The fact that Edwards’ father lost his job when the mill closed is hardly irrelevant to most people in this country who are victims of the economy and the wholesale shipping of jobs overseas. People losing their homes, their livelihoods, and essentially their entire future is a very real threat these days. The terrorists *might * attack, but people in our nation really are losing everything they’ve worked for.
9/11 was a tragedy, to be sure, and the threat of terrorist attacks continues to be a plausible scenario. But downplaying the devastating effect the economy has had on real people (including Edwards’ parents) in favor of one single day in our history and the possibility of a repeat occurrence is cynical, insensitive and insulting. Believe it or not, the threat of terrorism just might not be the main concern of a family faced with the possibility of losing everything they’ve worked for because of a mishandled economy and outright corporate state-sponsored greed. And John Edwards is the only candidate to have witnessed the effects of this first-hand–why shouldn’t he bring it up?
You know, when I talk around here about being the son of a steelworker, I seldom mention that my dad was in mill management, and was a lot better off than the laborers.
That’s called framing the debate.
John Edwards does the same thing - his dad was mill management as well. But you’ll never hear that in the stump speech.
I loathe when a candidate, knowing they have a flaw (or at least a perceived one), flings the accusation at their opponent in the hopes that, even if they, themselves seem to have that problem, at least so will their opponent. And worse still, hoping it will take the appearance of having said problem completely off of them, while pinning it on their opponent. It’s a disgusting tactic and I’m thoroughly appalled that the Clinton camp is now playing that game.
Up until last night she had my vote if she became the Dem nominee (I’m voting for Obama in the primary). Now, she can suck it, because I would sooner see the Republicans retain the White House than ever punch the hole next to her lying, hypocritical name.
Edwards’ father left the mill on his own-- he claims he was getting passed over by guys with college educations. And he had been in a supervisory role since John Edwards was 3 years old. Boston Globe Link.:
But his shtick went over with you, and you read between to the lines to find something that wasn’t there. That’s another reason I’m sick of hearing about it.
I have to agree that Hillary came across as almost hateful last night. Obama did appear shaky in spots. I think she affected him somewhat, but on the whole he handled himself well. Oddly, their bickering left Edwards looking the best of the lot, in my opinion. But since he’s pretty much out of it, I think the momentum will go to Obama.
That was pretty much my impression, too, although I think Edwards was too marginalized during the debate to have come off looking the best. It’s funny how he shifted from his behavior in the last debate where he was basically carrying Obama’s water in an attempt to paint Hillary as the establishment, status quo candidate.
I don’t see any point in him continuing if he doesn’t win in SC, which seems extremely unlikely. He is running at about 9% in the polls I’ve seen.
No, it strengthens the party. Just like having a two- (or more) party system strengthens the country (assuming, of course, that there’s an actual difference between them, which isn’t always the case).
This hard-fought campaign certainly builds Obama’s chops, if he is the eventual candidate. However, I think Hillary is already made of the same substance as the proverbial “immovable object”. And Edwards seems viable enough to keep them both honest for a while. Yeah, it’s generally good.
You have to understand that when you live in this town, you start to automatically assume that there is much, much more corruption going on than what can be seen with the naked eye. I’m a little afraid for Obama…I want to believe that he is a straight-up guy, but I seriously don’t think you can be a politician in Chicago without getting involved in the corruption. I mean, even if you don’t want to, I really don’t think there’s any avoiding it…nothing gets done without it. And if there is anything dirty to uncover, there is no doubt in my mind that Hillary will find it and use it for all it’s worth. Forget the Republicans…if Hillary can find out anything, there won’t be anything left of Obama for the Republicans to smear.
Yes, the Rezko thing is a real problem for Obama. His decision to run on a platform of hope, freshness, “cleanness,” and being outside of Washington - something that his supporters have promoted ad nauseam - makes this particularly sticky. I think it was a risky campaign slogan because something that could indeed be relatively minor, and in comparison to other political scandals, not much cop at all takes on a larger meaning if you’ve claimed that your political career is one without scandal or blemish.
