The Working Society

Astrogirl:

I like Edwards too. I think he will make a good show in the primaries although I think he is a little "outmanned on the ground" by other candidates. I also like Wesley Clark for his militiary background in a very uncertain world after we leave Iraq. I think Barak Obama is ideal for VP if he wants it.

I would prefer Hillary for Senate Majority leader as that's the only way I can see universal health care ever happening. But it's a long way to the spring of 2008.

He has great writers. I'm really tired of lame speeches delivered by politicians who seem to be "unaccustomed to public speaking."

Oh, I agree with what he had to say too.

But, he speaks in so many generalities, with nothing specific. I'll admit he sounds great. But, I believe voters are increasingly demanding more than enrapturing speeches.

Bongo, yes. This particular speech was about poverty, which is definitely his pet issue (not that I think that's a bad thing), but I have heard both him and his wife, Elizabeth, talk about alternative energy and environmental issues as well. He does touch on it in this speech. I limited my quote above to a little bit for fair use reasons, but he also says this:

"I want to live in an America free from dependence on fossil fuels, where our environmental policies reflect our pride in the blessings of a beautiful and abundant country and our commitment to preserve that country for our farmers, our fishermen, our children. Sacrifice, conservation, and innovation will be required."

I could maybe find more on his environmental ideas if I took a few minutes to poke around his web site. I might do this in a while and comment again.

Cris, I'm not so sure he's "outmanned." He tends to inspire a following of people who trust him a lot more than they trust other politicians. If you go to one of his events, you will hear a lot of talk about how genuine he is. I do believe this type of enthusiasm can spread quickly through word of mouth and that it is an asset that few, if any, of the other contenders can duplicate.

I, too, think Barack Obama is ideal for VP if he wants it. I would have to know more about what he did before he was a Senator to be very enthusiastic about him, though. He speaks well. I don't know much more about him than that.

Nippy, I get tired of speeches by people who don't know how to speak well, too. This speech I have linked to is a fairly wonky speech, yet he presents it well. I have seen many others bore people to death when they try to communicate details. I think public speaking is a key qualification for a presidential candidate. That may seem superficial, but they don't get elected by boring people and even if they do, they don't inspire cooperation in American citizens or foreign officials by being dull.

Sophie, me too. It may be the first and only time I was really voting for Vice President.

Greg, did you read the speech? There were several very specific proposals in it.

I hope Edwards is the candidate too. He's an easy defeat.

Ah, Nanci your fear of one of your candidates having to debate him is all too obvious in your attempt to hide it, I'm afraid.

Since I seem to recall you were one of those people who had the gall to tell me I was looking for a handout when I mentioned my partial disability on another topic, I can see why you fear someone who might try to help people in need. Just so you know, I've worked hard like you, paid my taxes all my life like you, but I thought I was (gladly) paying for social services for people who fall on hard times. Too bad for me that your Republican candidates destroyed all those programs before I myself needed them. Too bad for you, too, if you ever find out you're not quite as invincible as you think you are.

Bongo, fair enough, although I didn't realize you didn't live in the US and I'm very disappointed. I think your opinion on the environment is a reasonable one. I am also very concerned about it (the environment, not your opinion). To tell you the truth, although I know he's good on this issue from paying close attention for a while, I didn't actually find much on his site about it right now. When he ran for president before, he had very detailed policy papers on his site. I'm guessing they'll get that sort of thing up before he announces anything. I did find this very old link on another site that isn't his site, but was started by some of his supporters.

Not that you asked, but while poking around his site I also found this great speech to the American Constitution Society, which I think is a terrific example of why it would be good to have someone with his legal expertise in office.

Let me give you an example, AstroGirl S. He says we should have it in such a way that the best schools and the worst schools "are not measured by Newsweek". No one would disagree with that, AstroGirl. So, Senator, take the next verbal step and quit speaking in platitudes -- specifically, how should they be measured, and how does that impact the way that business/governmental leaders do their jobs?

Greg, I noted in my article that the portion of the speech I was quoting was in the (general) introductory portion. Therefore, since I already noted it was before he got into specifics, quoting it to show a lack of specifics does not illustrate your point very well.

Let me give an example of where he does get specific. If you scroll about halfway down the speech, starting at about the point where he says "America has fought poverty before..." just under a break noted by a line of asterisks, he starts to get into a number of very specific proposals, any one of which I'm sure he'd be likely to elaborate on if you were to ask him a question say, on his blog or at one of his events. I'm not getting from your comments that you even read that far, so I hope you will go to the trouble of trying to ask him your questions before making a judgement about his answers.

