I'm neither blessed nor cursed with a photographic memory, but I do remember this - Molly Ivins' view of John Edwards, from her August 2003 column on the Democratic candidates in The Progressive:
John Edwards in the early appearances struck me as almost a little too pretty, a little lite. But he's got a populist streak I like--his daddy spent thirty-seven years working in a North Carolina mill, and Edwards ain't forgot it. Seemed to me he might develop. In a recent speech at Georgetown University, the sumbitch hit a home run. (Look it up.)
Apparently, way back in 2003, before John Edwards supposedly "reinvented" himself as a populist, a fine judge saw a populist in him herself.
And so did I.
The Georgetown University speech is the one that really sold me on Edwards, and I think it's one that even those of you without photographic memories may recall - his "Wealth vs. Work" speech:
This crowd is making a radically different argument. They don't believe work matters most. They don't believe in helping working people build wealth. They genuinely believe that the wealth of the wealthy matters most. They are determined to cut taxes on that wealth, year after year, and heap more and more of the burden on people who work.
How do we know this? Because they don't even try to hide it. The Bush budget proposed tax-free tax shelters for millionaires that are bigger than most Americans' paychecks for an entire year. And just last week, Bush's tax guru, Grover Norquist, said their goal is to abolish the capital gains tax, abolish the dividend tax, and let the wealthiest shelter as much as they want tax-free.
Look at the choices they make: They have driven up the share of the tax burden for most working people, and driven down the burden on the richest few. They got rid of even the smallest tax on even the largest inheritances on earth. This past month, in a $350 billion bonanza of tax cuts on wealth, they couldn't find $3.5 billion to give the child tax credit to poor people who work. Listen to this: They refused to cut taxes for the children of 250,000 American soldiers who are risking their lives for us in Iraq, so they could cut dividend and capital gains taxes for millionaires who were selling stocks short until the war was over.
The president keeps promising his plan will create jobs – but it hasn't, it won't, and that's not why he did it. He said he wanted to end the double taxation of dividends. Then he turned around and signed a bill that lets people shelter dividends from companies that don't pay taxes at all, including companies that evade taxes by setting up headquarters in Bermuda.
This President says he can't afford to fund No Child Left Behind, but his tax bill ought to be called No Tax Shelter Left Behind.
It is wrong to reward those who don't have to work at the expense of those who do. If we want America to be a growing, thriving democracy, with the greatest work ethic and the strongest middle class on earth, we must choose a different path.
As President, I will put the government, the economy, and the tax code back in line with our values. No more tax breaks for corporations that move their headquarters overseas or buy life insurance on janitors and make themselves the beneficiaries.
No more tax breaks for CEOs who give themselves millions in top-hat pensions while giving no pensions at all to ordinary workers. No more playing games with the budget and driving up deficits. And no more of the Bush administration's war on work.
It's an article of faith among Edwards' opponents - and even some of Edwards' supporters - that he's changed radically since 2003. In one important respect, he has: he's changed his position on the war, from that of a strong supporter, to that of a forceful opponent.
But in most other respects, he's the same candidate who four years ago, spoke against a nation that rewarded wealth, rather than work. That's the John Edwards I supported four years ago, and it's the John Edwards I've been proud to support since.
Similarly, the John Edwards who refused campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists in 1997 is the same John Edwards who refuses those contributions today;
The John Edwards who stood up to the far right and defended Bill Clinton from impeachment in 1999 is the same John Edwards who stands up defends us today;
The John Edwards who fought against hostile insurers for a true Patients' Bill of Rights in 2001 is the same John Edwards who is fighting for universal health coverage today;
And the John Edwards who spoke of Two Americas in 2003 is the same John Edwards who is still speaking about the issue of poverty in America today.
If all of that seems too good to be true, well, so be it; instead, you can pick a candidate who's bad enough to be plausible.
I'll stick with the one who is plain right.