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...
First off, I want to reiterate that I am not personally invested in Edwards for VP. I am, however, invested in bulding thr progressive coaltion within and beyond the Democratic Party. Right now, there are compelling reasons to support Edwards for VP as a means for building the progressive coalition. If others have arguments for other candidates within this framework, I will be happy to entertain them as well. What I want to stress here is the development of arguments that help clarify the strategic options and openings that can help advance a progressive agenda, and those that can make it more difficult, or simply distract from it.
(1) The Deep Reinforcement Argument: Essence. The basic argument for Edwards is that he would be a deeply reinforcing vice presidential candidate, Rather than "balancing" Obama in a way that inadvertantly but necessarily highlights his weaknesses, Edwards would reinforce Obama's strengths-just as Chris has argued that a VP candidate should, as first explained in his diary, "On Choosing A Vice-President". In today's nationally-integrated media environment, every message at least potentially goes everywhere (YouTube, anyone?), thus magnifying the advantages of a reinforcing candidate, while magnifying the downside of a balancing one.
This is not a general-purpose argument for Edwards as VP. I'll be posting that argument later today. Rather, this is a diary focused specifically on the most prominent argument against Edwards-that his consistent and impressive showing in the SUSA VP matchup polls only shows that he has name recognition, and any candidate chosen will have that, after the convention, at least. This diary is heavily dependent on comments made by two individuals late in the discussion of my previous diary, "SUSA--New VP Polls Show Edwards Still Unchallenged"-- Blue November and BruinKid.
Blue November focused on the difference between name recognition and brand recognition, arguing that what Edwards has is not simply name recoginition, but brand recognition-and that's something that can't just get overnight. BruinKid focused attention on the matchups in Minnesota, and presented an argument about why they are more revealing of Edwards' strengths than people have realized. In a separate comment, BruinKid also pointed to a DKos diary from late last year in which he shows that North Carolina was one of just three states where Bush did worse in 2004 than he did in 2000. Bush even did better in Kerry's home state in 2004 than he did in 2000-but not in North Carolina. It's a major body blow for the argument that Edwards had no impact in 2004-which in turn is part of the "it's only name recognition" argument. ("It's only name recognition, see, he didn't do anything as Kerry's running mate.")
9:10 am: On to comments from Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who discusses the importance of ACORN driving their public policy leaders. "Lyndon Johnson would never have signed the Civil Rights Act if people were'nt on the streets in the civil rights movement." In South Africa and places across the world that have seen significant social change the story was the same., it was the people on the street driving for change.
This is why ACORN continues to be such an important movement for grassroots democracy and social change.
9:00am: Well I'm here again at the ACORN Convention for Day Two of the ACORN National Convention. We're welcomed by Detroit City Councilman Cockrell urging strangely for those in attendance to hit the casinos in Detroit...
---DAY TWO---
12:00pm: Rep. John Conyers, see the video here: here.
11:28 am: Congressman Maxine Waters comes on the stage.
"Whenever we get together with ACORN, Maude Hurd (ACORN National President) and I reminisce about the time they put her in jail in DC and we laugh it was raining hard in Washington and I went to try and get them out of jail, because they had been in our committee room raising hell! That's what ACORN is supposed to do," said Chairwoman Waters.
Referencing the theme for the conference"Building Dreams Across America" Rep. Waters said, "A lot of folks expect you to walk away and not have those dreams" but we need to all wakeup and believe we can make the dreams happen.
"This organization [ACORN] doesn't just talk about doing things, they actually do things."
"Too often when it comes to taking people to the street, people come to Washington and can talk the talk but can't walk the walk."
Waters thanked ACORN members for helping to move progressive movement to reach goals like extending unemployment benefits in a veto proof majority. "I don't think [the President] is fool enough to veto it. I dare him to veto it."
11:10 am: Olivia Dorsey from Philadelphia has been a member for ten years and watched ACORN grow to fight for economics justice.
"We don't let anyone rip up our community and we demand fair play."
She discussed recent actions against Jackson Hewitt, and H&R Block to stop the rip off rapid payment and to stop the worse tax preparation." Set up free community tax sites, delivered $44 million back to our communities.
"People who work hard deserve fair pay, and deserve pay sick days." ACORN is currently leading in state fights for paid sick days and living wage campaigns around the country.
Also they have been on the frontlines of the payday loan fight.
"The people united will never be defeated."
10:30 am,: Reverend Jim Wallis, author of the "Great Awakening", introduced.
"We have seen 40 years in the wilderness since 1968, its time to come out of the wildernesss."
