Edwards Evening News Roundup: The Closer Edition
by cosbo
Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 07:39:16 PM PDT
- cosbo's diary :: ::
2. Establishment remains target for Edwards
4. Edwards Campaign: Outlines plan to help students pay for college and reduce student debt
5. The new urgency of John Edwards
6. Edwards `more Passionate' This Time
7. Edwards issues caucus instructions
8. Blog Roundup
9. Odds & Ends
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Here's editorial out the Seattle Times talking about how the media is shortchanging Edwards. This something most Edwards supporters know to be fact. Most Americans go nary on their without even realizing how much they're being manipulated, but the people in the early states are watching.
What about John Edwards? The big media portray the Democratic race as a death-match between the Clinton machine and the Obama phenom. Edwards comes off as a plodder in the shadow of two glamour pusses.
Back in the world of plain people, the story looks somewhat different. A new Des Moines Register poll shows 28 percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers preferring Barack Obama, 25 percent for Hillary Clinton and 23 percent for Edwards. That sounds like a three-way race to me.
Also consider the caucus rules. Within a caucus site, people whose candidate gets less than 15 percent of the total can throw their support to another contender. Edwards now leads the Democratic pack as the likely participants' second choice, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
The former senator from North Carolina seems definitely in the game. So why is the race commonly seen as a two-titan contest? The easy explanation, that much of the media are lazy, would not be far off. But something else is going on.
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Edwards was all over New Hampshire last week, talking to average citizens. The people who filled the Bow Town Hall on a slushy Monday morning were neither rich nor poor, but they definitely felt left out. Edwards' theme of putting middle-class interests at the center of American policy seemed to hit home. As Edwards warned the crowd not to "trade corporate Republicans for corporate Democrats," people nodded.
"I'd like to hear smaller voices heard, as opposed to the lobbyists," Anne Dupre, a 34-year-old mother of two, told me. Dupre is an independent whose family is "very Republican."
Also in the audience was Louis Duval, a 67-year-old technician who has been laid off more than once. In a non-question to Edwards, he demanded that American consumers dump imported products, "like the tea party." An independent, Duval wouldn't tell me whom he'll vote for.
In Iowa, Edwards supporter Skip McGill suspects that the media have used fundraising as the yardstick for a candidate's viability. McGill is president of the United Steelworkers Local 105 in Bettendorf, whose national union has endorsed Edwards.
"They were not looking at what people where thinking and saying as about bank accounts," McGill said. "The other two definitely have money, and I wish it was not about money."
He says friends on other campaigns have come to his side after hearing Edwards speak. Edwards has hit all 99 of Iowa's counties.
"One friend said it in a funny way," McGill remarked. "He said, 'Skip, I drank the Kool-Aid.' "
The big-gun cameras rarely focus on less-glamorous candidates discussing middle-class anxieties in small auditoriums and town halls. That's why they don't watch Edwards the way they do Clinton and Obama. Only the public watches.
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2. Establishment remains target for Edwards
Some people are starting to notice Edwards attack on the Washington establishment.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been strengthening his attacks on the Washington establishment in the past week, leveling further charges against lobbyists for corrupting the democratic process and against legislators for submitting to corporate power.
Analysts say it's an aggressive message aimed at boosting Edwards's numbers in Iowa, subtly swiping at Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is often pinned as part of the establishment, and setting himself apart from Sen. Barack Obama, who has focused on changing Washington through more bipartisan efforts.
In an ad launched yesterday in New Hampshire, Edwards says lobbyists are the reason the nation is without universal health care.
"You're going to sit at a table with drug companies and oil companies and they're going to give away their power?" he said. "Right. You have to take their power away from them."
Edwards sits in third place in recent polls in New Hampshire and Iowa. Wayne Lesperance, an associate professor of political science at New England College, said the image of Edwards as a "genteel gentleman from the South" hasn't been working.
"This is the guy I think we all knew was there," he said. "This is the guy who won those cases as a trial lawyer."
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But Lesperance isn't the only one who noticed it. Dante Scala, associate professor at the University of New Hampshire, said he saw Edwards speak last week in Manchester.
"I was struck by it," he said. "He's only become more populist in tone."
