John and Elizabeth Edwards may not be on the 2008 presidential campaign anymore, but they are on a different campaign: making connections between the costs of the Iraq war and our weak economy.
Elizabeth Edwards, who is good about making constructive criticism of the media, observed that reporters
"certainly don't cover the connection between the issues," she said the American people see there is "undoubtedly a connection between oil, the costs of transportation in this country, and this war."
Via a conference call today with John and Elizabeth Edwards, it was announced that they were joining a coalition of 4 political action groups: the political arm of the SEIU, VoteVets, Moveon, and the Center for American Progress to launch a 20 million dollar initiative on bringing attention to the economic problems of the Iraq war and how it affects the American pocketbook.
The target: Republicans in vulnerable seats in the Senate and Congress who still continue to supply blank checks to fund the Iraq war and refuse to listen to Americans who are hurting financially that the government needs to be paying attention to their woes.
According to News-Observer's Rob Christensen, who was on the conference call at 11 EST today, Edwards was motivated to launch this cause as he said:
"People don't understand why we're spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq at the same time that we've got, you know, 40-plus million Americans who don't have any health-care coverage, 37 million living in poverty, people terrified about being able to pay their bills," he said. "It doesn't make sense to them, and they see no end in sight."
Jude Nagurney Camwell, who was also on the conference call along with John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org; Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org, reported that Podesta talked the failing dollar, oil crude prices at over $100 a barrel, huge deficits, and the massive selling of treasuries (IOU's) to support a failing war and lack of care for our veterans when they return. The vast amounts of spending money the US does make the voters uneasy.
MSNBC's Dominico Montanaro said Elizabeth Edwards wanted to express to General Election voters that if the economy is number one, the war in Iraq should also be number one.
VoteVets rolled out this video, aimed at Senator McCain:
"A thousand years in war when we could have health care?" asks the young mother.
This clip will run as an ad in the cable stations in the DC area.
The same MSNBC report cited John Soltz, head of VoteVets.org, said that they will target Sen. McCain between now and November and added:
"We're not going to disparage his service.... He served with honor, but when it comes to his policy on Iraq, he is no different than George W. Bush."
John and Elizabeth Edwards are leading the way again. And they would probably ask one to take action via Moveon.org's LTTE site here.
All one has to do is type in zip code, then select the radio buttons for the various media in one's area, fill out a template, and with a name and address for the paper since they require it. Moveon also provides talking points to use in your LTTE.
Oh, in case one is wondering, Edwards is not making any endorsements for the candidates at this time. Just endorsements in general to elect more progressives who will push to get our troops home and to start making more domestic investments to support the American people.
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