“I’ve come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am – who I really am. But I don’t know what the result of that will be. But for me personally, I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll that you put up in front of audiences. That’s not me, you know?” -- John Edwards
People and issues are complex, but the news media is shallow and often biased. How does a concerned citizen who happens to be running for president get a chance to communicate? Perhaps it could be the same way the average blogger or, in this case, Internet filmmaker does. YouTube, anyone?
In an attempt to meet his goal of letting the country see who he really is, John Edwards is letting a filmmaker follow him around. The first episode is now on his web site.
Some observations:
If you think you like what you see, please join the John Edwards 2008 group on Gather.1. I've shaken John Edwards’ hand. If he's made of plastic, it must be high quality fine Corinthian plastic, because I could swear he's flesh and blood.
2. I've heard people say he has great speechwriters. Now you know how he does it. I've read that this was how he made his arguments in the courtroom, also -- from a well-prepared outline.
3. The guy is so cool he doesn't even know what cool is.
4. I'm more interested in his ideas and his vision, but if this helps him cut through the shallow, one line negative image the media assigns nowadays to all Democratic candidates, perhaps he can finally get that message across.
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Comments: 36
I'm sure John Edwards has already considered the forces that made the votes against the E.U. successful and as such changed the paradigm in Europe--and is reverberating through the rest of the world.
I wish.
He was on the Daily Show a couple weeks ago. You can always tell the sincere candidates because they look into the camera, not around like they aren't sure of what they really "think we want to hear" like some politicians from Connecticut by way of Crawford, Texas.
Nancy, I guess we'll find out. I hope so.
Bongo, that truthiness thing worries me too.
Atticus, please do take a good look at all of them. I think all the candidates have something good about them. In John Edwards case, I think it's that he's highly intelligent, but most of all, really cares.
Cris, I saw that Daily Show clip online. I wondered if he got the idea for the filmmaker to follow him around from Jon Stewart's "showercam" idea. I'm sure this is much more exciting.
It's great if it works because he needs to have his image bolstered by having people know him. It's ok if it doesn't because right now he is seen as a second tier candidate behind Obama and Clinton.
I'd avoid Jon Stewart's shower though..... hehehe.
The problem with this term, I submit, is that it is not intended to define individuals, but to describe the distribution of a population.
American population by household income forms a distribution roughly like this:
There are a few folks at the low end, a very few at the upper, but most are in that skewed bulge "in the middle."Call "the bulge in the middle" something else if you want (I suspect the offending word is "class"), but don't deny its existence. This just impedes clear discussion of population-wide economic issues -- which every president must face.
I do want to point out one thing about your chart. It doesn't have numbers, so I'm guessing a bit here. But it sure looks like the big bulge there is pretty darn close to the poverty end of the scale. Perhaps that's because there's less monetary difference between a 10K annual wage and a 40K annual wage than there is between a 40K annual wage and a seven or eight figure salary.
Some reasons he lost last time, though I wouldn't call them good reasons, were the media trying to push a candidate on us (which they tend to be very successful at), lack of national name recognition (which isn't a problem now). I have to say I'm stumped because I don't understand your question.
This is entirely my opinion, but now I'm going to tell you why I think Kerry was more or less forced on us. It's my opinion the mainstream media makes a concerted effort every time to choose our candidates for us. Please read my Mythical Frontrunning Beast article for more on this, but even more importantly, please read the article I've linked to above, which is called GOP Media Lemming Alert. Most importantly of all, read a book by George Lakoff called Don't Think of An Elephant, which is pretty clear about how the Republicans choose a frame for candidates and issues and then get the media to repeat it.
I think Dean was one of the rare candidates who was ahead because he was truly popular. This worried the Republicans, who found the first thing they could criticize and jumped on it. The media outcry over the non-issue of the "Dean scream" was so vicious that he had to drop out of the race.
From that moment, the media started telling us over and over how Kerry could win because he had military experience. A lot of people bought it. Personally, I think the Republicans wanted to run against Kerry because they knew they could beat him. What did the media start doing the minute Kerry got the nomination? They stopped praising him and started attacking him. So I think Democrats have to be aware that the media buys a lot of the Republican spin (they have major think tanks with a lot of highly paid people whose entire job is to create that spin). The Democrats don't have that to anywhere near the same extent. The media just repeats the spin. The person the media tells us is our best candidate probably isn't, IMHO.