You asked a good question, but I think you should ask him, not me. I will quote you the more specific part of this particular speech where he addresses education (emphasis is mine):

"In the Working Society, we'd get serious about improving our schools. There is no greater challenge in America today, and I'll talk more about what we need to do in the coming months. It includes expanding preschool for three- and four-year-olds, getting good teachers into the places we need them most, and overhauling our outdated high schools.

We also need to address the dropout crisis in our nation. We can never overcome poverty until we address it -- not by lowering standards, but by making sure everyone can meet them.

America is about second chances, so I don't see why we shouldn't have "second-chance schools." These schools would lift up former dropouts, offering them one-on-one attention and a chance to earn a diploma at night or at a local community college. Many drop-outs want to do the work and they realize dropping out was a mistake. They should have the chance to earn a diploma and get on with their life.

Now, if you've every heard me talk about education, you know about a program I call "College for Everyone," which allows students to go to the first year of college for free if they are willing to stay out of trouble and take a part-time job.

Today, I have good news. College for Everyone works.

Last month, I attended a high-school awards ceremony in Greene County, North Carolina. Through a pilot program we were able to provide students there over $300,000 in aid. That means kids who never before would have dreamed of going to college are not only leaving for school this fall – but paying for their first year without going into debt. "

This is not, I admit, a staggering amount of detail about his educational ideas, but after all, this speech is focusing on poverty, not education. As I mentioned in a comment above, last time he ran for president he had a huge amount of detail about his proposals on his web site. In my opinion, this is the appropriate place for them. Some voters want more specifics, but it's my opinion that the vast majority do not. Voters who are motivated to compare candidates can always get more information if its available on a web site.

By the way, John and Elizabeth Edwards also do a fair amount of blogging. They had a diary recently on DailyKos where I think they did quite a good job of answering questions:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/20/144410/37

By the way, Greg, I just went over to your page and saw an article asking whether "our" nominee in 2008 will be Romney, so I'm going to assume you are spreading the falsehood that Edwards is lacking in specifics because you're someone who wouldn't vote for him or any of the other Democratic candidates anyway. If, however, you are truly interested in switching parties, I'm sure you can find lots of info if you look.

I stand corrected, AstroGirl. I did not spend time looking at his speech. Sorry!

And, my Romney article was originally written for Republican/Romney sites. For other sections, I should have adapted it accordingly.

Again, "my bad". (But, I personally still favor Romney over Edwards!)

I like John Edwards. He wasn't my first (second or third) choice in the primary race, but I grew to like him more as I got to know him better. My grandson (then six) was totally enthralled. One evening he sat on the edge of the couch, absorbing every word of an Edwards speech. At the end, he turned to me and said, "I can do that. I think when I grow up I will be able to say that many words." Sadly, when his mother and I went to hear Edwards speak a few weeks later, he did not get to go with us. He is an entertaining orator, and the bonus is that I agree with most of what he says.

Greg, OK thanks for clarifying. I was beginning to think you were just trying to slam him.

I want to clarify my point about one thing I said to you, also. I think some voters want detail in speeches. I think one big group that does want detail is Democratic primary voters. However, judging by the last two presidential elections, I would say about half the voters don't want details. If they did, Kerry and Gore would have won in landslides, since Bush said nothing of very much substance.

"When I grow up, I will be able to say that many words." Sandy, that's priceless! You know, my sister took her kids to a rally where Cindy Sheehan was speaking at one point. I'm not sure when it was, but probably at least a year ago. To this day, my angelic looking little 3 year old nephew sometimes spontaneously breaks into a chant of "Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho! George Bush has got to go!" Totally hilarious. Even funnier when he does it in front of Republicans.

You guys are lucky that your opinions of your leaders count significantly. In Africa, cabals determine who rules through brazen manupulations. Aside: When will you guys vote in the first female president?

Aoiri, yes, we are lucky, although lately it feels like the U.S. is looking more like Africa in that way. I would love to have us vote in our first female president, but I vote for the person, not the gender. I like John Edwards much more than Hillary Clinton. I would be totally open to voting for a woman if I thought she was the best candidate. I can think of some women who I would be very interested in voting for, but I don't think they are going to run this time. Nobody knows, but my guess would be in 8 to 20 years.

