So it has come to pass that Elizabeth Edwards has died.
Despite having more things thrown at her than anyone I've ever had the chance to support in my entire political life, she managed to represent, in her very presence, a sense of grace and kindness and concern for those who were looking to have a better life than the one they had now, and I don't know that I could ever live up to the quiet courage she showed as her life came to an end.
And, bless her heart, it appears that she took the time to make sure that her kids knew her, and that she helped them put away enough "past" to, hopefully, ease some of the pain of the future.
But now the time has come to look beyond death, and, John...that's why I want to talk to you today.
During Netroots Nation, we are running Golden Oldies plus a few surprises. Regularly Scheduled programming will resume on July 26.
A Matt Stoller Golden Oldie
Tue Dec 25, 2007. Original HERE.
Here's Ezra Klein expressing a fairly common sentiment among both Democratic base voters and Democratic elites.
As a result of my post defending Obama this morning, I'm getting a bunch of links along the lines of "Ezra Klein, no fan of Obama..."
This is, to be sure, my failure as a writer, so just to be clear: I'm impressed with all three of the major Democrats, and, for that matters, most of the other Democrats not named "Bill Richardson."
Ezra is happy with the Democratic candidates; most Democratic voters share Ezra's views. I don't (and neither do a few others). The issues we are dealing with today - health care, jobs, even a war in Iraq - are literally the same issues we dealt with in 1992. How can that possibly be considered progress? A real progressive candidate would take an apolitical problem and turn it into a mainstream political subject. None of our candidates have done that. Here are five easily mainstreamable problems ripe for the picking. There are more of these, I'm just picking at five that touch on the national security state, secrecy, economic injustice, and attacks on our civil liberties.
Subject: End the War on Drugs
Factoid: There are 1 million people put in jail for doing what Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George Bush have done.
Marijuana is America's largest cash crop, and it is responsible for around 225,000 arrests a year. Overall, the war on drugs incarcerates around 1 million people a year. Direct spending on the war on drugs this year is $50 billion dollars, about $600 a second. Around half of high school seniors have consumed marijuana (pdf). Simply put, why do some people go to jail for marijuana and cocaine, and others run for President?
Subject: End corporate media ownership:
Factoid: General Electric, a major defense contractor and conglomerate, owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Our media is owned and controlled by a few major companies. One of them, GE, has major defense contracts, and strong incentives for war. It also has huge interests in the financial industry. Why is this company controlling our news content again, while we are in two wars? And why did the FCC just relax ownership requirements in local areas, again?
Subject: End American empire
Factoid: As of 1998, America had troops stationed in 144 countries around the world.
There are any number of ways to talk about this issue, from disparities of foreign aid to complaints about the IMF to the war in Iraq to the CIA and blowback. The bottom line is that America has troops everywhere in the world, it's expensive, the way it is done now is a bad idea, and we need to bring them home and return to being a republic. That or we need to figure out how to be a responsible international power again and get rid of the Blackwater-style military we are building and the gunrunning vigilante CIA-style Cold War and post-Cold War nonsense.
Subject: End the war economy:
Factoid: Money for Iraq keeps passing in 'emergency' legislation to avoid being subject to budget rules.
For some reason, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans argue that they are fiscally responsible while ignoring their votes to spend 700-800B a year on war. Libertarian charlatans like energy expert Amory Lovins think that the corporate sector and the military sector are legitimate parts of the state, but that other spending is wasteful. The whole notion of the military not being a part of the overall government is crazy, and reflective of a huge, corrupt, and Soviet-style misallocation of capital through secret budgets and fear.
Subject: End the cradle-to-prison superhighway
Factoid: 2 million people are in prison in America, by far the highest total of any other country in the world.
Think slavery has ended? Think torture is 'new'? Think again. With two million people in prison, and tens of thousands of sexual assaults every year, prison is a huge industry and a horrendous abridgment of the idea that is America.