The Rezko connection isn’t just for the real estate deal, but also for campaign contributions. There’s no reason to suspect that he’s guilty of anything but bad judgment, but it certainly raises doubts about his cleanliness, or worse, his judgment. And there’s no reason not to suspect that similar issues exist in every other candidate’s record, but he’s the one who made this a cornerstone of his campaign. It makes him appear like any other politician.
I’m impressed that that’s the worst they can find. He worked for a firm that also represented a slimeball? He took campaign contributions from someone who later turned out to be a slimeball and gave the money to charities once that was apparent? That’s what they got? For someone out of Chicago? That’s squeaky clean.
Clinton lied when she claimed that Obama was Rezco’s lawyer. Just like Bill lied when he described Obama’s consistent stand against the Iraq war as a “fairy tale.”
I’ve become convinced that Bill and Hillary Clinton are the ‘teflon’ liars. They lie constantly, everyone knows it, and yet it doesn’t hurt them one bit. And not only that, it appears they can accuse others of lying and have it count.
If I hadn’t been so gobsmacked when Hillary began to accuse Obama of inaccuracies and flip-flopping, I’d have laughed out loud. For her to accuse anyone of flip-flopping or being unclear on their positions – or to insinuate they are lying – is tantamount to her husband chiding someone else for cheating on his wife.
But there’s nothing about this underhanded tactic and bald-faced hypocrisy in the news today…just descriptions of the debate as though it was just a good old-fashioned slugfest, and Obama now finds himself on the defensive for [alleged] behavior that, even if true, doesn’t amount to one percent of hers…and yet people continue to vote for her in greater numbers than for anyone else.
The Clinton’s team has obviously figured out that somehow the Clintons can lie and waffle shamelessly to no ill effect, and yet make these same accusations about others and have it stick…at least to a harmful degree.
See, I’m thinking the biggest fairy tale would be the story that Bush told us about Iraq turning us into a mushroom cloud and whatnot. In terms of fantasy, that should vastly trump anything coming from Obama.
I was frustrated by Obama’s lack of discipline in responding to Hillary, and also that he felt the need to mix in some stupid attacks with his legitimate rebuttals. The whole thing about her copying his stimulus plan is really annoying, and I hope his campaign tells him to knock it off. If he had kept it to debunking distortions, he would have done so better, and been able to spend more time on policy.
With those criticisms out the way, I’ll get back to my apologetics…
I don’t know what you mean by “accomodation.” If you mean compromising his ideals, I’d like to see some examples. If you mean bringing people into the fold, I wonder what’s wrong with that. More votes means more success for the policies he believes in.
The notion–put forward in the debate by Clinton–that he’s never fought for any tough, unpopular policies is an ignorant one. To pick a single example from his time in the US Senate, his ethics reform policy fought against both the Democrats and the Republicans. Real ethics reform is one of the most difficult issues to spearhead, for obvious reasons. He was one of only 8 senators to vote against the watered-down version initially passed by the Senate. It takes guts to vote against ethics legislation out of principled desire to see more serious legislation passed. That vote can make you look really bad if you don’t succeed in the end. Fortunately, he and Russ Feingold then led the way on a better bill, against many of their colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and eventually got many of their tougher proposals made into law. The Washington Post, no fan of Obama or Feingold, said of the bill, “No single change would add more to public understanding of how money really operates in Washington.” That’s serious and tough change. What does Hillary have to compare to that?
Hillary’s remarks had nothing to do with the real estate deal. To paraphrase heavily, in response to Obama’s recent “Reagan” comments, she said that she was fighting against those policies, while Obama was doing legal work for “Rezko”, “your donor”, a “slum lord.”
Did you even see the debate? If not, why are you commenting in this thread? To be snarky perhaps?