Rev. Wallis, related a story on his recent book tour and a caller called in to say, "we need some good news" and the Rev. Wallis had some good news for the crowd, "the hold on politics of the religious right on faith and politics is over."
Not to say there is anything wrong with religious leaders but he went on to say you can't say God is on one side or another because "God is not Republican or Democrat" and religious people should stay an independent swing vote to make sure issues of justice are addressed by both parties. According to the Rev. Wallis, we need a movement with a spiritual grounding, like the civil rights movement, harking back to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's last campaign in Memphis, and the passing for Robert Kennedy and the Poor People's Campaign 40 years ago.
The number of people in poverty is unchanged in 40 years. Working mothers have to take on multiple jobs, foreclosures, food crisis, education, 9 million have one or two jobs and still raise children in poverty, these are big mountains according the Rev. Wallis.
But the Rev. Wallis says, "The bible says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed what can we move?"
In his latest book (just finished it personally, recommended reading), Rev. Wallis outlines the biblical roots of the call to fight poverty and inequality at home and abroad and the growing movement within the mainline protestant churches, the Catholic Church and a new generation of evangelicals moving to fighting for social justice in the midst of immense challenges like Hurricane Katrina and genocide in Darfur.
According to church historians says Rev. Wallis, unless your spirituality changes something tin society it can't be called "revival" citing as an example William Wilberforce who put forth his bill nine times for at the time what was a radical idea, to end slavery in England.
"Hope means believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change," said Rev. Wallis.
Breaking into electoral politics, Rev. Wallis said no matter who you support, there needs to be a strong outside force pushing the next administration for justice.
"Imagine if Robert F. Kennedy was president and Martin and Malcom were there pressing from the outside."
You can't change the politicians, you need to change the direction, and ACORN is an organization that can change the direction of the country by pressing from the outside and I have no doubt ACORN will be making their voices heard regardless of who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
9:25 am: Maude Hurd, president of ACORN, welcomesthe crowd "We need a government that will protect the common good." She highlighted ACORN's platform on health care, foreclosures, living wages and the other common challenges now hitting low income communities and working families hard across this country.
"I ask anyone here, how many more cities will have to be destroyed before we find a Government that will be prepared and Act. Three years after Katrina and the only thing that will help New Orleans is a regime change. Its time for a regime change now."
"Once there was a place we could go to to do this all at once, it was called Congress. Now its just us, ACORN and our allies fighting for justice, its time for a regime change."
In communities across the country with ACORN affiliates, people know about the organization, in their red shirts they've been known to descend on city council meetings, the steps of state capitals, the headquarters of predatory lenders making the voice of working families known.
"Mark my words, we have big shoulders, we may not win all the battles, but they have to beat us first and they are going to have to whip us good, we're going to fight them until we win, living wages, our houses, urban renewal, stopping predatory lending, voting rights, ..we are on the move.. let's get to work!"
8:15 amI'm here in Detroit as 2,000 members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now parade into the Grand Ballroom of COBO Center amidst chants of "We're fired up and we ain't taking it no more" or "We are the ACORN, the mighty mighty ACORN".
ACORN is made up of 300,000+ member families made up of low and middle income residents organized in communities across the country fighting home foreclosures, organizing to rebuild the Gulf Coast, taking on living wage campaigns and working to bring about national healthcare and end poverty. The theme for the Conference is "Building Dreams Across America" and setting an agenda for restoring the American Dream.
ACORN members can be viewed as the ground troops on the frontlines of the most pressing domestic issues in this country, driving locally and nationally for the type of just government all Americans deserve. hey do this not only by organizing their neighbors on pressing issues and taking direct action but by running one of the largest and most effective voter registration programs this country has ever seen. Check out this video to find out more http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLCSnbN1lRI
Speakers at the event include Senator John Edwards; U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-Calif.); Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners; U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, (D-Mich.) and many others.
You can check out the group who was doing community organizing before community organizing was cool.
According to his latest Wall Street Journal article, its the group Karl Rove fears most this election cycle.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (http://www.acorn.org) is holding their annual convention in Detroit and is inviting all bloggers to join them at Cobo Arena Jun 22nd-23rd. Check out the email below:
Dear Blogger:
The ACORN 2008 National Convention is fast approaching and we are inviting bloggers to join us for two days to deliver the message of 38 years of victories for low and moderate income families. Nearly 2,000 ACORN members will convene in Detroit June 21-23 for the organization's National Convention in Detroit, Michigan.
This year's convention will focus on stopping foreclosures, ending poverty, winning immigration reform, improving access to healthcare, and rebuilding New Orleans.
Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards is scheduled to speak Monday, June 23.