Touching on any of these massive injustices in our economic infrastructure is something no candidate has systematically done. Only John Edwards has remotely addressed the concept of the war on terror, in a somewhat half-hearted way, and he has made 'poverty' a somewhat commonly repeated theme, though not in any meaningful sense. Clinton and Obama are disgracefully absent on these topics. Ironically, Bill Richardson, aside from his great work on residual forces, has also said that the 'war on drugs is not working', which reflects perhaps a more executive oriented and confident worldview. Chris Dodd has also advocated for marijuana decriminalization, which is a less aggressive but still laudable sentiment, especially in light of his work on core constitutional issues.
So anyway, while the insider wonk community is happy that their issues seem to be taken care of, and Democratic base voters like the different candidates we have, I find that actual progressive reframing of our political system is appearing only at the margins of our secondary candidates like Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, and among crazy white supremacist types like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Each of the five hinges I've discussed starts with the verb 'end', and that was not planned when I started this post. I think it means that we must end a chapter in American history, and begin a new one.
Restoring healthy communities, healthy citizens, a healthy global order, healthy local media, and a healthy sustainable economy are the key drivers of where need to go as a country. The cancerous symptoms are all around us, and leading Democratic Presidential candidates are too corrupt and morally crippled to even begin talking about them. But we'll get there.
She is an eloquent speaker, an expressive author. Elizabeth Edwards is effervescent, effusive, and has an excellent mind. She understands profound policy issues as easily as she prepares a sandwich. Her memoir appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Few think of Elizabeth Edwards as every woman. Other daughters of Eve might say Edwards is exceptional; surely, she is not as I am. Yet, life experiences might have taught Elizabeth Edwards otherwise. Just as other ladies, she is brilliant, beautiful, and not nearly equal to a man.
A Matt Stoller Golden Oldie
Tue Dec 25, 2007. Original HERE.
Here's Ezra Klein expressing a fairly common sentiment among both Democratic base voters and Democratic elites.
As a result of my post defending Obama this morning, I'm getting a bunch of links along the lines of "Ezra Klein, no fan of Obama..."
This is, to be sure, my failure as a writer, so just to be clear: I'm impressed with all three of the major Democrats, and, for that matters, most of the other Democrats not named "Bill Richardson."
Ezra is happy with the Democratic candidates; most Democratic voters share Ezra's views. I don't (and neither do a few others). The issues we are dealing with today - health care, jobs, even a war in Iraq - are literally the same issues we dealt with in 1992. How can that possibly be considered progress? A real progressive candidate would take an apolitical problem and turn it into a mainstream political subject. None of our candidates have done that. Here are five easily mainstreamable problems ripe for the picking. There are more of these, I'm just picking at five that touch on the national security state, secrecy, economic injustice, and attacks on our civil liberties.
Subject: End the War on Drugs
Factoid: There are 1 million people put in jail for doing what Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George Bush have done.
Marijuana is America's largest cash crop, and it is responsible for around 225,000 arrests a year. Overall, the war on drugs incarcerates around 1 million people a year. Direct spending on the war on drugs this year is $50 billion dollars, about $600 a second. Around half of high school seniors have consumed marijuana (pdf). Simply put, why do some people go to jail for marijuana and cocaine, and others run for President?
Subject: End corporate media ownership:
Factoid: General Electric, a major defense contractor and conglomerate, owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
Our media is owned and controlled by a few major companies. One of them, GE, has major defense contracts, and strong incentives for war. It also has huge interests in the financial industry. Why is this company controlling our news content again, while we are in two wars? And why did the FCC just relax ownership requirements in local areas, again?
Subject: End American empire
Factoid: As of 1998, America had troops stationed in 144 countries around the world.
There are any number of ways to talk about this issue, from disparities of foreign aid to complaints about the IMF to the war in Iraq to the CIA and blowback. The bottom line is that America has troops everywhere in the world, it's expensive, the way it is done now is a bad idea, and we need to bring them home and return to being a republic. That or we need to figure out how to be a responsible international power again and get rid of the Blackwater-style military we are building and the gunrunning vigilante CIA-style Cold War and post-Cold War nonsense.