Lesperance said the stronger message could appeal to the Democratic base in New Hampshire and Iowa, particularly those concerned with the cost of health care. He called fighting insurance and pharmaceutical companies "red-meat" issues for Democrats.
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In the early months of his campaign, Edwards introduced policy focused on global warming, universal health care, and global and domestic poverty. This summer, while continuing to talk about those things, he stepped up his rhetoric, saying the system in Washington is "rigged."
At a town meeting in Bow last week, Edwards returned again and again to the power of lobbyists. He barely mentioned Iraq. On questions about health care, trade and publicly funded elections, he returned to talk about the power of special interests and the need to "reclaim this democracy." Later in the week, he talked about how "politicians without conviction and powerful interests" have built a wall around Washington.
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Lesperance said he thinks Edwards's message can appeal to older voters concerned about health care costs and set him apart from Clinton and Obama. He said Edwards would do well to pin himself as the anti-establishment candidate.
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Edwards campaign manager Joe Trippi said Obama and Clinton have spent millions on ads in Iowa.
"Until a couple weeks ago, we had spent $23,000," he said. "And guess what? It's a dead heat. People get our message. It works."
Asked if the message appeals more to voters in Iowa than in New Hampshire, Trippi said the message crosses all lines of income and status.
"Everyone knows that Washington is broken and busted," he said.
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Our friends across the Atlantic have been scrutinizing our election process. So far this a glimpse of what they think of the Democratic top three. The article itself is quite interesting. Check it out.
Hillary Clinton is the candidate of choice for people who long for a dose of pragmatism in difficult times. Those who dream of a better world can hardly pass up on Barack Obama. John Edwards, the third in the trio of frontrunners, is the one with the greatest vision. For him (and for anyone who isn't wearing blinders), America is a country divided in two, not just into the rich and the poor, but into those with opportunities and those without, those with health insurance and those without, and people who live on welfare and those lucky enough to receive bonuses in the millions. According to Edwards, an invisible wall bisects the country. Edwards has the makings of a new Lyndon B. Johnson, who, with his dream of a "Great Society," helped give birth to the American social welfare state.
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4. Edwards Campaign: Outlines plan to help students pay for college and reduce student debt
As part of “Building a Better America” week, Edward highlights College for Everyone Initiative and proposals to tackle student debt
Ames, Iowa – As part of “Building a Better America” week, today Senator John Edwards will discuss his plan to tackle student loan debt and make college more affordable. Edwards was the first in his family to go to college and is running for president so that all young people have the same opportunities that he has had. He believes every young person who is willing to work hard, should have the chance to go to college. At a community meeting in Ames, Iowa tonight, Edwards will outline his plan to make college more affordable for millions of students through a national College for Everyone program that will pay for one year of public college for students willing to take a part-time job. He will also discuss his plans for reforming student loans to eliminating bank subsidies, making applying for financial aid easier, and expanding access to college counselors.
“In America, every child should be able to go as far as her God-given talents and hard work will take her,” said Edwards. “As the first in my family to go to college, I know that our system of public education should be our sturdiest ladder of opportunity.
“But while a college education has never been more important, hundreds of thousands of young people fail to attend college each year because they can’t afford it. And for students who do go to college, the cost of tuition just keeps going up. On average, college students now graduate with $20,000 in loans. To build the better America we all believe in, we must find ways to make college more affordable. We’ve got to make sure that every qualified student has the opportunity to go to college and fulfill the American Dream.”
The College for Everyone program is based on a proposal that Edwards first talked about in his 2004 presidential campaign. In the fall of 2005, Edwards helped start a College for Everyone pilot program at Greene Central High School in Snow Hill, North Carolina, a economically disadvantaged, rural community in eastern North Carolina. The projected college-going rate for Greene Central seniors has increased from 54 percent before the program started to 74 percent today.