Speaking of Africa, John Edwards recently visited Uganda and has a column up on his site about that:
http://oneamericacommittee.com/news/newsletter/uganda/
Also, he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about it:
http://oneamericacommittee.com/news/headlines/wapo20061031/

He also has a petition asking NATO to intervene in the genocide in Darfur:
http://oneamericacommittee.com/action/sign-petitions/email/darfur2/

Aoiri, do you have any comments on that? Do you think his suggestions would be helpful? I think it's terrible what's going on there, but I worry that America doesn't necessarily have the greatest record recently of being very helpful when we try to intervene in a situation taking place in another country. I think we should help if we can be truly helpful, but I want to know your opinion. I know you're from Nigeria, not Uganda or Darfur, but you are from Africa, so I thought you might have some insight.

Hmmm. Bongo, our newspapers and TV news here rarely report much of what is going on in other countries, even those of our neighbors! I was, however, aware that your new PM is very conservative and likely to model his policies on some of the very bad things that Bush has done.

Our middle class is shrinking as a result of very similar policies, except that I don't think Bush has lowered taxes much for anyone except those making upwards of 200K a year or so. In fact, in an attempt to "crack down on tax fraud," our internal revenue service started targeting the returns of people making less than 18K a year so that they could make sure poor people weren't fraudulently taking something called the "Earned Income Credit," which a person can only take if they are working, but doing really very poorly indeed in terms of income compared to other Americans.

I'm sorry to hear similar things are happening in Canada. I guess we have been a bad influence there. I also have heard somewhere that American voting machine companies, like Diebold, are importing their shoddy wares to Canada. Canadians should watch out for that, since these machines have a very poor track record here in the U.S.

By medicare system, do you really mean the equivalent of what we have in the U.S. that's called medicare, which is only available to people in very specific circumstances, or the universal medical care that I understand you've had at least up to this point? Either way, I hope you can hold onto it. Individual medical insurance expenses are too big of a potential drain on a working family's budget, if you let the insurance companies run wild as they have here, to make the risk of privatization worthwhile.

Astrogirl, What fear? I think Edwards can easily be beaten. I have no idea where you got the idea that I was afraid of him.

I offered no opinion on anything he said. You are extrapolating into the twilight zone. There is very little I fear and Edwards and other smarmy political candidates don't rate at all.

This is just the assumption I make when people are naive enough to assume that someone with his record as an advocate will be a pushover. I thought you couldn't be really THAT naive, so I assumed you were hiding something.

You might find similar inspiration in Rabbi Michael Lerner's recent speech in Minneapolis (LISTEN):

The heavy Republican losses in the midterm elections has led some analysts to wonder whether the influence of the "religious right" on American politics has waned. Rabbi Michael Lerner is one of those who think the time has come for a "spiritual progressive movement" in America. Lerner is the author of "The Left Hand of God: Taking our Country Back from the Religious Right."

Starts off mild, but gets rolling toward the end.

I am simply not impressed with his record as an advocate. I don't think he has any serious experience in either foreign policy or business and the people will recognize that if he makes a serious run. I still think he is an easy defeat. Maybe you are the naive one.

And we all no what assumptions do to the person making them, don't we?

Edwards would have to pull a Reagan to seriously get the election. But in a field like this... wow. Even in '88 it wasn't this bad, cause at least a VP was in the primaries. He could pull it off... but he doesn't have anything special to seperate him from the field. Rick Perry had the same issue in texas though... It's gonna be interesting.

-John C

Nanci, conservatives make a huge mistake in assuming experience in business is even a qualification. I have worked for so many badly run businesses. America has been ripped off by so many badly run businesses, like Enron and Halliburton. I can't even tell you how unimportant business experience is to me. But, since you think it's important, he did run his own law office and I'm told it was successful.

The Washington Post published an interesting article on his foreign policy experience way back in 2004, saying "Democrats note that Edwards's foreign policy experience matches or exceeds the credentials of Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter when they were nominees." Here is that article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37644-2004Jul8.html

Since then, he has made many visits overseas to observe situations, such as the one in Uganda, first hand and to meet with foreign officials.

I guarantee you the corporate attorneys he faced in his lawyering days were impressed with his record as an advocate, much to their own chagrin most of the time.

I'm not impressed with you knowledge of Edwards, which you seem to have gotten from Fox News. I am, however, sorry to have assumed you didn't mean what you said.

John, he has the trust and good wishes of a lot of people who are pulling for him, and that IS special. Not many candidates can be the guy you want to vote FOR, rather than just voting against the opponent. As for pulling a Reagan, I don't see why not. People who are really familiar with him and his record usually like him in as powerful a way as Ronald Reagan was liked by many people.

Candace, thank you for reminding me about Thomas' comment, because I forgot to respond to it.

Thomas, I will check it out. Maybe not right now, but I'll try to remember to do it soon. Thanks.

