Welcome to this Wednesday's edition of the Edwards Evening News! Lot of information for you today including some nice words from Bill Maher, some pushback fromt the Edwards campaign on important issues, and the latest from Nevada and New Hampshire.
- Bill Maher defends Edwards on O'Reilly (and poor O'Reilly gets intellectually spanked).
- The Edwards campaign speaks out for lobbying and ethics reform and against Bush's failed Iraq policy - and issues a challenge to Obama and Clinton.
- Edwards: the Change Candidate
- Edwards in Nevada today and the One America tour in New Hampshire starts tomorrow
- LNCFE (Labor-Netroots Coalition For Edwards)
1. Bill Maher defends Edwards on O'Reilly (and poor O'Reilly gets intellectually spanked).
Anyone who watches Bill Maher knows he's a pretty smart guy. Not that showing O'Reilly to be the fool he is takes much smarts, but Maher went up a few notches for among other things making some pretty smart statements about John Edwards yesterday. Among them:
"For the democrats, the one sure winner would be John Edwards"
Check it out for yourself:
2. The Edwards campaign speaks out for lobbying and ethics reform and against Bush's failed Iraq policy - and issues a challenge to Obama and Clinton.
John Edwards responded to another typical Wa Po article and spoke out strongly today for lobbying and ethics reform. He reiterated his challenge to the Democratic Party:
"I've called on the Democratic Party and all candidates for federal office to stop taking money from Washington lobbyists. A column in today's Washington Post misunderstood the issue. Reforming our party isn't a substitute for changing our laws; it's a critical addition to changing our laws - a huge step we can take today to show the American people that we're the party of the people without waiting for Washington to catch up.
and made it clear that there's no need for either/or solutions. He doesn't see the need to settle:
"There are two ways to reform our system. The first way is to pass legislation. I have publicly supported Senator Obama's plan for ethics and lobbying reform. I am also a strong supporter of public financing, and when I am the Democratic nominee for president, if the Republican nominee agrees, I will accept public financing of my campaign. But, as we have seen over and over again, every time we are actually able to pass a new law, all of the lobbyists find loopholes to keep the system rigged.
"The other legitimate path to reform is for our party, the Democratic Party, to reform itself by refusing to take money from Washington lobbyists. By doing this, we are telling Washington lobbyists that their money and their agenda are no good here anymore, and exposing for the American people who the Republican Party is working for - and it's not them. Refusing Washington lobbyist money is a huge step in the right direction - that we can take today - to return our country to a government of, by and for the American people."
Its nice to see him praise and support Obama's important plan for reform, but he makes it clear we can and should do more now - and issues a challenge to Obama and Clinton:
"But the real question is if Senator Obama and Senator Clinton really care about reform, which I believe they do, then why will neither of them join me and support both paths?"
Check out to be inspired's excellent diary on this: Edwards: WaPo misunderstands lobbyist issue
This follows Edwards' criticism of Clinton's ill-advised comments the previous day that seemed to support Bush's tactics on Iraq. Edwards made clear that by all estimates the surge isn't working:
"Our military's hard-won progress in Al-Anbar province should not distract us from the fact that pouring more military resources into Iraq is no substitute for the comprehensive national political solution that will ultimately resolve the situation in Iraq. President Bush's failed strategy has led to increased terrorism in Iraq, as we saw with the bombing of the Iraqi Parliament months ago in the Green Zone and the recent horrendous bombings in northwest Iraq that killed over 250 people. And despite the surge, the Al-Maliki government is disintegrating before our eyes. Even worse, President Bush's mistakes in Iraq have only helped make terrorism worse in the world. As the National Intelligence Estimate recently found, Al Qaeda is as strong now as it was before." 9/11.
He makes it clear that if the surge doesn't enable a political process to happen, it isn't working. And also makes it clear that words do indeed have consequences and giving kudos to Bush on a failed policy isn't helpful:
"As Senator Clinton has observed, words have consequences – and she was right. Suggesting that the surge is working completely misrepresents the facts about Iraq. By cherry-picking one instance to validate a failed Bush strategy, it risks undermining the effort in the Congress to end this war."
see Cosbo's diary up on this: Edwards to Hillary: Poll This!
4. Edwards: the Change Candidate
As the previous section shows, Edwards is clearly trying to turn the heat up in the race, show that primary voters have clear choices to make, and make it clear that he is the change candidate, not in rhetoric, but in substance. In a speech planned for tomorrow Edwards will offer himself as the clear choice for America for those who want a new and better direction.
"Small thinking and outdated answers aren't the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia," Edwards says in remarks prepared for delivery. "The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn't. It's not just that the answers of the past aren't up to the job today, it's that the system that produced them was corrupt - and still is."
Edwards planned to tell voters they can't simply replace "a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other." He planned to criticize "the policies of the '70s, '80s or '90s" that "are wedded to the past, ideas and policies that are tired, shopworn and obsolete. We will find no answers there."
Do Democrats want more of the same mistakes and calculated cautiousness of the past? Or something else?
"It's more whether you want to look forward or look back, whether you want to see a president who is willing to take on the establishment or not," Edwards said in the interview previewing the speech. "I don't believe we can change the country without having a president who is willing to take on the establishment."
And the idea of change, without substance informing it and guiding it, is really just another word that won't do much on its own:
"I don't think just the word 'change' means much to people. I think what they want to see is ... the substance of what you want to do. I mean, what is the policy of the word?" Edwards said in the AP interview. "In my case, it's been a very aggressive set of very substantive ideas ... because otherwise the change rhetoric all sounds the same."
Talking to the same people that have always stifled progress and offering the same old half solutions just isn't enough. America deserves better and we can do better. Edwards knows that change has to mean something, has to be fleshed out, or it isn't really change at all.
3. Edwards in Nevada today and the One America tour in New Hampshire starts tomorrow
John Edwards was in Nevada today promoting solar energy and clean alternative energy. Is he running away from Nevada? Doesn't seem like it:
Edwards says he has visited Nevada more than any other major presidential candidate. Although you probably heard he pulled his staff out of Nevada, he says that's not true. He did reorganize them, and many of those staffers will be coming back at some point, Edwards insists.
and tomorrow off to New Hampshire on the NH leg of the Fighting for One America tour!
All Aboard!
Check out the tour (say hi to Cate!) and events. Tomorrow's focus will be on achieving energy independence and halting Global Warming through a new energy economy
5. LNCFE (Labor-Netroots Coalition For Edwards)
Lastly wanted to give a shout-out to LNCFE, a new grassroots organization of union members and bloggers dedicated to getting John Edwards elected. Check them out; here's their mission statement:
The LNCFE is a coalition that brings together the men and women of organized labor, the netroots, and the grassroots for a common cause. Our goal is to secure Senator John Edwards the unity endorsement from organized labor that he so clearly deserves.
And why should unions and the netroots work together for John Edwards? Because he knows exactly what and who he's fighting for.