Edwards’ College Opportunity Agenda includes:
- Creating a National “College for Everyone” Initiative: Edwards will create a national initiative – based on the Greene County program – to pay one year of public-college tuition, fees, and books for more than 2 million students. In return, students will be required to work part-time in college, take a college-prep curriculum in high school, and stay out of trouble. - Overhauling the Student Loan Program: Edwards will let all students borrow directly from the Department of Education. By eliminating bank subsidies on student loans, he will free up billions of dollars to make college more affordable. - Simplifying Financial Aid: Edwards would dramatically simplify the application process by using information the federal government already has, eliminating two-thirds of the questions. - Giving Students the Tools They Need to Apply for College and Aid: Edwards will help every low-income high school eligible for Title I hire a new college counselor, helping students choose college-track courses and navigate the admissions and financial aid process.During “Building a Better America” week, Edwards is highlighting his plans for building a better America – a place where every American family has the opportunity to fulfill the American Dream. Edwards has challenged Americans to rise up and meet the great moral test of our time to ensure our generation leaves this country better for our children than it was when our parents gave it to us.
For more information on Edwards’ plan for making college affordable and reducing student debt, please see the policy document included below.
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5. The new urgency of John Edwards
Have YOU noticed a new "urgency" to John Edwards? I just call it his closing argument myself.
A year ago, John Edwards flew to New Orleans to announce another run for the White House. The man America met as a Southern-twanged, hope-is-on-the-way, sunny son of a mill worker emerged in the Lower 9th Ward grimmer, better traveled and quicker to attack, his policies more ambitious, detailed and liberal.
The tone and manner were as if Edwards' persona had been transformed, or at least as if Edwards listened to different people now. Was that true?
"Yeah," he says. "I listen to me."
A tight clutch of advisers say his 2004 defeats and the years that followed gave Edwards the knowledge and confidence to shed caution in what could be his last run for elective office. "Urgency" is the one-word bumper sticker many of them use to describe Edwards '08.
Rivals note that Edwards is also a legendary trial lawyer with a focus-group-honed skill for swaying juries. His political evolution coincides with a leftward drift in the Democratic electorate. Some of his top issues this campaign -- including global warming and poverty -- hardly show up in his six-year Senate record.
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6. Edwards `more Passionate' This Time
For Edwards, it just passion.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — John Edwards says he's more seasoned in his second bid for the presidency — understanding what a candidate should and shouldn't do — yet more passionate at the same time about the causes that drive him.
In 2004, Edwards was relentlessly upbeat and insisted he wouldn't criticize his rivals, and that brought him a surprising second-place showing in Iowa and helped boost him onto the national ticket. This time, some view him as more confrontational.
"I am exactly the same person driven by exactly the same things," Edwards said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. But he pointed to at least one difference. "There is a depth and a seasoning that makes me stronger and more passionate," he said. "It means I am enjoying myself."
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Edwards said he's learned from his previous campaign and "the key for me in the last month is the lesson of 2004. I've talked about what's wrong with Washington and now the key for me is to drive my positive vision for how we're going to fix it."
Edwards said his experience will show in the closing weeks.
"I think that what's true is I'm more sure-footed because of having been through this before," said Edwards. "I have a great deal of confidence both as a candidate and what I would do as president."
Edwards said that one lesson to be learned by Obama and Clinton is the quick falls of Richard Gephardt and Howard Dean, who led in the polls heading into the caucuses in 2004 but got into a vicious exchange toward the end.
"If you're talking about real substantive differences on big things, they think that's perfectly fine," Edwards said of Iowa voters. "When it's trivial personal things like this thing about Obama and what he wrote in kindergarten, they think that's silliness and they will not respond well to that."
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"I have differences with these candidates and I'll say what those differences are," said Edwards. "But that's not my focus. What Iowa caucus goers are going to hear from me in the last 30 days is a focus more on my vision for America
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7. Edwards issues caucus instructions
Great video. I'm still laughing.
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8. Blog Roundup
Update II: Edwards on Bush Today; John Edwards: No Rush to War with Iran by TomP
All Politics Is Local by MassEyesandEears
John Edwards says, "There is nothing we can't do if we do it together." by Ellinorianne
Thoughts on the Iowa caucus from a newly registered democrat by Superunknown
Peru Free Trade Agreement Passes Senate by DemocraticLuntz
John Edwards Wins NPR Debate - Slams Rush to War with Iran by jsamuel
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9. Odds & Ends
Videos to check out.
Edwards on Morning Joe
Edwards on The Today Show