John Edwards would make a good President

I don’t follow national politics very closely, feeling compelled to put all my energy here in Portland where I feel I can make the most difference personally. I believe we have a fine group of Democratic candidates to choose from next year, and pretty much any of them would be better than any of the Republican choices. But I remember as if it were yesterday, John Edwards’ speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when he said, “the very idea that in a country of our wealth and our prosperity, we have children going to bed hungry? We have children who don’t have the clothes to keep them warm? We have millions of Americans who work full-time every day to support their families, working for minimum wage, and still live in poverty. It’s wrong.”

In remembering that speech, I thought he said, “It’s wrong” several times. The transcript says it was only once. I got chills watching that speech on live TV, that a politician was daring to frame his beliefs in terms of right and wrong – and not the right/wrong of populist politics like “terrorism is bad”. He called poverty a moral issue, and that children are hungry in America simply wrong.

This Reuters article, “With poverty tour, Edwards emphasizes morality over politics”, notes John and Elizabeth Edwards are continuing with his message – whether or not it wins votes. TIME magazine quotes published coverage of this campaign focus on poverty, a couple of weeks ago. The article says, “Asked at one point why he thinks poverty is a vote-winning issue, he says, “I don’t know that it is. This is not a political strategy. It’s a huge moral issue facing America.”

The article continues: “It is certainly something most politicians don’t talk about and most voters don’t ask about. Democrats with national aspirations have been avoiding the issue for the last quarter century or so, since Ronald Reagan cast them as the party of welfare-queen-coddling big gubment….The press has been busy assessing the political risk of dedicating a presidential campaign to people who tend not to vote and about whom middle class voters have long been assumed not to care. “…But Edwards is gambling that voters will respond to politicians who put themselves on the line for the things they really believe in — “people want to see a strength and a passion about something you authentically care about,” as he puts it.”

I believe John Edwards does care, really cares, about people who live in poverty. When I heard about his $400 haircut, I thought how much more despicable it would be if this man who’s made a fortune by his own efforts had paid his hairdresser $5.99 and no tip. I love hearing about his passion for the subject, I like his gutsy wife and the way she’s taking on issues as the Bad Cop (with a heart of gold and likely a body full of cancer) in their strong team, as reported in this Salon interview. I think they would make a great President and First Lady.

I like Barack Obama and his wife, too, for different reasons. I like Hillary Clinton and her husband, with yet a third set of virtues and values. Each candidate, each partnership, has strengths and weaknesses, things about them I admire and things I wish they’d done differently. I can hardly wait to vote for whichever of them has already won the Democratic nomination by the time the Oregon primary rolls around. My main hope is that the states with the earlier primaries pick a nominee who can win in November 2008. Last time, I voted for Dennis Kucinich in the primary, as the candidate talking most about peace. Next year, I think it’s imperative Democrats rally around whoever emerges with the necessary number of delegates, starting the campaign for the White House as early as possible.