« Rasmussen: Mucky Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) In Dead Heat Against Dem Candidate | Home | Poll: Clinton Ahead By Six Points In Pennsylvania »
Elizabeth Edwards: I'd Rather Be An "Honest Broker" On The Issues Than Endorse
Elizabeth has stepped back a bit from yesterday's statement that she has more confidence in Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama on the issue of health care, saying instead that she and John Edwards could be best effective at this point as "honest brokers" on issues they care about, rather than endorsing any candidate.
She also denied that a reported conversation with Barack Obama turned them off from his candidacy, but did acknowledge some differences: "And where there are differences, we talked about those differences and why I believed John's was right."
Advertisement
I dunno - at this point does anyone think an endorsement one way or the other would matter? It might if it was Gore - maybe. But I'm not even sure of that now.
April 10, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
It depends on what you mean by "matter". An Edwards endorsement of Hillary could help her in Pennsylvania, which would encourage her to stay in (not that she needs much encouragement). An Edwards endorsement of Obama could hurt her in Pennslyvania, which might encourage her to drop out (once the math becomes even harder to deny). Then again, it might not.
I don't think her dropping out or staying in has much impact on the primary results as I'm quite confident that Obama will win. I think it'll have a bigger impact on the general results (for better or worse) as the campaign drags on.
April 10, 2008 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you want to be an honest broker of the issues, maybe you should stop pretending unenforced mandates work, and stop pretending that John's plan and Hillary's plan are universal, because they are far from it.
If you want to be an honest broker you need to at least come clean on those issues. As long as we are pretending that non-universal for-profit private insurance ran programs are going to solve our problems we will continue to not get anywhere beyond cosmetic changes.
Obama is my guy, but at least I'm not going to lie and say that his plan is universal. I'd expect supporters of Hillary to do the same. Face it, Kucinich was the only one who had a truly universal plan. He is the only one that "got it", although I'm sure Obama knows, he just doesn't have faith that it is politically possible, and I don't have faith either, but I'm going to try, just as we all should. But we can't do that without first dropping this bullshit about mandates solving everything and Hillary's plan being universal. Let's be grownups about this.
April 10, 2008 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
as (one of) the token HRC supporters here at TPM, i will agree that HRC's plan is not "universal", but it is still better than Obama's plan.
Elizabeth Edwards is being honest about which plan she thinks is better. is it too much to hope for that her fellow democrats here at TPM will not bash her for speaking out on an issue that she cares about (even if she agrees with the "candidate non grata" here at TPM)?
i second your motion for "Let's be grownups about this"...
April 10, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Way off topic here, but it's recently been suggested that you don't visit the reader posts much. I think you should, as I think you bring some much needed calm and balance to the discussion.
April 10, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
well, ben... thanks for those words of encouragement. i guess i have grown a bit weary of TPM of late. not much here for a Hillary supporter. it's kind of discouraging since i used to think of TPM as more of a balanced place. i still like their non-election coverage of issues, but i have been looking for other blogs to get a bit more balance in my political coverage. as one reader told me when i "whined" last week about TPM being a place that used to welcome all dems regardless of which candidate they support, "things change. deal with it."
April 10, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I think Obama's plan is slightly better than Hillary's, as do some experts. You can find people, qualified and not, to support either plan. In the end, it is a wash, and a non-issue because neither plan is good enough.
It is also a non-issue because at this point it is far too late, Obama will be our nominee, and if somehow he didn't become our nominee, I guarantee McCain would whoop Hillary, so her plan would again be a non-issue.
I just hope when Obama gets in the White House and we expand our majorities in Congress we'll be able to get them to pass truly universal health care. We could possibly get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate this time around, and if we do, we need to milk it until it is dry. We need to undo all of the Republican butchering of our country, and we need to shove as much progress into this country as it can handle, we need to make it a new New Deal, complete with universal health care. If we can get there, people will see it isn't the nightmare Republicans want to make it out to be, and like the Canadians, they will become very attached to it, and the Republicans hopefully won't be able to ever undo it.
April 10, 2008 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
well, at least i agree with your desire to see universal coverage... we may support different candidates, but it seems like we agree on the democratic agenda.
if you would tone down the "hillary hate" then maybe we could, as that great philosopher rodney king said, "all just get along?"
April 10, 2008 9:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you know if anyone has done an analysis of Senator Clinton's current plan against the one she worked on when her husband was first elected? Are the two plans similar or different?
One of the reasons I'm asking this question is I'm concerned about Senator Clinton's ability to actually implement a health care plan. She had everything going for her before - she had the full backing of the president and both Houses of Congress were Democrats, but she failed. I don't have a good sense for how her current plan won't meet the same fate - does she have a different health care plan, or does she plan to go about it in a different way?
I'm honestly curious about this - I don't mean to bring up her past failure to score points. But if she has the same plan, and expects to have it passed using the same techniques she used before, I don't think she will be successful.
April 10, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
it is not the same plan. this one is more of an incremental change to what already exists whereas the last one was a complete overhaul.
but i believe that the country is in a much different place than we were in the early 90's. the health care problem is much bigger and it affects far more people. the cost of health care has truly skyrocketed to a point that even a lot of republicans are looking for relief.
i truly believe that a democratic president with democratic majorities in congress should be able to get something done even if it's not "universal" it will be an improvement over what we have and hopefully a first step toward universal care.