Frankly, AstroGirl, your problem will not be with conservatives like me who fail to find his qualifications as apparent as you do but with the democrats who also can't find them. Otherwise why would he be running so far behind Clinton and Obama in the minds of those who will be voting in the democratic primaries?

As for corporate attorneys finding him worthy, I should point out that corporate attorneys would never come up against him in a courtroom but that among trial attorneys, it takes more than a jury verdict in a plaintiffs PI case to garner respect.

"Otherwise why would he be running so far behind Clinton and Obama in the minds of those who will be voting in the democratic primaries?"

Probably because the press has been telling them those people are the frontrunners nonstop. I don't believe anyone's voted yet, nor have there been any debates, and I believe only one candidate has actually even announced that he's running. Way too early to draw any conclusions, in my book.

Attorneys representing insurance companies and big corporations aren't corporate attorneys? Well, maybe there's a nuance of terminology here that I've missed, however I think you know what my point was. And I think there was slightly more than one such verdict.

L-R-S, I'm sorry, but I don't even know what you mean by strength being "politisized," so I'm going to have a really hard time responding to that one. Nevertheless, if he runs, I just encourage you to keep an open mind and do your research before voting.

Okay, it takes more than success as a plaintiffs' attorney to garner the respect of other attorneys. Plaintiffs attorneys are among the least respected members of the trial bar and are the reason we all have to suffer through so many bad lawyer jokes.

Nanci, that's your opinion. I went to a bar association luncheon where Senator Edwards was speaking, met many attorneys who were at my table at that time, and that didn't seem to be the case among any of them. They are the least respected of attorneys by conservatives because they help people who have been injured get their lives back on track in the face of often uncaring or negligent companies.

Don't treat me like I'm ignorant about this. I have a certain amount of experience with lawyers. I have great respect for the ones that help normal people be able to compete against corporate interests in the legal system.

By the way, maybe I'm going back to my original opinion of your first comment, because you seem to be spending an awful lot of your energy insulting someone you claim won't even make it past the democratic primary, which I'm guessing you won't even vote in.

OK, well just keep that part of you that thinks you might be proved pleasantly wrong open, please, if you don't mind my asking. I think he really IS a nice guy and I know a whole lot of other people who think so too.

I know that it's hard to tell who's really nice from who's pretending to be nice in the political world. After all, people voted for Bush because they thought they would like to invite him to a barbeque. I think quite a few of them have now changed that opinion.

However, I have seen a lot of reason to believe that John Edwards' niceness is genuine.

If it makes you feel better to think I am afraid of him feel free.

L-R-S, that's all I ask.

Nanci, I just don't know why anyone would go to the trouble of posting so much negative content about someone they feel is no threat. I mean, don't you have something you'd rather be doing?

I know I try to avoid negativity whenever possible. Sometimes that seems impossible in this world, but I sure wouldn't go around wasting my time commenting on someone's article about I Republican I didn't like, but felt absolutely unthreatened by. I'd rather, for instance, write something I thought might make people laugh, if I wasn't writing stuff I hope will help people make a difference in the world.

Thomas Spainhour, thanks for the link. I just listened. I thought I might not get through it when I saw that it was 50 minutes, but I really liked a lot of what Michael Lerner had to say. I especially liked what he said about going for your highest vision and not assuming you know what other people will accept as a compromise.

I think the discussion on this article has gotten really off-track. I'm going to ask those people who would rather discuss the flaws they perceive in Senator Edwards to read my let's call a truce article, then tell me on that page why they think discussing personality is more important than discussing issues.

To get this discussion back on its original intention of discussing Senator Edwards proposals for solving the problem of poverty, I'm going to quote one of his specific proposals, then perhaps we can discuss it.

First, we need to integrate our neighborhoods economically. Many neighborhoods were once segregated by race; now segregation by wealth is common, often with a racial dimension. If we truly believe that we are all equal, then we should live together too.

We could all see the problems of concentrated poverty after Katrina, but the truth is that nearly every major American city has similar neighborhoods that remain unseen. The federal government has built public housing in the worst neighborhoods and overlooked the need for affordable housing in the suburbs.

These policies cut willing workers off from entry-level jobs, which are often created in the suburbs, far from public transportation. And they keep low-income children far from good schools.

If conservatives really believed in markets, they'd join us in a more radical and more sensible solution: creating 1 million more housing vouchers for working families over the next five years. Done right, vouchers can enable people to vote with their feet to demand safe communities with good schools. We can help pay for this by cutting back HUD's role in managing public housing, which it doesn't do very well and often sticks working families in bad neighborhoods.