthy you are off base. Millions of families are making the kind of $$$ that used to give them the ability to save for retirement but now they are stretched to the breaking point. The cost of education, health care and housing are squeezing people and Edwards and Kerry need to talk about it.

[papau]

3. 2 America's theme has been rejected in every GE I've voted in.

I buy it - but it does not sell.

[JPJones]

4. How about three Americas? n/t

[w4rma]

5. He does have to make sure that middle class viewers don't put themselves

into upper-class America. Alot of middle class folks think that they are upper class. It's wierd.

[Voltaire99]

6. Oh, those poor two-income middle class families!

Do you seriously mean the party should turn its back on the poor by running on a platform of helping the middle class pay for its cable bill?

And you hold this astonishing belief because "this is where the votes are"?

By god, I'm sure there are plenty in the DLC who agree with you. What you propose, coincidentally, is Reaganism in its essence: the abandonment of the social compact in exchange for more creature comforts. You will have heard Bush sound the theme in the last election, too, when he said, "That's yer money! That's yer money!"

We've seen where this debased philosophy leads. Unerringly it leads to a society so banal and heartless that community is shattered, people think only of themselves, our prisons swell and our schools lie all but in ruins. The point of the Democratic Party is - or should be, anyway - to try to do better.

[bushwakker]

9. How many people do you know who are "living in poverty"?

Running a campaign based on gaining the votes of these people and the rest who care enuf about them to want to do anything about it - will get the Dems salughtered in Nov. The family I desribed are Americans too. They are not spoiled or consumed by consumerism. They are your neighbors and friends. There are millions of them and they will decide this election. Bill Clinton used to talk about those who worked hard and played by the rules having a voice in Washington. These are the people he was talking about.

[libragirl73]

10. But...

...It doesn't have to be this way...
...You and I can do this----together.