April 10, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
True - and the population has a different demographic. Baby Boomers are closer to retirement, and they're a huge portion of the group that will need increased health care.
April 10, 2008 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Younger people may find themselves with parents to take care of, or, suddenly that a serious illness affects them. The healthcare issue is muddied by people not understanding that it will be personal to them at some point.
April 10, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough. I have an enormous amount of respect for her and I think this is a reasonable position to have.
My beef hasn't been that the Edwardses (and for that matter, Gore, Pelosi and Reid) have failed to endorse; it's that they have failed to condemn campaign tactics designed to help John McCain win the general election. Seems to me that would be entirely consistent with being an "honest broker."
However, that's really John's job, not Elizabeth's. And kudos to her for pointing out that neither she nor McSame could get health coverage under McSame's health care plan.
April 10, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you completely. That the Edwards's have not endorsed seems a reflection of some combination of sour-grapes, vanity and political self-interest. Sad for me, a former Edwards supporter.
April 10, 2008 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
SORRY I replied to the wrong message. This should have been lower in response to "joejustice."
April 10, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Edwards; a complete slimey weazel. I have two bottles of champagne in my fridge. One has Bil Keane's name on it, the guy who does that idiotic Family Circus strip. The other, Elizabeth Edwards. What a loser, posing as a thoughtful "honest broker." oh brother....
April 10, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
but I will say one thing about Clinton and Obama, they must have some shred of decency as neither offered Edwards whatever the f*** it was that was his price for an endorsement.
April 10, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
someone remind me why the edwards think they can be brokers?
what have they done for the party?
April 10, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's her game plan here? I admit I don't quite get the Edwardses. And where is John? And why do the pronouns used in this quote make me somewhat uncomfortable?
"And where there are differences, we talked about those differences and why I believed John's was right."
Hmmm ... Questions ... questions ...
April 10, 2008 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with her stance somewhat, but if she didn't like the convo with BO, try disagreeing with the Hill. If she thinks that she would be any flexible if faced with disagreement, or even more importantly if she faced the prospect of her plan not working...do you think for a minute that she would open to other opinions?
April 10, 2008 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Elizabeth has stepped back a bit from yesterday's statement that she has more confidence in Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama on the issue of health care..."
Not exactly. Elizabeth Edwards expressed more confidence in Hillary's *plan*, not in Hillary herself. From the wording above the implication is that Elizabeth Edward's opinion was that Hillary *the person* would be more effective "on the issue of health care", but if you go back and watch the video or read her actual remarks, you will see that she took great pains to avoid saying anything about either candidate's capability to implement any policy changes.
Her stated goal is to bring every candidate's health policy positions in as close alignment with her own vision as possible, not to judge one candidate against the other. Unfortunately the media - and I include you here, Greg - have determined that it matters only *who* the Edwards endorse, not *what* they are trying to achieve, and so are framing the coverage through that perspective only.
April 10, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
That should be Eric, not Greg, I refer to above. Apologies to both.
Oh, for an edit feature!
April 10, 2008 12:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both of the Edwards' have so botched their post-campaign life I don't think they can be taken seriously anymore. As a former strong Edwards volunteer and donor they have truly proven to be more craven than I expected. Silence in the face of a Party at war is not leadership.
Using "issues" to cover your cowardice on your preferred candidate is plain old silly.
It was clear during Elizabeth's Countdown appearance that the magic is gone.
April 10, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
while i would prefer elizabeth (and john) to endorse hillary, i hardly think sticking to the issues is craven...
elizabeth is greatly admired and if she were to campaign actively on behalf of either HRC or BO, then i think it would have an impact at least among the undecided voters out there who still do exist. not everyone is as deeply dug in as the readers of this blog (myself included, of course.)
April 10, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Though not possible, I thought that Elizabeth would have made a better candidate than her husband. Crazy certainly, but speaks to something that didn't click for voters with John Edwards.
April 10, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
At this time, the market is "pricing in" President Obama.
Part of this process involves wealthy people removing part of their wealth from exposure to US taxation, and doing other things to reduce the possibilities for President Obama as much as possible.
This is the "drowned in the bathtub" position. Wealthy people can live under Republican government protecting their interests. But they can also live under Democratic government, in which a Democratic President tries to keep society from coming to pieces socially, while the largest owners of this society prevent him from tapping any large new sources of revenue for that purpose.
Over the long term, the best medical care policy will be the most comprehensive one. The population of America is worth more than the Republicans think it. The global owners of capital are not believers in progress through government. They think rather that the work force needs to have its aspirations (for high wages and benefits) crushed. Until this happens, they think, they will only hire the Chinese government to do their bidding, since the Communists appear to have solved the labor problem.
Thinking about things in this way is more realistic than comparing two "plans" whose realization could only be part of a revamping of the way in which the US government raises revenue, and part of a revaluation of the relationship between government, business, and a population that contains a "work force".
April 10, 2008 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Wealthy people can live under Republican government protecting their interests. But they can also live under Democratic government, in which a Democratic President tries to keep society from coming to pieces socially, while the largest owners of this society prevent him from tapping any large new sources of revenue for that purpose."
Also, very wealthy people make money in economic crisis by buying assets at bargain prices. These folks see something coming in my view, and are positioning themselves.
April 10, 2008 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink