The right wing of the Democratic Party has sold out America's workers.

would have been a better ad if he hadn't added the inspiration in the hospital room - could have just said Elizabeth and I made the determination to fight. The hospital room reference goes two ways - too blatant for me and oh he would be plagued by sick wife (my aunt yesterday).

My last post should have said, of course,

"his massive 28,000 SQUARE FOOT estate "

No, Richard L, Adlof, it is Edwards who is the poster child of the disingenuousness and the lack of personal responsibility that led to the frightening global situations that we find our species in.

For example, he campaigns against Clinton accepting donations from lobbyists (the implication being, she's corrupt), while he accepts $167,000 in campaign contributions from Fortress Investments (remember them?), both from a large number of individuals who listed Fortress as their employer, and from the company itself.

A cursory check shows that Fortress pays and uses a number of these K Street lobbyists to support their agenda.

Nothing wrong with that, actually, charities, lawyers, labor unions, and corporations all lobby.

Obama and Clinton are honest about it. Edwards uses it by parsing what "is" is.

Anonymous wrote on November 1, 2007 9:59 AM:
"What is Hillary Clinton's connection with CitiBank?"

I don't know. What is it?

My understanding is that CitiBank forced all its empoyees at gunpoint to donate a million bucks under the table to the Evil Witches' campaign, along with supplying Hill and Bill with two yachts that each contains a replica of the Lincoln Bedroom, in return for her promising to force (also at gunpoint), that CitiBank be named "US National Financier" in charge of financing all US military operations in Iran and worldwide until Armegeddon.

Why? Is your understanding different from mine?

russert: Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license?

Clinton: Well, what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform. We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers. They are driving on our roads. The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability.

So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum. I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well intentioned, can fill this gap. There needs to be federal action on immigration reform.
...
Edwards: ...Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21528787/page/21/

Yeah, you missed something john. This part right here:
“So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum. I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well intentioned, can fill this gap. There needs to be federal action on immigration reform.”

I liked him better when he was studying hedge fund operators from the inside.

"It's a little tiresome for the progressive blogosphere to mouth the same values, yet not value a candidate who does."

I've been confused by it. Given the constant invocation of progressive values over the past years on so many blogs, I assumed Edwards' populist message would be ratified by at least a few of the big liberal blogs. But they all seem to be for Clinton's campaign. What's the point of spending years talking about "breaking down the gates" if the goal is just to put the corporatist wing of the democratic party back in power?

Hey colon, is this the way you always act when scared? Sure seems like you get real uncomfortable when any of the "desperate" "losers" have anything to say even if it isn't an attack on your "inevitable" candidate and would-be monarch.

All I can do is continue to support candidates like Edwards and others in upcoming primary races who challenge the DLC. If you champion the DLC "centrist" philosophy then HRC, with her Husband, is the only logical choice.
In 2010 we Colorado Dems will dump the chump Salazar in our Primary.
Patience... with passion

"inch by inch,
row by row"

I've been confused by it.

Me, too. Best I can figure it's a result of several factors.

1) The emotional appeal of supporting a historic candidacy (woman or African American) versus what "feels" like the same old same old (southern white male). The fact that he is the most progressive on the most number of issues or led the way with the right position on so many of the blogosphere's pet issues seems to count for a lot less.

2) The emotional problem a lot of leading bloggers have with his campaign either because they have friends in other campaigns or because they never forgave him for the ruckus over the bloggers that they felt he didn't handle to their satisfaction.

3) (And I think this is the most important) The emotional appeal of supporting a winner (or at least not supporting someone who might lose). The powerful appeal of polls, money, and influence affects the blogosphere as well, especially after their heady taste of success in 2006.

The big caveat to all the above is that I am painting with a very big brush and do not mean to apply all heavyweight bloggers are prone to the above, but I think it is becoming the only way to explain the different treatment Edwards gets than many other candidates far less progressive on the issues than he is.

Well, contrast Edwards' early professional life (making tons of money as a lawyer working for the interests of some exploited poor workers), with someone who worked as an activist providing free legal asistance and child welfare advocacy upon graduation from Yale Law school some 30 years ago.

Actually, colonpowwow, I believe it was the New York Times that ran a very enlightening piece contrasting the law career of John Edwards as a litigator defending people injured by big corporations (paraphrasing: he always took the best cases, not best by which would bring the biggest claims but which had done the worst thing, where someone had been injured the most) versus Hillary Clinton who was a corporate lawyer whose first case involved defending a company where a rat's rear end ended up in someone's food. Yes, obviously Hillary's role as a corporate lawyer was patently more progressive than protecting individuals who had been harmed by corporations.
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Are we progressive enough to support the right of workers to organize and to protect the assault on their unions by so-called "right-to-work" laws?

