John Edwards: Toward A New, Democratic Politics

The in-tuned blogosphere already knows a lot about John Edwards: the endorsements he's received by state SEIU chapters including the important states of Iowa and New Hampshire; the endorsement by Friends of the Earth and the most recent endorsement by Iowans for Sensible Priorities. Folks are also aware of his calls for an end to the corrupt system in Washington, D.C., a system he defines as being "rigged" against all of us people who work for a living.

At first blush, this may seem like smart politics. Appealing to the base. Riding the wave of middle class anger. But there's something a lot more profound going on here, something that is an anti-Bush, Rove-free approach to democratic politics.

Come follow me and I'll tell you what I mean...

If you're going to try to fix a problem or address an injustice, there's a few ways to go about it. You could, for instance, focus on the immediate problem at hand and do a lessons-learned analysis (for instance, not putting a well-connected but incompetent fellow in charge of FEMA, and just hope that disaster doesn't strike). You could also do some investigations to try and examine the immediate causes of the injustice (for instance, holding hearings on how billions of dollars were just misplaced in Iraq, never to be heard from again). Or, you could try to look at the whole mess holistically, peel away the layers and get to the core issue. You could also look at where we are, where we need to be and set out a roadmap for how to get there.

That's what Edwards is doing, and that's what makes him a truly unique candidate...especially if you want *change*.

Peruse the Edwards website and you'll come across the issues page: http://johnedwards.com/issues/ . On that issues page you'll see the following three main areas, with links to specific policy proposals:

1. Standing up for Regular Families, including links to policy proposals for universal healthcare, poverty, policies to improve the quality of life in rural America, strengthen food safety and other policies and programs that reach out to and improve the quality of life for the individual.

2. Restoring America's Leadership Role In The World. Here you'll find Edwards's foreign policy and proposals that shape how our nation is viewed across the world, including the areas of Iraq, Iran, terrorism, civil liberties and global poverty (for my own analysis of Edwards's foreign policy, including his firm stance against preventive war, please see this diary: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/11/6/17523/4824 ).

3. Investing In Our Future And Our Communities, an area which addresses policies and proposals that impact health and well-being of the community at large, including the areas of global warming, education, open media, veterans and civil rights.

All three of these main areas affect each other, and all of the policies inside of these three areas also impact other policies. Everything is inter-related. All of the pieces and parts of the proposals need to work together in harmony in order to create the systemic change we need to reclaim our country.

Finally, none of this can happen, none of this systemic change can take place unless we remove the influence of lobbyist money in politics. Bill Bradley outlines in this in this June, 2007 talk on how the influence of lobbyists can corrupt these policies through an "unstated connection" between the contribution and the result of that contribution:



Sure, John Edwards is a great orator, and there's wonderful speakers across the field of Democratic presidential candidates. But to get systemic change you need more than just speeches: you need well thought-out policies and proposals so you can hit the ground running and start creating that change as soon as you're elected. You need a roadmap, and Edwards provides an impressive one that shows us the steps we can take to fix our problems, take care of our citizens and become a respected member of the community of nations once again.