Subject: End the war economy:
Factoid: Money for Iraq keeps passing in 'emergency' legislation to avoid being subject to budget rules.
For some reason, Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans argue that they are fiscally responsible while ignoring their votes to spend 700-800B a year on war. Libertarian charlatans like energy expert Amory Lovins think that the corporate sector and the military sector are legitimate parts of the state, but that other spending is wasteful. The whole notion of the military not being a part of the overall government is crazy, and reflective of a huge, corrupt, and Soviet-style misallocation of capital through secret budgets and fear.
Subject: End the cradle-to-prison superhighway
Factoid: 2 million people are in prison in America, by far the highest total of any other country in the world.
Think slavery has ended? Think torture is 'new'? Think again. With two million people in prison, and tens of thousands of sexual assaults every year, prison is a huge industry and a horrendous abridgment of the idea that is America.
Touching on any of these massive injustices in our economic infrastructure is something no candidate has systematically done. Only John Edwards has remotely addressed the concept of the war on terror, in a somewhat half-hearted way, and he has made 'poverty' a somewhat commonly repeated theme, though not in any meaningful sense. Clinton and Obama are disgracefully absent on these topics. Ironically, Bill Richardson, aside from his great work on residual forces, has also said that the 'war on drugs is not working', which reflects perhaps a more executive oriented and confident worldview. Chris Dodd has also advocated for marijuana decriminalization, which is a less aggressive but still laudable sentiment, especially in light of his work on core constitutional issues.
So anyway, while the insider wonk community is happy that their issues seem to be taken care of, and Democratic base voters like the different candidates we have, I find that actual progressive reframing of our political system is appearing only at the margins of our secondary candidates like Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd, and among crazy white supremacist types like Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Each of the five hinges I've discussed starts with the verb 'end', and that was not planned when I started this post. I think it means that we must end a chapter in American history, and begin a new one.
Restoring healthy communities, healthy citizens, a healthy global order, healthy local media, and a healthy sustainable economy are the key drivers of where need to go as a country. The cancerous symptoms are all around us, and leading Democratic Presidential candidates are too corrupt and morally crippled to even begin talking about them. But we'll get there.
The closer election day and the more likely a positive outcome for the Democratic ticket, the more you can see and hear about Sarah Palin getting ready for a 2012 run for the nomination.
This got me wondering: has anyone ever won the nomination of their party or even the presidency after being the running mate on a losing ticket?
Follow me below the fold for what I found. Let's just say history does not bode well for Palin 2012.
If reporters had nabbed former presidential candidate John Edwards lying about his extramarital affair, Hillary Clinton would have captured the Democratic presidential nomination, her former communications director said.
"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com in an interview released Monday, because internal campaign polling showed "our voters and Edwards voters were the same people. They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."
I used to argue that Obama benefited from having Edwards in the campaign. However, the evidence, as I discuss in the extended entry, not only goes against Howard Wolfson here, but also proved me wrong.
I don't have a single, overarching, coherent thought on the John Edwards situation, but I do have several smaller thoughts. I list them in the extended entry.
I don't think voters really care about infidelity. In 1992, Bill Clinton won the Presidential election despite obvious infidelities. This is an ad from 2005, when Jon Corzine ran for Governor of New Jersey (I worked on this campaign and kept all the commercials). His ex-wife was featured in attack ads against him, and he ended up crushing his opponent by ten points because voters didn't care. Voters are not stupid or puritanical, and if John Edwards' wife forgave him the voters probably would too. So I don't think that a revelation of an affair would have mattered if Edwards were the nominee.
