The media’s coverage has a lot to do with the fact he wasn't able to carry his message of political inequality further- and so once again we are faced with the unmitigated power of the media to deal a blow to the democratic process.
Although John Edward’s candicacy may have fallen short of the goal of getting the public to understand the nature of the problem, the method he used to get the problem across was effective. Kathleen Jamieson was on
Bill Moyer’s Journal and said she thought Edwards' message would bring about a moment that would succeed in the public's understanding the fundamental nature of what's wrong right now: " I think there has to be a moment in which we're shocked by something. I thought the moment about veterans sleeping under bridges should have and could have become that. And didn't because the horse race coverage of the campaign is so strong, that by then, this candidate had been marginalized into third place, also ran, message can't be important. Well, sometimes, those candidates are carrying messages we need to hear and we need to act on.
She went on to say:
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: But there are moments in which you grasp a problem in the particular and the problem won't let you go after that. There is one of those moments in the 1960 campaign interestingly enough, when John Kennedy, a wealthy candidate, says that he learned of children who took part of their school lunch home so that there would be food at home for the children. Occasionally, there are little vignettes that just simply cut through and they grab the moment. And suddenly, you understand something.
As John Edwards argued about the veterans who are sleeping under bridges and are sleeping on our streets, I was surprised that that didn't become that kind of moment. Not because it was carrying to the broader theme of poverty, but because it carried in the context of our military engagement a particularly poignant message
This message had so much power that Bill O'Reilly tried to discredit it. But the idea of a moment initiating public awareness is the thing that social movements take and grab hold of to bring about real change.
What sort of reforms are needed once we understand the magnitude of the problem?
Paul Krugman in his latest book, The Conscience of a Liberal thinks it's a kind of New Deal. Here's a blurb:
Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, studies the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a work that weaves together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis. This book, written with Krugman's trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, will transform the debate about American social policy in much the same way as did John Kenneth Galbraith's deeply influential book, The Affluent Society
Edwards was thinking big- he was talking about a stimulus package that would be effective long-term- creating jobs in a renewable energy infrastructure- offering something substantial to those left behind- he was not talking about incremental changes. But iIn order to succeed he had to have a public that was aware of the true scope of the problem.
So many have weighed in on what’s wrong, but few have been able to break through to the consciousness and the conscience of the public so that people really understand it and begin to act on it.
Edward’s campaign will have long lasting effects in terms of policy issues that the other two candidates have adopted,
(See Krugman’s Feb. 1 Op Ed)
but as to bringing this structural inequality to the surface, Edwards was connecting to people who were out of hope.
So my question to those readers who see this- How do we now move forward with the causes that Edwards says won’t go away?