Features > July 23, 2007

The Unions’ Man? (cont’d)

Many labor strategists think that Obama will fade as the serious non-Hillary candidate and that Clinton’s fate will be like that of Joe Lieberman’s, who led the Democratic polling at this stage of the 2004 campaign. They say she will be dragged down by her persistently high negative ratings in polls and by identification with the conservative, business wing of the party at a time when economic populism and antiwar sentiment are growing stronger.

Choosing sides

Edwards advocates workplace democracy and the right to organize unions, but his message is directed not only to union members or officials, but also to the aspirations and frustrations of working- and middle-class voters. Sharing a theme with Obama, he tells audiences that electing a president can’t solve the country’s problems, that only a grassroots citizens’ movement will bring real change.

Edwards remains the proverbial upbeat American politician, despite his talk about poverty. He has dropped the “two Americas” rhetoric from the last campaign in favor of a hope for “one America.” He favors rolling back the Bush tax cuts for households earning over $200,000 a year, but he’s cautious about advocating policies that would limit or redistribute the massive concentrations of wealth by the top 1 percent of taxpayers in recent years. For example, he has not endorsed Democratic congressional proposals to reverse the favorable tax treatment enjoyed by private-equity fund managers.

“I’ve said in the past that I’m open to the idea that for those with extreme wealth, like myself, that we may need to bear more responsibility,” he said in an interview after his talk at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. “I haven’t proposed anything yet. Speaking for myself, I still believe in a country of aspiration. We want to live in an America where people can do extraordinarily well. We just want to extend that opportunity to people who don’t have it now. To me, it’s more about opening up opportunity.”

“Bush policies clearly accelerated economic growth of Americans at the top,” he continued, “but there are global factors at work. If you’re highly educated and have capital, you’ll do great in the age of globalization. But unfortunately that has the effect of stratifying class. It makes it more difficult to go from one class to another. What we want to do is break down that stratification and create more fluidity between classes in America. There are lots of tools for doing that—universal health care, access to college, unionization, dealing with the public school system.”

When his wife, Elizabeth, took the microphone to enthusiastic applause at the fairgrounds, she asked the audience to consider whether the candidates believed in some cause or simply in themselves as a leader. She suggested that the audience fill in the blank in a sentence using each candidate’s name: “Gary Johnson,” for example, wants to be president because he believes _______. And it’s not enough if the blank is filled with the candidate’s name. “John Edwards wants to be president,” she said, “because he believes the opportunities that were available to him should be available to every person.”

The message strikes a classical, if increasingly mythical theme of American mobility, but Edwards’ subtext conveys a strong egalitarian note and a hint of redistributive economics. Ultimately, he seems to understand that the country must become more equal in incomes and other real conditions of life in order to make equality of opportunity meaningful. Edwards also recognizes that creating equality of opportunity first requires redistributing power, which is why his support for unions is so critical for his strategy. Obama learned the same lesson early in his career as a community organizer, but his current campaign often overshadows that message of empowerment with its quest to find common ground in a new, less partisan Washington.

Edwards suggests that a political leader can—and should—take sides in that realignment of power. “What would it be like to have a president who spoke about the Employee Free Choice Act [legislation to make organizing easier that the House passed earlier this year, but Senate Republicans blocked in June]? Who spoke on the right to join a union?” Edwards asked the Change to Win meeting.

Against the American grain

Edwards’ populist message and his appeal to union members and many working- or middle-class voters goes beyond the questions of workplace democracy and equality of opportunity. His approach sets him apart from Hillary Clinton and Obama. But his ideas about a new energy policy, a new patriotism (not tied to war) and a new and respected role for America in the world do not dramatically distinguish him from the other Democratic candidates. Obama’s earlier and more principled opposition to the war in Iraq undercuts Edwards’ currently strong antiwar rhetoric. And so far, he has not sparked the same excitement as Obama’s campaign, raising the question of what might lift him out of his current lagging status in the top tier.

In many ways, Edwards is swimming against the stream, fighting the preconceptions of the mainstream American political media, with his talk about alleviating poverty and building stronger unions. Yet that message is important for the Democrats and the country, whatever happens with the messenger’s candidacy.

“I think the American people need to be reminded that organized labor—unions—helped build the middle class in this country,” Edwards told the Change to Win crowd in Iowa. “We love to talk about the jobs that we’re all worried are leaving the country, but those jobs weren’t good jobs before the unions. The unions made them good jobs with good pay and good benefits and helped build the middle class that made America great and literally made it the country of the 20th century. Now the question is how to make America the country of the 21st century, and you play a crucial role in that.”