Now, that's not to say that it's not a horribly embarrassing situation. It is, and I feel for their whole family, especially Elizabeth, who has been nothing but wonderful to us in the netroots. But the reaction among this so-called liberal community makes me genuinely uncomfortable. Elizabeth Edwards put up a statement on Dailykos about the whole episode, with 1600 laudatory comments discussing her 'pure' heart, an outpouring blessing her virginal soul. I know there are a lot of Elizabeth Edwards fans out there, so it's worth looking at the politics of what she said. Here's the gist.
Has John McCain put out a statement on the Edwards scandal? Here's Digby.
Many people, especially in the press, jumped to defend McCain against the evil New York Times on that one and there has been no follow up. But considering how everyone is excusing the flogging of this Edwards story on the basis of the fact that he lied to the press, I'm not sure it's in the country's best interest not to ask McCain about this again and talk to the women herself. What if it comes out that it was true after he's president? Why surely the press will be as honor bound to obsess over it as they were about Clinton and now Edwards, right? It's not about the sex --- it's about the lying, remember? (They've been saying on a loop that John Edwards was a breath away from the presidency, after all and he got about four delegates.)
I remember lots of people crying about the Vicki Iseman affair, saying that the real scandal was McCain's associations with lobbyists, and that the sex scandal piece was a distraction. Well if he lied to the press about Iseman, launching a full scale assault on the New York Times, then one should treat him like John Edwards is now being treated.
Personally I don't give a shit. For all I know, Elizabeth Edwards gave her husband permission. It's not unheard of. I always thought John Edwards was something of a phony (which did not preclude my support at times) and that John McCain is a crazy old vicious man.
But if the sin is lying and betraying your supporters, then isn't McCain on the hook here?
Ok, so John Edwards is a dishonest politician who had an affair. This must be a new experience for a lot of you, because there seems to be a vicious desire to have him stoned to death or something. Here's an example from scaryice in the comments.
If you thought that Chris's July 7th Map of the race looked good:
Electoral College: Obama 293, McCain 194, Toss-up 51
National popular vote: Obama 48.3%-43.8% McCain
(Dark Blue (207): Obama +9.0% or more
Lean Blue (86): Obama +3.0%-+8.9%
White / Toss-up (51): Obama +2.9% to McCain +2.9%
Lean Red (104): McCain +3.0%-+8.9%
Dark Red (90): McCain +9.0% or more)
with "solid" Obama better than 2-1 over "solid" McCain (207-90), then....
How about factoring in John Edwards as VP, with his worst showings against McCain from the SUSA polls (using his average worst in states not polled):
Electoral College: Obama 309, McCain 145, Toss-up 84
National popular vote: Obama 49.9%-42.2% McCain
That's Obama better than 3-1 in "solid" category: 245-79!
Michigan solid, Montana leaning, both Carolinas, Indiana, Missouri and Alaska tossups...
Better yet, how about factoring in John Edwards as VP, with his average showings against McCain (using the average of his average in states not polled):
Electoral College: Obama 344, McCain 90, Toss-up 104
National popular vote: Obama 51.1%-40.0% McCain
Now it's better than 5-1 among "solid" states: 286-52! That's five to one!
Also with Florida, Virginia, Montana, North Dakota and Nevada leaning, and Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Missouri, Indiana and Alaska as tossups.
After the usual hemming and hawing and non-denial denials, "Well I've already run for president twice and for vice president" yada yada yada, the money quote (again paraphrased from memory): "If asked I would do anything that Senator Obama asked me to...including this!"
Then just to make sure, the interviewer basically restated the question (paraphrase): "So just to be sure, you would accept a position in the cabinet or the VP slot"
And again his answer was approximately:, "I would do anything Senator Obama asked me to".
Like Paul, I think that Edwards would be a great choice for VP. However, it should be noted that while Edwards is now saying that he would accept the slot if offered, the final vetting for Obama's choice has already begun:
Barack Obama's vice presidential selection team has begun to ask potential candidates for information and documents, a signal that the formal vetting phase of the search process has begun.
Last week, members of the team gave Sen. James Webb of VA a list of what they needed to begin their investigation of his background and career. Webb refused, telling them that he did not want to be considered for the position.