Edwards, ACORN, and other social justice organizations recently launched the "Half in Ten" campaign to cut poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.
Help commnity activists fighting foreclosures, winning immigration reform, ending poverty and bring healthcare for america now!
Meet U.S. Senator John Edwards
And join ACORN members from across the country to rally for giving commnities a voice.
The ACORN National Convention brings together thousands of ACORN members from across the nation to build support for ACORN campaigns, and discuss issues of concern with our members. Some of the nation's most influential progressive leaders will join us to share their vision for America. Past speakers have included Senator Hillary Clinton, Rev. Al Sharpton, author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, Rev. Jesse Jackson, actress Roseanne Barr and many more.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is the nation's largest community organization with offices in more than 100 cities and 400,000 member families. ACORN has a long history of winning campaigns benefiting low and moderate income families nationwide, including higher wages, better schools, more affordable housing, and fair lending practices. To learn more about our work, visit http://www.acorn.org.
Elizabeth Edwards appeared via phone on National Journal's On Air, a Friday show on POTUS08 (which is on XM Satellite Radio channel 130). To be truthful, I missed it. However, thanks to the marvels of the Internet, I have read the transcript and listened to the podcast. Tammy Haddock asks Elizabeth questions about Obama's campaign, McCain's health care plan, and the issue of sexist commentary in the traditional media.
Q: Elizabeth, I have to ask you first, because I know you were overseas, because we saw these reports that Senator Edwards would not be interested in the vice presidential slot. Is that true?
Edwards: Um. Well, of course it's true if he said something (laughter). He was asked, wouldn't you make a good vice presidential candidate? And John demurred and said, I've done that, and I want to be as helpful as I possibly can to Senator Obama, but this is not something to which I aspire.
In my diary last weekend, "The Democratic Swing & Independent Swing--What The SUSA Polls Can Tell Us", I amplified Chris's point about the magnitude of the Democratic swing being larger than that of the independent swing, by presenting a state-level analysis using the Survey USA polls with different VP candidates generating the ranges used for the "swing" calculations. I did this for all voters, and for Democrats and Independents. In this diary, I want to take a look at how Edwards on the ticket changed things.
The point here is not to make the case for Edwards--I think I've already done that quite convincingly. Whether or not he would reverse himself and accept if called, his presence on the ticket clearly makes a landslide much more possible. So the point of this diary is just to get a little better fix on what his presence accomplishes in regard to the swings Chris was comparing. Because, one way or another, if Democrats can get to the point that the battlefield looks like it would with Edwards on the ticket, then we are defintely on the road to having ourselves another 1932.
On Bill Moyers Journal last night, Moyers played a clip of John F. Kennedy. He did it as a way of talking about how far-and how surprisingly we've come to have a black presidential nominee. But I noticed something different. See if you can spot it:
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
I never thought we'd see this in my lifetime. When I was growing up in the segregated south the Democratic Party was the bastion of white male supremacy. The inequality of the races was a given, God-ordained and immutable. Women were okay, as long as they kept to their place. And now look what's happened. A black man and a white woman battled each other to the wire for the nomination by a party that turned itself upside down, inside out, and around in my lifetime. Barack Obama was born the year John F. Kennedy took the oath of office as President of the United States.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: I, John Fitzgerald Kennedy do solemnly swear. . .
BILL MOYERS: At his inauguration, I stood in the clear, cold weather and felt a shiver, not from the weather, but from the hint of things to come. Two years later, Obama was a toddler, and I was 27, and there was Kennedy on television proposing a civil rights bill to end the awful discrimination enforced on black people throughout America's history. It was 45 years ago next week - June 11, 1963 - and the President asked, "Are we to say to the world - and much more importantly to each other - that this is the land of the free, except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens, except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race, except with respect to Negroes."
JOHN F. KENNEDY: The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the State in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed. . .
BILL MOYERS: Tragically, Kennedy was assassinated as Congress was still battling over his civil rights bill and Lyndon Johnson was thrust into the White House. I went with him and saw Johnson take up the cause. Martin Luther King marched, and Lyndon Johnson maneuvered, and on the 2nd of July in 1964 the President signed the Civil Rights Act into law. The fight wasn't over; he knew it. The President told me, "I think we've just handed the South to the Republican Party for the rest of my life - and yours." Sure enough, the backlash was so bitter, and the Republican Party, once the party of Lincoln, so exploited it, that I figured this country would have a serious woman candidate for President long before any person of African descent. As the choice came down this year to one or the other, is one of those shifts that democracy and history take when we least suspect it.
BARACK OBAMA: Because of you, tonight I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