Yes, John Edwards has done so little to support unions that he is garnering all this union support because . . .?

As I recall, your candidate hasn't managed to secure a single SEIU state chapter, while Edwards has over a dozen and Obama has at least 4 or 5.

This is a case where actions speak a lot louder than words (or your Fox talking points).

Bush-Lite and her invisible Chinatown donors thinks that she is entitled to the presidency.

Anonymous said:

"As I recall, your candidate hasn't managed to secure a single SEIU state chapter, while Edwards has over a dozen and Obama has at least 4 or 5."

Perhaps you would be well advised to read today's TPM-EC. Besides the large number of union endorsements she's already received, she just got the national AFSCME endorsement. And if her senate voting record isn't 100% on labor issues, it's certainly over 98%.

Get a clue . . . win a point.

It's amazing how the Clintonistas talking points against Edwards mirror those against Gore -- his house is too big, he's a hypocrite because he flies a jet/hires the wrong people, his haircut/brown tones indicate a fundamental character flaw.

You think it would give them pause.

Since it doesn't, one can only assume that they really ARE that desperate to avoid talking about substantive matters.

Oh, that's right. Nothing that Edwards or his supporters has said recently directly implied that Hillary is the corrupt business as usual candidate while they remain above all this sort of thing. I think that ever they would ever stoop to such lowly tactics, that it's called "triangulation" or something like that.

I stand corrected, thanks.

Call me colonpollyanna.

Actually, in the political meaning of the term, triangulation is claiming that your discourse is above the political fray and squarely in the middle of the political spectrum. I doubt most objective political observers would accuse Edwards of doing that.

You can claim until the cows come home that Edwards seems hypocritical to you. That's your right. It is also the right of others to not feel that Hillary Clinton (with her centrist tendencies, hawkish positions, and money ties to many of the same special interests that got us into this mess in the first place) is the
best candidate to fix the serious damage that Bush has done to this country and our democracy.

However, though I am one of the latter, I don't spend all my time following Hillary threads and constantly repeating the same old worn hit points as if I were an online Rush Limbaugh. I stick mostly to the threads dealing with the campaign in general or about my particular candidate (though on those I find plenty of Hillary supporters eager to bash both Edwards and Obama.) Indeed, the only times I engage in negative points about Hillary is in response to attacks by one of her supporters that seem out of line.

I prefer disagreements about policy. I think Hillary's vote for Kyl-Lieberman was wrong. It troubles me greatly. I dislike the way she lags behind on the big issues like Iraq appropriations, Mukasey's nomination, etc. and waits until she's absolutely sure which way the wind is blowing before taking a position. I could go on with my disagreements on policy, but this is not the place. This is a thread about an ad for John Edwards. It is a good ad. It is a clear statement of why he is running.

Why does it leave you so scared?

katerina asks:

"Why does it leave you so scared?"

Scared of what? That John Edwards might win Iowa or climb within double digits of the frontrunner(s)?

If he wins Iowa (not likely but still very possible), Hillary will proceed to win New Hampshire and South Carolina big in the next couple weeks on the way to the nomination and then the presidency.

Edwards will then have realized the absolute best any rational person can imagine at this point. He'll have won Iowa.

So, why didn't John Edwards use union labor to clearcut the large patch of forested animal habitat or to build his 28,000 square foot estate?

Friend of the working man on the outside, union buster on the inside. I guess that, indeed, "seems like a hypocrite."

I like the way that his supporters can only come back with . . . buh . . . buh . . . but what about Hillary?!?

You seem quite reasonable, but I'm afaid I'm embittered by the relentless stream of "she lies," "she's corrupt," "her supporters are idiot anti-progressives," and other unsupported nonsense.

Are you saying that Edwards and the other candidates have not singled her out to attack her the last couple of weeks? Not that I would ever accuse him of the "h" word, but didn't Edwards promise early on that he would only attack Republicans, not Democrats?

Implying that someone is corrupt just because they take legal campaign contributions from lobbyists is an attack, wouldn't you say? And doing it while taking a six figure donation from Fortress Investments who uses lobbyists is . . .

See - I resisted the urge to say, "Typical."