This is the final step in the process before the actual selection. Those candidates who have been asked to submit information and documents are the candidates on the short list. In other words, Edwards could simply be making this statement now that he knows he is not on the short list: If he has been asked to submit documents and papers, then he is on the short list. If he has not, then he isn't, and is out of contention. The truth is, we don't know if Edwards has made the short list or not.
I would love to know the list of candidates who have been asked to submit information and documents, as it would be the same thing as knowing the final short list. Right now, about all we know is that Webb is not on that list (because he removed himself), and that Clinton almost certainly is on the list (as there probably would have been a leak about her not being on the list). Hopefully, Edwards and Sebelius made the final cut, because they appear to be the best possibilities among the most likely options. This means that I don't consider Clark to be a likely option, even though I think he would be excellent.
Obama's FISA betrayal this week puts a different spin on the strength that Edwards has shown as a VP candidate--it contrasts sharply with Edwards' performance as a progressive. Last week, I wrote about Edwards' strength as a case of "brand recognition" rather than simply "name recognition." This week provides more evidence of this, contrasting him with local politicians in three states--Ohio, New Mexico and Missouri--and taking another look back at Iowa. Now that we have data from two sets of candidates in nine states, Iowa provides evidence that Edwards did significantly better there than his already strong showings elsewhere--a strong indication that (a) the name recognition argument is oversold, and (b) further exposure to Edwards' brand has the potential to increase his already considerable strength even further.
However, I don't just want to dwell on the fact of Edwards' brand, I also want to stress the nature of that brand, which is that of a progressive populist.
This is often missed by those who look at his support and see a lot of self-described "conservative Democrats." But, of course, this is partly because of how people have come to identify as such. In fact, many so-called "conservative Democrats" are more economically liberal than so-called "liberal Democrats". This is part of the larger overall problem of trying to characterize the electorate in terms of how people describe themselves, as opposed to what they say they want, believe and care about.
I'll be writing a more general diary about that later today, but suffice it to say that as far back as 1967 it was established that a majority of self-described conservatives are either liberal or moderate on social spending issues--the heart of New Deal liberalism. This is one of the most firmly established and significant facts in public opinion research, and yet it is routinely ignored by the punditalkcrazy, because it would totally contradict their cherished narrative of a center-right nation.
For now, however, I want to catch up on the 5 new VP polls that Survey USA released this week--Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Missouri and Ohio--do a little comparative analysis to further consolidate the care for Edwards' unmatched strength, and extend the argument that this strength is evidence of an economic liberalism--aka "progressive populism"--that is deeply disturbing to the establishment.
This is, of course, directly in line with David Sirota's argument in The Uprising. And it also suggests that Obama is not likely to pick Edwards, despite the "pragmatist" narrative about him, which, of course, also took a hit from his FISA stance.
This morning, John Edwards delivered an impassioned speech to ACORN's National Convention in Detroit, Michigan. Speaking to organizers and activists gathered at the Cobo Center, Edwards extolled the common goal of ACORN and his Half in Ten campaign to end poverty in America, making frequent appeals to organize and to campaign for Barack Obama this November as part of that cooperative effort:
So let's walk together. Let's not stop until we end poverty in this country. We can't get that with John McCain and four more years of that mess. Eight is enough. But if you want change, if you believe in your heart and soul that anything is possible, then lock arms with me, walk hand-in-hand and let's march to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and put Barack Obama in the Presidency, and make America what it's capable of being. We can do this together. Yes we can. Yes we can, and we will.
It was refreshing to me to see Edwards back in his warrior mold. He spoke at ease once again about the wall dividing those infamous "two Americas," this time integrating a message hope that Obama could undo some of the greatest divisive efforts of the Bush administration. On the whole, the speech offered an amount of optimism largely absent from his '08 primary campaign.
You can see the entire speech HERE, and check out more highlights below the fold...
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