Today's results in Nevada are no doubt depressing for many Edwards supporters. I, along with everyone else here, was hoping that he would do better. After today's results there will be a cascade of diaries from Obama and Clinton supporters urging us to give up on Edwards and support one of the two "front runners" in this race. I'm not, and you shouldn't, and I've got a better reason than I've already bought a plane ticket to campaign for Edwards in California.
This fight for me is personal because of what I've seen my family endure, corporations that screw their workers, government that doesn't care about the people who have sacrificed so much for it, and people who have worked hard for their entire lives never getting ahead. That's what I'm fighting against, and its why I'm fighting for Edwards.
First a bit about me and why I support John Edwards:
My Grandfather grew up a sharecropper in Kansas and my Grandmother was one of 10 and also grew up on a farm in Kansas. Both were children who had to drop out of school to help on the farm during the Great Depression. My grandfather went back to school to get his GED and then got a job with Halliburton working out in the oil fields around the world providing for his family.
My grandfather was a very popular man within Halliburton and was greatly respected in the industry but he made enemies with some of the people in the Halliburton brass. When he was assigned to work in Saudi Arabia, his shipment was inspected a little more closely than usual and a small one shot bottle of liquor was found. Both of my Grandparents are Southern Baptists and hadn't had a drink in years. It didn't matter, within a few weeks he was gone from the company just months before he would have qualified to receive his pension and many of his healthcare benefits. Almost 30 years of service to the company and everything he had worked for was gone. He was a member of the proudest generation, the greatest generation, and according to my father has never been the same since he was quit/was fired. He had put so much pride into his work and what happened nearly broke him.
My Grandfather who just recently passed away, spend the rest of his life battling diabetes and Parkinson's. My Grandmother, who is recovering from breast cancer, is stuck in the Medicare Part D doughnut hole wondering how she is going to pay for $4000 in uncovered medicine with her Social Security checks. Both of them longed for the days of FDR, the days when someone actually stood up for the working men and women in this country.
My mother's father was a conscientious objector and served in the Army in Europe as a medic. He came home a war hero (3 purple hearts, 2 bronze stars and I believe a silver star) and a changed man who could never put the demons from battle behind him. When he was laid off from the Railroads during the recession in the early 50's he hit the booze hard and left my Nana on her own raising four kids on her own. To do this she worked 3 and 4 jobs wherever she could find work. My mom grew up in the heavily segregated projects in Tampa, worked in the tobacco fields and meat packing plants to earn money for school clothes and to help out the family. She left home, enlisted in the Navy and graduated from college using the G.I. Bill with a teaching degree.
Her older brother served several tours in the Navy during Vietnam on riverboats and retired as a chief petty officer when his position as a navigator was replaced with GPS. He then went to work for the Post Office and was active in the local union. How has he been repaid for his years of service to this country? By having the Post Office and VA bicker over who should pay for his medical treatment and going for months without needed treatments and surgeries for his knees and back because neither would pay for it. Her younger brother quit his management job at a Laughlin casino in protest, before they could fire him, over how the new owner of the hotel was treating the employees. Her sister was just laid off by Home Depot because of the housing collapse and wasn't allowed to use her accumulated paid vacation before she was let go.
This is the story of my family. Who is going to fight for them? Who is going to bring some economic justice to the people who have spent their lives working hard in this country.
Then there is my story. I'm one of the lucky people in this country. My father's company provides us with a pretty generous health insurance policy. A few months ago, I became very sick. I was in constantly severe pain. I wasn't able to keep food down, I had lost about 10-15% of my body weight. Just to give you an idea... I'm 5'10'' and weighed about 117-120 pounds at the apex of my illness. I had been to the doctor several times. So much bloodwork had been done on my, so many waste samples taken, I thought I was becoming a lab rat. I was on medicines that had terrible side effects, and the medicines they gave me to combat those side effects had their own side effects. I was in so much pain one night that I was on the ground crying and had friend take me to the emergency room. They did a CT Scan to ensure that I didn't have Chrome's Disease and then diagnosed me with a severe form of IBS that was probably brought on by the stress of my grandfather (we were close) passing away.
The cost of all of this? $12,000 by the time all of the bills had come in. We were lucky as our insurance covered 90% of the inpatient expenses. But I sat and thought what if someone else had to go to the emergency room to get any kind of similar service, someone who didn't have the great health care coverage that I had. That bill would a two month's salary for a working family in this country. Who's fighting for them so they don't get screwed over by these obscene costs?
As someone who debated in High School, I've always been interested in politics from an academic and horserace standpoint. After Dean's campaign was torpedoed by the establishment, the media and its own stupidity I had sworn that I would never become attached to one candidate again. Living in Texas during high school, I had become extremely cynical about local and state politics especially after Proposition 2 (the first vote I ever cast, I cast one week after I turned 18 and it was against Prop 2). It seemed like the only thing state leaders could or would do was enshrine discrimination against me into the constitution and bash me on a regular basis (see Perry, Coryn).
Anyways, I was home after class one night watching one of the early Democratic debates and was impressed when I heard John Edwards not only utter the word poverty, but also talk about fighting the major powers that ran Washington. I went and investigated his record, looked at his policy proposals and was impressed by what I saw. I leaned Edwards, but was completely open to supporting Obama or Clinton in the primary. As I watched further debates, I became irritated with Clinton's unwillingness to answer questions about foreign or domestic policy because of her preordained status as the next president of the US. I also became somewhat annoyed with Obama's message of change through peace and negotiations and working together. How was he going to get Republicans to support the same proposals they've spent the past 15 years defeating? How was he going to work with the same party that stripped the minority of all of its rights in the House and was threating to do the same in the Senate (see nuclear option). From living in Texas, if there was one thing that I knew about Republican politics its that they don't negotiate or compromise, they attack and attack and attack.
John Edwards message of fighting back appealed to me because everything else has failed miserably. I'm proud I'm supporting the candidate that actually wants to talk about poverty, that actually wants to talk about saving the middle class, that wants to give the people a voice in their government. My candidate speaks in more than just platitudes and talks about things more important than having 35 years of experience. He speaks in concrete terms about his policy and brings the needs of the working people in this country back to the forefront of concern for the Democratic Party.
I hope my fellow Edwards supporters will join me in continuing to strive, to seek, to find and to never yield for this work goes on, our cause endures and the dream of taking back this party, this country, and this government for the people will never die.