Sunday, November 11, 2007
John Edwards for President
I think it would be amazing for America to have a John Edwards vs. Ron Paul race. It would be amazing because we'd have to talk about issues again. Poverty, the saneness of forign intervention, corporate subsidization and many more issues we face would have to be addressed in public debate when we have ignored them for so long. Public discussion is good and we won't get that with a Dem vs. Rep. superstar presidential race.
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If we're going to go with a non-superstar, I'd have to favor Bill Richardson. Edwards has so little political experience; one term in the U.S. Senate, then a run for VP as the token Southern guy for a ticket that carried no Southern states. Before that, he was just another personal injury lawyer.
ReplyDeleteCompare to Barack Obama: Grassroots organizing experience dating back to his college years, 11 years as a constitutional law professor and civil rights attorney, author of two bestselling books, time spent in the Illinois State Senate before going on to the U.S. Senate. Obama has a pretty near lifelong commitment to activism. Edwards was a rich, good-looking lawyer who discovered politics.
If Edwards did the Al Gore thing between 2004 and now, then he'd be in the top tier. But what has he done on poverty? What would he do on poverty that the other candidates wouldn't? I just don't get the Edwards appeal. Didn't in 2004, and I don't now.
What's "the Al Gore thing?"
ReplyDeleteEdwards hasn't had a documentary made about him or gotten a Nobel prize, but he has been constantly active in anti-poverty, pro-minimum wage, anti-predatory lending, and pro-union campaigns since 2004.
FYI Obama's cool too, but if I were to pick someone not in the top three it would be Dodd.
" I think it would be amazing for America to have a John Edwards vs. Ron Paul race."
ReplyDeleteWe live in really strange times when a far right winger like me agrees with left wingers so regularly.
( I think I have even gained the grudging respect of a few of you fellows :-) )
Paul. Edwards. ISSUES ( what a concept).
Thow in Buchanan & Nader we might actually have debates over policies rather than packaged products parading as candidates.
I'm afraid that Americans much prefer Coke vs Pepsi ( aka Gulian/McCain/Romney/Thompson vs Hillary/ Obama) to actual in depth policy discussions.
Jefferson's warning that a great danger to liberty is an "uneducated electorate" may yet again bear fruit in 2008. But as Dean, Paul, & Riley have proved, the internet is slowly chaning that.
As a somewhat related aside . . .I picked up a used copy of Bucnanan's The Great Betrayal about trade policy over the weekend. Even those who hate Buchanan & are doctrinare free traders should give this book a serious read.
Reading this along with Ron Paul's Foriegn Policy of Freedom
might make some of the globalist neocons reconsider some more traditional conservative views.
One other aside barely related aside ( but funny) about Fred Thompson from a Paulite . . .
"There are three kinds of people in America who get rich by lying & manipulation -- actors, lawyers, and lobbyists. Fred Thompson is all three." :-)