As for Edwards and his answers: I don't know what you were disappointed by, so I can't address anything specifically. I am going to give you several links to speeches on his web site, which should give you a good overview of what he believes and what his ideas are.
National Press Club Policy Address - general overview, then focuses on poverty
The Transatlantic Partnership in an Age of Global Challenges - foreign policy
American Constitution Society - a good overview, IMHO, of why we need someone in the presidency with a strong legal background as an advocate for ordinary people.
Because he is beating Hillary Clinton by a 20 point spread in Iowa, according to a recent poll. Iowa is the very first state to vote. The person who wins the first state tends to get a BIG boost out of it.
I actually don't care that much about polls, because I think Edwards would be the best leader out fo the bunch. I would support him no matter what the polls say. But, he does appear to have a very solid chance.
As you should be, Kathleen, unless you are so familiar with a particular candidate that you know you need to support that person. I decided who to vote for out of the Democratic candidates last time around very late. By the time I had examined all of them thoroughly, I was just so convinced that Edwards was the right choice that this time, I don't see any point in changing. Edwards has had my vote since the day after the last presidential election. There are only a couple of new candidates this time around, and I'm not all that impressed with them.
I like your points about income. We are all created equal. That's what our Declaration of Independence says and I believe it to be true.
I think it's terrible to treat those with less income like less of a person. The Republicans, sadly, seem to worship wealth and equate it with morality.
I know what you mean about living simply. In the past several years I have been trying to minimize my need for income. I would like to be able to work on what I care about, whether or not I get paid for it. The only ways to do that are to be super wealthy or else have simple needs.
Richard, I have no idea what that means. Is Hillary Tank Girl? If you like her, vote for her. I only ask that you make an effort to take a real honest look at the candidates and vote based on your preference, not the media's.
you're so cryptic; what is a tank girl; I'll check your articles and I'll bet I find another fascinating piece of history.. Either that or I'm just not in the know here.
Thomas,
You, and AstroGirl, make good points. I'd like to see some figures to go with your bell curve and a source for the figures. I don't have census data and not sure that would support or explain what I was saying anyhow.
My comment is more relative to Kathleen's re 'definition' of middle class and the fact that many who might be considered "middle class" by the pollsters may not in fact identify with being middle class. Conversely, many who were middle class at one time but are now in fact in a "lower class" income wise would still identify with being middle class and vote accordingly.
I believe that a large part of the anger reflected in the recent election had to do with people aspiring or believing themselves to be middle class, but their pocket books didn't reflect that. . They know they're slipping behind and yet Kerry and Bush kept talking about the "middle" class. There are many people "somewhere" on your chart there who feel completely left out of the equation when it comes to educating and housing their children, having work they can count on, and put money away for their retirement. Many individuals who would have been considered "middle class" or aspired to the middle class in the 60's or 70's are watching pensions, and retirement benefits that were promised to them being whittled down or snatched away -- not just by inflation for which we are all supposed to plan -- but by events on the ground, as it were. There could probably be a case made for people who would on the face of it appear middle or are very poor who in in fact vote for monied special interests. Then there are all the individuals who used to be considered blue collar democrats, but if they now work in a defense plant, that vote may be different. As unegalitarian as it sounds, follow the money trail.
Astrogirl,
Yes, we "want" [well, I daresay most of us want] to believe that we're living in an egalitarian society with equal opportunities to pursue our talents and our dreams but the reality of a widening gap between the very well off and those who struggle to pursue the American dream, to no avail, creates a tremendous dissonance of which, I believe, the electorate is keenly aware. And, in that sense, John Edwards and Howard Dean were probably the "only front running" candidates who did not talk down to, or around, the voting public; i.e., they spoke with authenticity.
Dean's scream and Kerry's swift boat adventure speak to just how powerful ground event forces, media or otherwise, can be. That Kerry's track record could be undone by the swift boaters while Bush's allies in the media were able to can Dan Rather is testimony to the the fact that the line where perceptions and reality merge can be rather fuzzy -- and fraught with peril. Follow the money trail and the political savvy to use it -- unsettling as it sounds. I believe that if Edwards can keep the money pot filled and deal with the dirty tactics he is the candidate who can win. Same for the repubs if they can find an Edwards.
