John Edwards is introducing his universal health care plan to more than 70,000 Iowans via DVD. It's not quite the same as "going up" with TV ads, but considering that only about 120,000 people go to the caucuses -- and Edwards bought the Iowa Democratic Party's list -- this is some targeted marketing on a large scale. The Politico has the story and the video.
Edwards’ video -- which you can watch on Politico.com -- is the first effort this presidential cycle to reach voters directly and in numbers beyond those who tune into announcement speeches on television or on candidates’ websites. The mailing reflects continuing centrality of Iowa in the presidential primary process, and to Edwards’ campaign in particular.
"I keep hearing people describe me as a ‘populist’," Edwards says late in the six minute, seventeen-second video, which alternates between the candidate and unnamed Iowans speaking about their health-care worries. "If being a populist means you feel deeply and strongly committed to regular people having a real chance and not getting run over by big, powerful interests –- oh yeah, if that’s true, I’m a populist."
Edwards embraces the populist label and contrasts his emphasis on universal health care with his rivals. Hillary Clinton's decision, which she explicitly stated at the Nevada forum, to only aim for universal health care "by the end of my second term" seems unlikely to impress a lot of Democratic caucus-goers. Edwards has said he intends to push his fleshed-out plan right away, and that he puts a much higher priority on health care for every single American than he does on Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
His plan has won praise from influential voices in Democratic politics, including the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who is quoted on the mailing that Iowans will receive with the video.
Edwards’ video also represents a move to keep to the left of his rivals in a state that is thought to favor liberal Democratic candidates. The economic populism Edwards has embraced, in the form of organized labor and of his health-care plan, dovetails with his push to pull soldiers out of Iraq more rapidly than his rivals would.
Edwards isn't afraid to "keep to the left" of his rivals because he knows he can run on a strongly progressive platform and convince the American people to embrace it. Not a centrist platform. Not a "can't we all just get along" platform. A progressive platform. Edwards is concentrating on helping real people and finding solutions to their problems. That means staking out strong contrasts with Republicans, including laying out a plan for universal health care and making it a priority to enact it.
Without his rivals celebrity –- or even a platform in government -- Edwards has kept himself in a perceived top tier of presidential candidates by scrambling to stay ahead of his rivals organizationally, ideologically, and in the details of his policy.
The video and accompanying glossy mailer embodies all three. It will be the first mailing of the 2008 campaign season for most Iowans, and it presses the point that he has a more thoroughly fleshed-out plan to reform the nation’s healthcare system than do his rivals.
"I’m actually very proud of the fact that I was the first presidential candidate to lay out a detailed, substantive, truly universal healthcare plan," he says in the video.
Truly universal health care. Today, not tomorrow. That's the kind of issue the 2008 election should be about.