Posted on 12/28/2006 10:51:11 AM PST by kingattax
Amid Iraq Talk, White House Hopeful Sticks to '04 Issue in '08 Run
For the roughly two dozen candidates considering a run for the White House, it is perhaps the jackpot question: What might be the winning message in a contest whose first nominating vote is still more than a year away?
Today, former Sen. John Edwards begins testing his hunch that Americans, though focused now on the war in Iraq, can be won over to a campaign built on what he calls "the great moral issue of our time" -- fighting poverty at home. He plans to do so with an unorthodox announcement of his candidacy, not standing on a flag-draped stage, but volunteering his labor in New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward, which is still struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
The North Carolina Democrat's theme of ending the "Two Americas" of haves and have-nots dates to his 2004 presidential bid. Mr. Edwards didn't win his party's nomination then, but his strong reception among voters helped him to secure a place as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's running mate. Mr. Edwards argues that the disparity between the richest Americans and the working class has widened since then.
"When I talked about poverty in the 2004 campaign, political types said it was futile," he said in a speech this year. "They said nobody cares about poverty except for the poor. Not true, and we saw it with Katrina."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Our poor are well-fed, and many have cell phones and video game consoles.
Granted, I've seen some more truly poor people, but nobody like you see in third-world hellholes.
Heck we could end poverty in a few short years, all we'd have to do is stop importing it from the third world.
You can add to that:
...a car.
...cable TV
...cell phones.
Hmm. When I ran it on my calculator, it came up as 43. I was counting from 1967.
War against subtraction going on for 39 - 4 = 15 posts. :-).
I was admitting that I screwed up back in post #4.
Oh, no...o...! Not more Great Society crap, please!!! No...o...o! We'll all be wallowing in an abysmal sewer by the time they're finished.
Gotcha.
Hence the "edit button" idea. I think FR should have one.
Edwards should have announced for Governor of Louisiana.
"...As someone once said in India: "I want to live in America where even the poor are fat."
That was Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
US Poverty means DVD players, cable or satellite TV, Video Games, Stereos, mobile phones, CD's, food on the table with foods stamps, shelter, employment if you want it, County health care, free daycare, free baby milk and diapers, etc.
Our poverty is the envy of the third world.
And a Crooked Millionaire Lawyer will show us the way?
"Vote for me, or I'll sue."
I think Edwards is an old line horse's ass. His belief this argument will sell is profoundly stupid and doomed to failure. He hopes to energize the " dispossessed". If the "disposessed" were energized they would no longer be the disposssessed.
THe most dangerous argument the Democrats could make is the appeal to a strapped middle class that whose tax cuts were eaten up by increased energy, insurance, and ancillary costs.
Folks like Webb are dangerous because of the populist message that is part conservative,part folk cult, part liberal, and part Dixie. The NASCAR conservative.If it picks up steam it could be big trouble.
I am sure Edwards cant sleep at night in his million dollar mansion for worrying about poverty. I would bet he spent more time awake worrying about gettinr his new video game from Walmart.
This punk trying to help the poor is more like a slap in the face.
Make that his new $3 million mansion. Why was he in New Orleans instead of standing in front of his new digs?
My pleasure, Peach.
Class Warfare as an issue is so out-of-date that the BRITISH LABOR PARTY doesn't even use it anymore.
A rich lawyer and one-term Senator thinks that he can win on a Marxist platform?
What a phony!
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