John Edwards left the presidential race yesterday, but our work remains unfinished. Madeleine Stowe, the actress and political activist, writes today in the LA Weekly an article that all should read. I will excerpt part of it and I recommend you read it all.
The Beltway Establishment is bewildered and bothered by John Edwards — he's never fully been one of them. The national press also had a difficult time understanding and defining him clearly, describing him in turns as optimistic or angry, as a populist or a phony. He started this election cycle with a bang, putting out one hard-detailed policy initiative after another.
His health care plan had the blogosphere abuzz and was an unexpected shot in the arm for a flailing progressive movement. Edwards followed up with environmental, education, economic, trade and labor plans that reinforced the perception that he was walking a true progressive path, so much so that Ralph Nader went on television to call him "the most progressive mainstream presidential candidate I've seen in years."
LA Weekly, by Madeleine Stowe
More, after the fold
I observed the candidate on the campaign trail when reporters weren't around during each of the four primaries and found that he was always strikingly calm in spite of the whirl around him. Edwards, I've been told, is guided by a faith that runs deep but which he refuses to unleash on the general public. During his tenure as a senator from North Carolina, at a prayer breakfast in D.C. where he was said to have given a moving speech, he was advised to bring up his faith again and again as a political tool. Edwards said, "No," and has been intractable on the matter ever since.
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Edwards had no speechwriter on his staff; he wrote his own words. He listened to his campaign manager, David Bonior, union activist and former House whip, and to Joe Trippi and rural adviser Mudcat Saunders, who were brought into the campaign by Elizabeth. It's his wife whose counsel he deeply relies upon. Edwards exhibited a gentle regard toward Elizabeth and daughter Cate, and both women acted as surrogates on the trail.
snip
It's not in Edwards' DNA to walk away from a fight. Edwards had been consistently up against it during this election cycle and defied the expectations of the media that continually watched for and predicted his surrender. After his second-place finish ahead of Hillary Clinton and behind Obama in Iowa, the writer Ezra Klein noted the result: "The talking heads on MSNBC just spent a few minutes puzzling over John Edwards' concession speech. 'It had no concession,' they fretted. It didn't talk at all about the horserace, or the vote totals. Instead, Edwards spoke of the downtrodden, the uninsured, the insecure, the exploited, the oppressed, the wronged, the scared, the hungry, the homeless, and the poor. It was a fitting speech. It was not about the candidate or the race, but about the ideas, and the individuals they are supposed to help. In that way, it was Edwards' candidacy distilled to its core."
LA Weekly, by Madeleine Stowe
There is much, much more. Please read the entire article:
LA Weekly, by Madeleine Stowe
Our cause is summed up by these words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
There was once a Democratic Party that cared about working people and saw the interconnections between us all. President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and so much more:
"Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964."
Those were Lyndon Johnson's words on March 16, 1964, launching the War on Poverty.
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"The Act," he said, "does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done, it charts a new course. It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty. It can be a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people."
Johnson called for "a job Corps, a Work-Training Program and a Work Study Program." He argued that "Thousands of Americans have volunteered to serve the needs of other lands. Thousands more want the chance to serve the needs of their own land. They should have that chance." And so he launched VISTA. We also know that Lyndon Johnson fought to enact Medicare and Medicaid and also aid to elementary and secondary education.
"I do not," Johnson declared, "intend that the war against poverty become a series of uncoordinated and unrelated efforts - that it perish for lack of leadership and direction. Therefore this bill creates, in the Executive Office of the President, a new Office of Economic Opportunity. Its Director will be my personal Chief of Staff for the War against poverty. I intend to appoint Sargent Shriver to this post."
LBJ concluded with these words: "And this program is much more than a beginning. Rather it is a commitment. It is a total commitment by this President, and this Congress, and this nation, to pursue victory over the most ancient of mankind's enemies."
The War on Poverty: Then and Now
Edwards yesterday once again talked about the fundamental problem in the Democratic Party today, which is the loss of the understanding of Dr. King's that we are "are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." What affects one of us, affects all:
And we do this -- we do this for each other in America. We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need. Because every one of us knows that what -- but for the grace of God, there goes us.
The American people have never stopped doing this, even when their government walked away, and walked away it has from hardworking people, and, yes, from the poor, those who live in poverty in this country.
For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.
We know that our brothers and sisters have been bullied into believing that they can't organize and can't put a union in the workplace. Well, in this campaign, we didn't turn our heads. We looked them square in the eye and we said, "We see you, we hear you, and we are with you. And we will never forget you." And I have a feeling that if the leaders of our great Democratic Party continue to hear the voices of working people, a proud progressive will occupy the White House.
Remarks Of John Edwards In New Orleans
Madeline Stowe has the last words in this diary. I'll let her explain:
snip
His nature is optimistic — he genuinely feels that it's possible to both stare the nation's problems down and remove the obstacles standing in the way of change. As Edwards closed his presidential bid in the place where he began it - New Orleans' Ninth Ward - he remained the pugilist contained in a good boy's frame. He's not backing down. His campaign has given voice to the voiceless, and he'll be holding Obama and Clinton's feet to the fire.
LA Weekly, by Madeleine Stowe
We're not backing down either.
Come by Sunday night as the Edwards Evening News Roundup ("EENR") transforms itself into eenr for progress and we continue John Edwards' and our fight for economic justice in America.