As for it's being too early -- only in the sense that money has to be raised and allocated wisely and dirty tactics have to be reckoned with -- and they will raise their ugly heads.
Thomas, If you were to do the mother and daddy of all polls right now, I'm not so sure your bell curve would hold up, in the sense that MOST people either are or think they are in the middle class. You'd have to define the metric parameters relative to definition.
Hip hip hooray for you. There are many people who simply don't want what the "middle class" is supposed to want. None of us wants to sleep in the street or scuffle to keep roof overhead and we all want to give our children the best chance possible to survive in the world at large. That's no small package; and many worry about whether they can do that. It's a global or flat world. Even if you don't ever read a book or a column by Tom Friedman, people have the gut sense and their actual life experience to tell them "the world is flat." People who are hustling and working hard at something they enjoy read about the Goldman Sachs broker who just made $24 million and they say hmmm. And they hear about the $2bln/week for the war and they say, "whoa." And then they look at their pay stub and say, my, I'm paying a lot of taxes and that $300 rebate I got from Bush didn't go very far.
11 other Sr. Goldman Sr. execs got as a group $150 million in shares and stock options. NOT BAD!
Blankfein's bonus broke the previous record of $40 million for stocks and options for Morgan Stanley CEO.
Goldman Sachs reported that it had earned the highest yearly profit in the history of Wall Street. Net profit rose 70% to $9.4 billion, on revenue of $37.67 billion.
Well, those are some numbers to wrap your head around, and which might skew that bell curve just a tiny bit. The record profits by the big 3 oil co's will make a difference too.
On the other side of the sheet: According to an associated press item by Jim Abrams, a private watchdog group, TRAC [Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse] an organization based at Syracuse University, which monitors federal spending and enforcement activities, concluded that the IRS is auditing a smaller percentage of the nation's largest corporations and spending less time on each audit. The IRS responded that tax revenues from audits were going up and the decline in hours spent on each case was a result of more efficient hours.
Oh, and when I heard about the IRS auditing all those people with low incomes, you know who was trying to get them to stop it? John Edwards. I'm pretty sure this was after the 2004 elections, too, when nobody was paying attention to him, so this was just something he was doing because he thought it was right. He's a good man. I hope we can elect him.
By the way, the next video in the "Inspiring politics" series (the one where Edwards is letting a filmmaker follow him around) is up on his web site:
http://oneamericacommittee.com/media/jre-tv/webisodes/
Does anyone know how to insert a video into an HTML tag and have it show up here? I've seen another blogger do that with one of these videos, but I don't know how to do it myself.
Not me: re up or downloading anything--I'm illiterate in that regard--but I bet there are tons of people here who do know how. Maybe a techie type will put a little primer on here--perhaps even an article for points.
Whereas I generally have not, now I find myself watching the corporate news--because that's "probably" where most voters who are not info hounds, get their information and then vote accordingly, god helps us.
So now, I find myself evaluating Fox, CNN etc. in light of your REPOUBLESPEAK. Verrry interesting. Of course we all pride ourselves on being able to read between the lines of the Tide commercials and then go and buy "what we want" in spite of the commercial--but if all you ever see is TIDE it kind of makes sense that's what you'll buy. Yuk. The big "tide" come election time is "immigration" policy.[snicker]
"Send those illegals back where they came from and no amnesty for the crooks either" means "bring them back as guest workers--an infinite reliable supply of relatively cheap workers and a renewed tax base just in case we can't wrest social security and other entitlements out of the budget." [I include a lot of dems in this perfidy] I hope Edwards better is ready with a very articulate and balanced message. The Clinton brigade will back off and massage it to their liking when it's absolutely necessary and will be on the side of corporate business, but will call it helping out the mom and pops.
Professor Spainhour,
Poor choice and congregation of words on my part. Your "generic" graphic doesn't really help though. Without specific figures we can get the general gist of the truth of a general statement and draw conclusions or make inferernces accordingly, but when you drop a 'generic' graphic into the dissertation, it only makes it "look" like the truth of a statement; i.e., just an opinion. We all know what a bell curve is.
