Dodd's admirable refusal to participate in what he calls the auctioning of supporters in Iowa makes me, a Dodd supporter, feel guilty for writing about Edwards, who is my second choice, but here I go anyway. (Vote Dodd!)
Lambert likes this video of Edwards. I like this one from September at an SEIU event, but I'm a union-first kinda gal, who believes that the restoration and globalization of organized labor is the sine qua non of saving the middle class in America and creating a sustainable one across the world. Plus I love the SEIU. (Organizing tip: ALWAYS get SEIU members to your event. Nobody knows how to rally like SEIU members.) I also like Edwards' threat to pull health care from Congress if they don't get health care for every America by July 2009 even if it's implausible. And I loved it when he said that he'd be the best union president we've ever seen. I'm not sure how he'd be able to out-do FDR, but I'd enjoy watching him do it.
The NYT has found Economists for Edwards:
“This would be a more activist presidency,” Mr. Galbraith said. “The focus would be on what the major goals are – climate change, infrastructure, employment – and not on what the constraints are.”
He added: “One of the things the country desperately needs is a government that’s willing to face those questions and not duck them. And, broadly speaking, that’s the feeling I have about Edwards.”
Michael Moore has this Edwards quote in his not-yet-ready-to-endorse-anyone look at all three candidates: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Moore says that "the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace."
Frankly, with his populist message, I don't see how Edwards can lose in Iowa, but this article about how the caucuses work makes me more nervous about his chances than any number of polls:
Because the caucuses, held in the early evening, do not allow absentee voting, they tend to leave out nearly entire categories of voters: the infirm, soldiers on active duty, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have babysitting and many others who work in retail, at gasoline stations and in other jobs that require evening duty.
They also seem a bit too easygoing about letting non-Democrats in. Just ran across an Iowan blogger who likes Giuliani best, but figures he'd be throwing away his vote there. So what does he think he'll do? Vote against Edwards.
Posted by: Thomas Nephew | January 03, 2008 at 01:45 PM