It's unusual for a campaign to reset its message a week before the Labor Day weekend, but then again, there does seem to be a whole new set of physical laws governing politics.
Here's what seems to be the key paragraph in John Edwards's speech today:
But small thinking and outdated answers aren’t the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia. The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn’t. It’s not just that the answers of the past aren’t up to the job today, it’s that the system that produced them was corrupt – and still is. It’s controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it’s perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don’t stand a chance.
Real change starts with being honest – the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It’s rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it’s rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They’ll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are – not for the country, but for themselves.
When was the last time a major presidential candidate delivered such a singularly populist speech?
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Everyone should go over to John Edwards' site and read this speech. I spent an hour on it today, joting down footnotes, and picking out all of the liberal values that were included in it, such as:
1) "we" (liberal worldview) versus "me" (conservative worldview)
2) environmental sustainability in his discussion about leaving a "livable" planet to future generations
3) intergenerational equity, when he talked about what the American Dream has always been about, about how his parents worked hard so he could have a better live what the consequences of our actions will be for our children
4) transformational leadership, needed to inspire American citizens to work together for the common good
There was a lot in that speech, and I hope C-Span airs it at some point. Whether they do or not, everyone should take about 30 minutes to read this speech.
As for this part:
The part that Democrats are forgetting about the Clintons is the fact that they lost the House and the Senate to the Republicans throughout the 1990s, and if they nominate Hillary Clinton they will lose both in 2008, because she's so polarizing and mobilizing for Republicans. Many Democrats are ambivalent towards her, so why nominate a Dem who will more fervently turn out Republicans?
Another thing they forget is the Clintons led the charge to make the Democratic Party more conservative. In other words, they not only lost the Congress to the Republicans, but they surrendered the ideological battle to the Republicans, and as a result we ended up with things like NAFTA, WTO, GATT, and Telecom Act.
Clinton did a lot of GREAT things, but the "nostalgic" are overlooking the bad. Mainly the fact that the Democrats must get TWO THINGS in particular from the 2008 election...
...1) The White House
...2) A FILIBUSTER-PROOF Senate.
If they get the 2nd one, then they'll almost automatically gain seats in the House.
With Hillary Clinton, you might get the first one, but you can probably forget about #2.
Posted by OEST | August 23, 2007 9:48 PM