Do you suppose our president and planners used this kind of grahic to plan the war? Maybe the distribution of, let's say, overall costs and collateral damage was a little "off"? I wish I could say the middle class is alive and well, just depends on the actual data/variables, etc, used and a lot of sophisticated analysis to get at the truth of it. Simple census bureau data doesn't do it--or those chart the gov't uses when they're looking at budget allocations -- relative to speechs.
Liz,
Couldn't agree more -- shrinking fast. Like Tom Friedman says, the world is FLAT. But, what do we do about it. Depending on the candidate, big "if", both sides are going to present it as, "don't worry folks, just a temporary glitch, and here's who we blame and here's our immediate solution--just vote.
In spite of what you say -- it seems you are a roll-up-the-old-shirt sleeves, realistic optimist. That's what keeps us all going. I think of myself as a sometimes cynical [better than being a naive fool--though some accuse me of being same], always realistic and eternal optimist. Never say die and keep up the good fight.
We have a strong self-sustainability group where I live [I've been living their recommendations for years; i.e., travel light, leave a light footprint and be able to grow some food in a flower box.] I agree, there are some dark days ahead. We will have to completely readjust and rethink what "middle class" is. I remind myself that some of my happiest days were as a starving student with two pairs of jeans, barely able to afford cabbage much less lettuce, and my husband still recalls his happy times as a starving rock musician. But, we are filled with limitless energy as in the good old days, so all the more reason to travel light, try to stay healthy and think of what we can do with hands and/or a good head--work and live slower and smarter instead of faster and harder.
We are fairly certain we can sell our house and replace it with a more modest version and at least be mortgage free -- can't trust those mortgage companies anymore either -- god knows what new deregulation congress will come up with in order to help "them" or bail them out. We are first time home buyers but chose well and with market "luck" the property has appreciated remarkably. Not everyone will have that option or the appreciation -- especially in the cities.
I think John Edwards is a decent and remarkably intelligent and ethical man. Whether he will be able to negotiate the hazards of the campaign trail and the obstacles at the White House, should he attain it, remains to be seen. We can all help by doing what we can, and I do pray. Stay in regular touch with your legislators, whether you think they're on your side or not, and keep eyeing up that flower box and whether you can fit in a few more.
My favorite time is between Christmas and the New Year--to rest and get ready to carry on -- take some fun time out and perhaps revise and fine tune the back-up plan. Tomatoes grown in flower boxes or paint cans make great sauce, which has way more vitamin C than fresh tomatoes, can be stored in jars, and put under the bed. Or buy extra canned sauce, and plant something else on your patio or balcony. Fresh herbs keep the doctor away, but cost a small fortune and have hardly any food value left in them. Lemons are also solid gold. My friends laugh -- but it's a plan -- and the way I grew up.
Practice makes perfect for leaner and different days ahead. Enjoy your Christmas and have a healthy New Year. P.S., my husband is a "what me worry" kind of guy. His favorite bumper sticker is, "where am I going and why am I in this handbasket?"
He says I am the perfect "Chicken Little." I say it's best to be prepared and then try not to worry.
What does a graph that shows population (Y axis) vs. income (X axis) as a bell curve skewed to the left (low) say?
- The tallest part of the curve (where the most people are) is on the low end. Most people have low incomes.
- Toward the high end, the height of the curve diminishes, ski-slope fashion. Relatively few people have high incomes, and very, very few have very high incomes.
What part of what the unlabeled graph says contradicts any point you are making?My point wasn't "how many households make $27,000" but the distribution of population by income. The point is the skew -- its magnitude (significant) and direction (left = low). Both are evident on the unlabeled graph.
Here's a 1992 graph with a labeled X-axis:
source: http://gumption.org/1993/memo/landmarks/wealth_and_poverty.html
Better?
Edwards is the only one of the bunch that I really trust to have both the intention and the practical politicaly savvy to stand up to the corporations and advocate for the interests of average people. This is exactly what we need right now. America needs to be "by and for the people" again, not "by and for the corporations."
By the way, he will announce his candidacy on the morning talk shows tomorrow. Says so in the NYT today. If you are ready to work on his campaign in any capacity, he wants to hear from you at JohnEdwards@readytochangeamerica.com. That little tidbit is mentioned in the NYT story, but I also got it in an email from him.