John Edwards: Populist

singrdave

Join Date 07/2004

John Edwards: Populist

Not the candidate, but still shaping the Dem debate

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John Edwards: 2004 Presidential primary candidate, then Vice Presidential candidate with John Kerry. He's campaigning again. This time he's positioning himself as a populist, appealing to middle-class and lower-class voters with his progressive policy stances on Iraq, health care, poverty, and the hue and cry of global warming.

His policy stances:
Iraq: American troops out of Iraq immediately. Overnight reduction of 40,000-50,000... followed by an "orderly and complete" withdrawal of combat forces within a year. The overall war on terror is a "bumper sticker, not a plan" according to Edwards.

Foreign policy: In a larger scheme, he wants to re-engage the nations of the world using America's innate moral leadership. This implies that he would sign onto Kyoto or a similar global warming regime, more to solidify America's participation in international agreements than to make major economic and social decisions. He's announced his intention to enact a cap-and-trade emissions scheme that would reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. In foreign development, he wants to recruit a "Marshall Corps" of 10,000 bankers, political scientists, and other experts to help failing states. Presumably this "Delta Force" of economists would try to keep failed states like Zimbabwe and Sudan from falling over the edge into chaos.

Domestic policy: This is where he really appeals to a lot of people. According to The Economist,
He offers plenty of standard populist cant: lots of talk about “fairness”; rants against oil firms for price gouging and drug companies for rocketing health costs; and—this year's favourite villain—anger at mortgage lenders for ripping off poor home-owners. (He calls it the “wild west of the credit industry, where...abusive and predatory lenders are robbing families blind.”) A recent speech decried an economy that rewarded “wealth not work”, a tax system that favoured the rich and a government that served only special interests. Yet for all that Mr Edwards is less a redistributionist firebrand than a big-government do-gooder. He is intent on helping the poor more than soaking the rich; his inspiration is Robert Kennedy, not Huey Long.

He has cohesive programs for helping the poor (remember, he's the one who came up with the "Two Americas" concept in 2004) and for federally-managed universal health care based on Mitt Romney's Massachusetts model. He wants to eliminate poverty by 1/3 within a decade by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, topping up the working poor's earnings, effectively eliminating taxes for lower incomes. He also wants to give poor people "work bonds" to boost their savings and housing vouchers to help poor families live in better neighborhoods.

Edwards has his faults, too... his gigantic house and $1,400 haircuts have reminded people that there are actually Two Americas, and John's in the upper half. And his trial lawyer experience makes him another Slick Willie... but this time without the McDonald's fixation.

His ideas may or may not have merit, but they are certainly livening up the Democratic debate. The concepts Edwards addresses are probably going to find their way onto the ticket, whether he's the candidate or not. He may appeal to Dems, but he's not raising the kind of money that the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton machines are.

So I would pay attention to the John Edwards campaign. Be prepared to see his policy ideas come November 2008, even if you don't see John Edwards.

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