Edwards clearly hopes they will help him play a leading role as well.

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• Reader Comments

  John Edwards is not the obvious posterboy for either poverty or unions.  He has no history as an advocate for either cause, either as a lawyer or as a politician. 

  On the contrary, Edwards has done much to impoverish the very people he seeks to represent.  Doctors in North Carolina cite Edwards as a main cause of the rise in their medical malpractice premiums, dating back to when Edwards was winning multi-million dollar awards in medical malpractice suits and driving some doctors out of North Carolina or out of the medical profession altogether.  Higher insurance premiums and fewer medical practitioners both serve to raise the cost and limit the availability of medical services for everyone. 

  So, how did Edwards come to adopt poverty and unions as the signature themes in his presidential campaign?  By process of elimination, obviously.

  Edwards certainly could not run as a rich tort lawyer, because being a tort lawyer and being rich are causes of diapprobation in this political climate.  He had no foreign policy experience.  He had no domestic experience.  He had no work experience.  He had no technical experience.  He evidenced no scientific training or experience, as his emotional courtroom arguments convinced jurors, but were widely discounted and ridiculed by the medical and scientific communities. 

  As improbable and ludicrous as it is, becoming the champion of the poor and of the working man was the only semi-plausible route open to Edwards.  Now, if he can just reconcile his $400 haircuts with the attitudes and aspirations of working people.

  Politics and ambition make strange bedfellows.

  Posted by scorp on Jul 23, 2007 at 10:30 AM

  Doctors pay high medical insurance premiums because they or their colleagues occasionally commit medical malpractice.  Someone fails to perform a necessary test, usually because the health insurance provider won’t cover the entire cost of the procedure, or prescribes a poorly tested medication, and a patient is crippled for life, or dead.  That you would sympathize with the people who commit the malpractice, and against the people who suffer it, betrays your typical preference for the upper middle-class professional over the working-class laborer.  I suppose in your fantasyland of a perfect free-market economy we should all just shut up and be grateful for whatever medical attention we can get from your noble colleagues in the modern medical priesthood.  Unfortunately, the people who actually work for a living are the same people who can least afford to pay for the professional services of those who sit on their fat butts all day and pretend to do likewise.

  Posted by Major Major on Jul 23, 2007 at 6:20 PM

  MM -

  You really need to get yourself better informed.  There is this marvelous Internet system called “Google” which contains all kinds of fascinating information.  I highly recommend it. 

  Edwards earned (?) 50 awards of $1 million or more, and he kept one-third of each award.  Edwards concentrated on psychiatric and cerebral palsey malpractice cases, and the science does not support the arguments that Edwards convinced the jurors of.  Do not end a sentence with a preposition.

  Edwards used a combination of psychic chicanery, witchdoctory, and flim-flamery to make himself very rich, and fifty unfortunate people moderately rich, and left millions of people in North Carolina and across the nation paying out tens or hundreds of dollars for increased insurance costs. 

  And you find virtue in this?  You not only need a strong dose of information and facts, your values could stand some upgrading.

  Posted by scorp on Jul 23, 2007 at 11:39 PM

  Public service is one of the noblest of causes an individual can undertake; a task undertaken by Edwards for which he deserves much credit. Regardless of his history as a trial lawyer and how he made his money, there is no doubt in my mind that he is genuinely in the pursuit of helping America’s poor. He has thus far dedicated and proven himself to a cause which most politicians seem to ignore. He has definitely done the work at the grassroots level

  Posted by DavionRL on Jul 24, 2007 at 12:36 PM

  Davion -

  You are as gullible as a goose.

  In twenty years as a tort lawyer, Edwards made himself rich, and did absolutely nothing to help the poor, except for the fifty people whose cases he won.  Millions of people in North Crolina and across the nation ended up paying higher insurance premiums.

  After becoming rich, Edwards opted for political power, and then he discovered the attractiveness of poverty and unions.  How convenient!

  He (Edwards) has thus far dedicated and proven himself to a cause which most politicians seem to ignore.

  You shitting me, boy?  There was a man named Johnson who was President, who initiated a poverty program, which was a part of his “Great Society” programs.  The poverty programs cost $6 trillion from the 1960s to the 1990s.  The results were a disaster, destroying black families and achieving no beneficial results.  It was so bad, President Clinton cancelled much of the welfare programs. 

  I suspect you genuinely do not know any of this.  If you are that ignorant, what do you expect me to do about it, send you to school?

  Posted by scorp on Jul 24, 2007 at 5:30 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 9 posts.

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