Posted on 09/12/2006 7:46:58 AM PDT by kromike
Possible presidential candidate and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards told some 3,400 union delegates and others Monday that the Democratic Party needs to show "a little backbone” by taking up the cause of universal health care again.
"One of the ways we can show some backbone and courage is we can speak out and we can say we're not for access to health care ... and all those weasel words that politicians like to use,” he said.
"We're for universal health care for every single man, woman and child in America and we are going to fight for it every single day when we're running this country, when we're running the Congress, when we're running the White House."
Edwards, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004, appeared with other party stalwarts such as former President Jimmy Carter at a convention of the Laborers' International Union of North America to make the case to attendees to elect Democrats in November. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, also considered a possible presidential contender, was to address the convention later in the day.
Nevada has taken on new importance on the Democratic presidential primary calendar after the party moved last month to sandwich Nevada's caucus between first-in-the-nation Iowa and New Hampshire in January.
The shake-up was backed by Democratic leaders who want to add more Hispanic and black voters to the voter pool picking the party nominee, and give Democrats an early foothold in the West, a region increasingly seen as a key to winning the general election.
Jimmy Carter, speaking in place of his incapacitated son, Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Jack Carter, said the Bush administration had strayed from American values and should be held to account for the war in Iraq on false premises.
His son continued to suffer from severe colitis, an inflammation of the colon, since being hospitalized on Thursday, but was steadily recovering, said spokesman Jay Jones.
"I think it's very important that all of us combine our efforts in the next few months to make sure that the administration in Washington is restrained,” the elder Carter said.
"This year and two years from now, we're going to change this country,” he said to a standing ovation.
Both Carter and Edwards argued that the nation needs to raise its minimum wage, which stands at $5.15 an hour, although several states have set it higher.
Edwards called the rate an "embarrassment.” "It ought to be at least $7.50 an hour,” he said.
Richardson was expected to implore union members to elect governors in key states, including Democratic state Sen. Dina Titus, who faces Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons to replace the term-limited Republican governor of Nevada, Kenny Guinn.
"If we win governors' races in '06, we set the groundwork to take back the White House in '08,” Richardson said in prepared remarks. "Can we do it? We must do it for all the working men and women of this country.”
The Laborers' union has about 700,000 members, mostly in the construction industry.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Now tell me, why would a union worker, who pays diddly for health care, want universal coverage? Instead of having a choice, wouldn't that put him in the same heap the rest of us would be in when he seeks treatment?
Sure, go ahead, it worked so well last time!!
Oh Geez
(but not for what you would think...)
Well yeah...exactly my view of the left.....Socialist scum that they are.
Imagine public housing. Now, imagine public health care.
How's THAT for an image? Ugh.
Dems have plenty of backbone, lots of guts, a good pair of cojones but no brain, no conscience,no morality and no soul. They also lack a logical and intelligent foreign and domestic policy.
Chamberlain is their foreign policy advisor and their domestic policy guide is Soviet Collectivism - both failed icons.
Otherwise, they are just great people.
Imagine the Government in our schools.....oh, yes, they already are....and WHAT A MESS....
The last thing I want is to wait for hours at some crowded clinic for the same level of "customer service" that I now get at the Post Office.
No thanks.
We don't need universal health care; all we need to do is elect John Kerry and people like Christopher Reeve will walk again....
What would Sen. Exlax know about backbone?
"We're for universal health care for every single man, woman and child in America and we are going to fight for it every single day when we're running this country, when we're running the Congress, when we're running the White House."
We've got some loony woman running for the DFL here in MN and this has been her main campaign issue, the subject of her commercials.
Anyone else find irony in Edwards? The dude makes a fortune suing doctors, causing the price of healthcare to rise, making it less affordable, and then he has the nerve to suggest fixing the problem he helped create by throwing other people's money at it.
Interesting. Teddy Kennedy said the same thing, using the same "backbone" buzzwords yesterday. Sounds like a focus group product.
For the life of me, I can't understand why unions are such strong supporters of these idiotic government initiatives. I believe one of the key factors in the long-term decline in union membership has been the fact that union-supported politicians have been so successful in implementing taxpayer-funded government programs that give all people the kind of things that unions used to secure for their members in the collective bargaining process.
Why join a union when some dopey jack@ss like John Edwards is willing to give you all those things without taking any union dues from you?
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