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Democratic candidate John Edwards is the second person I supported to drop out of the presidential primary race. It is giving me the blues. Two things about Sen. Edwards got my attention. First it was his populist agenda that brought focus to universal health care and poverty and secondly he said, “It is time to be patriot about something other than war.” That did it for me!
Mr. Edwards, or Rep. Denis Kucinich before him, never broke through the dueling "never before" candidacies of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Neither were able to raise the funds the later did; certainly not from my donations.
As long as Edwards and Kucinich were in the race they had the ability to influence the two remaining moderates. I know this might sound ridiculous but the media is to blame for their inability to have their messages heard; instead of a candidates’ positions, the media reported on “the race.”.
When Edwards spoke about the poor or the victims of Katina or the cost of health care, the media gave us information on his wife, his third place status or speculation on who he may now endorse. The same was true with Kucinich. His views on the war and poverty are top concerns for Democrats yet he was kept out of the debates because the media viewed him as “unelectable.”
The two remaining candidates are not addressing their issues; my issues. Those are: implementing universal health care, bring an immediate end and withdraw from the war in Iraq, addressing the xenophobic and racist attitudes toward our immigrant population, strengthening the labor movement, enhancing worker and LGBT rights, decreasing the influence of the wealthy on politics, corporate greed and corruption and the high cost of staples like oil.
And that does not even begin to mention the international crisis’s cause by the present administration, the overwhelming corruption within it or restoring the constitution.
While Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton will thankfully take us in new directions, neither will address those issues to the degree that Misters Edwards and Kucinich would have. And thats whats givin' me the blues.
4 comments:
I feel the same way. I was going to early-vote for Edwards here in the GA primary, but now that he's out, I'm not sure whom to vote for.
I bet he'd make a great VP, though!
It sounds like a very good agenda to me. Are the media so influential?
It IS a very good agenda, and one whose voice needs to be heard. I hope there is talk of a place for John Edwards in the next administration, a position where may do some real good.
And now these months later I am reading this and wondering how things can turn out ... this is one guy who agenda I really miss, however. And I wonder what his response would be to the economic mess we are in?
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