This is a very good summary of the critical choices facing the U.S., because it encompasses so many of the problems into an elegant challenge: making politics responsive to the many, and not the few. Health care, energy independence, retirement benefits, campaign finance reform, a finance economy drowning out a manufacturing economy, the high cost of education - one way or another all of these problems connect to the growing imbalance in income. As the U.S. drifts towards a third world economic disparity between rich and poor, as the middle class is eviscerated, and as power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, our ability to deal with any of these problems is compromised.

Whether John Edwards and his populist message is the best answer, I don't know, but he is certainly an acceptable President in my view. What is clear is that the U.S. has only three basic sources of revenue left: the wealthy, the corporations, and the Department of Defense. The Republicans want us all to believe that the sources of revenue are cuts in Social Security, and cuts in taxes to the business and wealthy (this in particular is the type of Alice in Wonderland thinking that is finally beginning to damage the credibility of the Republican Party as an organization based in reality). It should be an objective of the coming presidential campaign to make it patently obvious that Republicanism is a prescription for a third world economy and polity, and more than likely for the destruction of the Constitution.

So far John Edwards is the only major candidate making this argument.

Hillary Clinton would bring all the credence that came with the Bill Clinton Presidency. A time of peace, prosperity, balanced budgets, a time when the US had respect in the world, honored our international agreements and were viewed with credibility. At the same time our military was viewed as the strongest in the world, barr none. Bringing a Clinton to the White House would be a signal to the world that the Americans have finally come to our senses, that rule of law might matter again and torture can end. Obama and Edwards do not have this instantaneous credence. They would start from scratch and have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust, prove themselves.

With Hillary, the credibility in the international arena is regained virtually instantly. The world knows the Clintons, and the evidence is that they like it. The message to the world with a Hillary Presidency would be of an America stripped of its arrogance and incompetance, and would represent an immediate walking away from the neoconservative war mongering machine. This is precisely what is needed this time around.

The United States needs to recertify itself as a credible world power, a status that has been utterly destroyed in the last seven years.

Bill IS Bill, and in a way he comes with the package.

Quite a remarkable speech. It's the speech Obama should have been delviering and hasn't. It's also the speech that Hillary Clinton will never, could never. deliver. John Edward, Dennis Kuchinch and Ron Paul are the only candidates who have had the courage to adress the real issues in this election. Based on what I've seen to date, the progressinve community has only one choice- John Edward.
The Old Prairie Dog

and one of your best articles Stirling. I think I'll write somethhing on his speach, but I'll wait a bit now since you've done it so well.

When John Edwards agreed with BushCo that "everything should be on the table" with regards to Iran, that revealed a profound lack of understanding of one of the monumental problems of our time - not Iran or Islam or terrorism, but our own military industrial complex. We will have constant war until this machine is stopped and dismantled.

How a grown man misses seeing these icebergs is something I would dearly like to hear explained by John Edwards.

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing

interesting essay Stirling...and interesting timing. By coincidence, Edwards' petition to tell off the Democratic powers-that-be about the genteel but pervasive corruption of lobbying came to my in box. I thought the very thought you allude to in the first paragraph: "This is the only candidate who is really loud and clear about what is rottenest in the republic"...the compelling other.

I clicked through and signed for what that is worth. People should pay attention to Edwards...he is listenting to us. And he would head a government that listened to us.

I think you've really captured the reason I am so firmly in the Edwards camp. In 2003-04, I saw Edwards as cautious about the very issues he seemed to care about the most. Now, in 2007, I see Edwards as having thrown off the handlers and DC-insider consultants and emerging as his true self.

In this speech, he challenges all of us to examine whether we believe our country and indeed the world can afford to continue on the same old path.
- Are we content with the same old methods of influence and governing for the moneyed interests over the interests of the people and the future?
- Should our energy and environmental policies be written by the oil and coal companies, by the auto companies, by those who have an interest in slow if any change from the status quo?
That's what we have now and what we will continue to have as long as lobbyists' money counts provides greater access and stronger influence.

John Edwards is challenging us to say ENOUGH to the status quo. He is the only Democratic candidate who is willing to seriously break with the way things have been done in Washington. He is asking all Democrats to stand together on this. But if they won't, so be it.

I'll stand with John Edwards, and fight for the future my grandchildren deserve.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

But let me tell you one thing I have learned from my experience -- you cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power -- you have to take it from them."

Edward's gets this. Going into the court room, facing a fleet of very talented corporate lawyers, had to have been a reality check for Edward's

The wing nuts are just going to run the trail lawer thing into the ground if he makes it through the primary. If people hear him talk, he connects.

"The president's job is to think not only about today, but tomorrow"
george bush delivers deep insights in a speach given on
April 19, 2007
Tipp City High School
Tipp City, Ohio

When that Al From book showed how he and the rest of the idiot cautious Dem consultants convinced Edwards to vote for the War, a light went off in my head. I agree with all of you, he's way different than 04, and I think it's b/c he, more than the the other big 2 (and Richardson and Gore, for that matter), don't like any of em. Fool me once... won't get fooled again!

He's had his Bay of Pigs moment, imo, and is stronger for it. Obama's had kind of a shift to the right, which is disappointing considering how amazing he's doing with young people. All my friends who aren't political love the guy.

Hillary's only possible plus to me is something Max Sawicky said at TPM Cafe the other day: since the Right hates her so much, she'll be forced to push a lot of good progressive policies to court the bigger majority we'll have in 08. I don't really believe it - the GOP will violently resist everything even if we put in a robot Cheney, on principle, but it's kinda interesting, and maybe even possible if we beat a few of those Bush Dogs Matt Stoller keeps talking about.

i am discouraged by what appears to be an intentional effort in the media to discredit him and make him look like a fool. perhaps it is because he, among the "serious" candidates, is most dangerous to the status quo.

i am discouraged in general when i talk to average working folks who are voting republican because they believe the democrats will raise taxes. it's insane. whole families living on $30K a year asserting that bush cut their taxes DRASTICALLY. it's almost unbearable to listen to and it is pervasive in my state.

It sounded a little bit similar to to the letter I wrote to Edward's Wisconsin campaign head, who happens to be a former federal lobbyist, now apparently only state. I don't know if I was echoing former statements of Edwards, or he was cribbing my e-mail. The background is I gave a check to David Bonoir outside of Soldier Field before the AFL-CIO debate. This guy was there as well and they had him contact me for contribution info such as employer and occupation. This is in response to to his reponse of "It's not about me, It's about electing John" when I emailed him about learning of his "profesion"

I'd love to talk to you sometime. Because it is exactly about you and your "profession". People like me can't hire an expert in greasing the skids of Congress, whether it's state or national. Hell, I might have been able to get the city to pave my alley (in Chicago!), had I given that check to my alderman, but it's uncertain. I gave because I really believe there are more important things. Like spending 10 billion a month on resource wars, like the rising costs of healthcare, like NAFTA,, and to top it all off; we've got one scary ass macro-economic situation.
And you know who helped to make it all happen? The lackeys of the monied class. Now don't take that personally, because I understand the system has been set up that way. Heck, even higher education is set up for protecting the interests of money, (I've never seen snobs quite so succcessfully manufactured than at U of Chicago), just check the contributions of the Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation. And speaking of which, just how well do you know Michael Grebe?

(Michael Grebe is a former partner at the law firm for which this man worked as a lobbyist, Grebe is now the head of the Bradley Foundation, maker of this and other fine war products.)

Now Edwards said at the AFL-CIO deabte that he wouldn't scrap NAFTA and that he'd leave 50,000 troops in Iraq. His healthcare plan leaves the profit-making undertakers in place, He's against equal rights and protections for gays; which I guess I'm one of, though I really just think of myself as a person (you know it'd be great to get the SSI benefits for my partner of 10 years after I die, just like you'll get.)
Now, I don't agree with him on any of these, but I still wrote the check. I am yet a pragmatist.
But it surely chafes my ass to have my check shown to Edwards by a man that contributes to the Republican party. I know, it was only $250 in 2004, but still, you're playing the game that needs to end. Let's not forget the workers of the last century that organized in the taverns of Milwaukee and Chicago to bring us the American middle class, they didn't hire lobbyists. And let's not froget their descendants still trying to make ends meet. Now you may work w/ the lawyers of the UAW, but how many of them have worked the assembly line? How many are going to have their pensions cut after 30 years? Last Tuesday, Edwards should have hit the question from the LTV retiree out of the park, literally, but he went into talking points instead. You saw the crowd reaction to the man, why didn't Edwards get the same or more? Check the replay. Why is Kucinich getting the crowd reaction that he does? I wouldn't call him charismatic.

Sorry, I'm rambling, but I'm trying to rush, as it's 7am, and I gotta go make the donuts, as it were. Just have a little goddam passion and principle, and fight for us, OK?

not bolded in the original, just for your benefit.
he never responded until I sent another email saying I hadn't recieved the contribution form yet. they still haven't cashed my check, but I think it might have something to do w/ the flooding up in WI. that was his reason for not responding initially.
watching the video, Edwards' delivery doesn't match the rhetoric, he hasn't got this speech down yet and/or he had nothing to do w/ its writing.

I enjoyed the read. What continues to capture my attention in the Edward's case, in addition to his progressive stance, is this:

"In head-to-head polling against the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, Clinton and Obama have managed to post only modest leads. Edwards, by contrast, not only bests every Republican candidate in the race, he trounces them -- by an average of twelve points."

- Rolling Stone Magazine
http://urlx.org/rollingstone.com/40139

At times I find myself motivated by the Obama campaign (have very little interest in Hillary), but each time I keep coming back to the grand prize. Even if we argue that the progressive differences are minimal, which I don't, it's still about getting elected.