The Estrogen Factor: Did It Eclipse the Edwards' Message of Eliminating Poverty? [View All]

[Samantha]

I think I will be sitting out the debate tonight because I feel I know who is already the true loser in this campaign. It will not be Obama or Clinton but rather the 200 people who slept under that bridge in New Orleans last night that Edwards so poignantly spotlighted during his words of withdrawal. Perhaps the only relevant poll from this moment on would be one asking them, and those similarly situated, what is the most relevant issue in the 2008 Presidential debate. But their response to a poll question such as this will not be heard because the question will not be asked. Their standard bearer has withdrawn from the race.

Why is that? What could be more important than the issue of eliminating poverty to political progressives? Bookmarking this campaign in the pages of history books because a woman prevailed? Somehow weighing on one hand that latter quest does not rise to the weight of importance formerly held in the right hand of the Edwards’ campaign – addressing and eliminating the impoverished conditions in the lives of those disadvantaged Americans who look to each new day without enough food to eat, enough heat to warm them in the cold of the winter, and proper clothing with which to cloak themselves.

I walk not in the shoes of those people so I cannot presume to speak for them, but the spotlight on their quest to survive has been eclipsed in this political debate by the prominence of the promotion of the Estrogen Factor into our political discourse. And that’s almost too sad of a turn of political events to disappear before tonight’s Democratic debates begin.

But if the message carrier for the poor among us, a man who took pride in constantly reminding us he was the son of a mill worker, no longer has access to a microphone to broadcast their plight and enlist our help to assuage their impoverished plight, what can we do to help carry forth the message from this moment on?

The answer to this question will evoke different responses from those who ask it of themselves. If the burden is upon us to respond, here’s my answer, speaking only for myself: we must resolve to not allow those who continue in this race for the chair in the Oval Office to forget about them, for it is they, the impoverished among us, who are the true losers as the debates on both sides in this Presidential primary season continue.

And so when the words of those who prefer to discuss the question, is it time to put a woman in the White House, waft across the airwaves henceforth, or the alternate question, Is America Ready For A Black President, perhaps our true legitimate response to both of these questions should be to change the conversation: what will either of these two candidates do for the 200 people living under that New Orleans bridge should he or she prevail.

So, as a politically progressive woman who believes giving weight to either the Estrogen Factor or the Race Factor should not trump releasing the chains of poverty off the hands and feet of Black, White, Latino, and all other human beings living under bridges tonight, I ask you to consider what will you do in that quest.

What is your response?