Edwards times speech to Maytag closing

[JohnLocke]

Edwards times speech to Maytag closing
By John McCormick
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DES MOINES – Doug Bishop is a big, burly man who once worked on a factory assembly line. He's not the sort you would expect to be on the brink of tears when speaking in front of a room full of people.

But there he was this morning, on stage at a small, downtown theater, choking back his emotions. Bishop is not alone.

For many, this is an emotional week in Iowa, as one of the state's trademark companies, Maytag Corp., closed its last production line Thursday in nearby Newton, sending home 550 workers for the last time.

The closing means that for the first time in 114 years Maytag products will no longer be produced in the company's longtime home. Whirlpool Corp., which purchased the company for $2.6 billion last year, closed the plant.

Bishop, now the treasurer of Jasper County, Iowa, introduced former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards for a smartly timed economic policy speech.

The plant's closing gave Edwards yet another chance to hammer home his populist message, reaching back to his roots as the son of a mill worker.

Bishop, dressed in black to mourn the plant's closing, spoke about when he first met Edwards in 2004, when he was Sen. John Kerry's running mate. He said he would never forget what Edwards said to his young son that day.

"'I'm going to keep fighting for your daddy's job,'" Bishop recalled Edwards saying, as he knelt on his knee to talk to the boy. "'I promise you that.'"

With that warm-up act, Edwards launched into a policy speech that criticized executive pay and the loss of worker benefits.

He called for universal retirement savings accounts that would follow workers from job to job, universal health care, stronger corporate responsibility laws and greater consumer protections.

Edwards also pledged to create new "Get Ahead" credits where the government would match dollar-for-dollar, up to $500 in savings a year. He later said he would pay for the program by more aggressively collecting capital gains taxes and by raising capital gains rates for those who earn more than $250,000 a year.

While speaking to reporters after his speech, Edwards was asked how his approach to the plight of the middle class differs from that of Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

"I don't talk about this from an abstract, academic perspective," Edwards said. "It's something I've lived."

During his speech, Edwards repeatedly reached into the past to point to times of greater fairness for workers.

"American companies used to have a strong sense of obligation both to their workers and to America's well-being," he said. "Henry Ford knew that his company would prosper only if his own workers earned enough to actually buy the Fords that were being produced."

Edwards also pointed to a more modern CEO as a role model: Jim Sinegal, the founder and CEO of Costco, someone he described as a longtime friend and supporter.

He then quoted Sinegal: "'You get what you pay for. If you hire good people, pay them good wages and provide good jobs and careers, good things will happen to your business.'"

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/10/edwards_times_speech_to_maytag.html

[Froward69]

1. Pulling on the heart strings

Do you really buy his used car, borrowed rhetoric?:nopity: :cry: :nopity: :evilfrown:

[jillan]

2. Exactly. What a great photo-op.

[Divine Discontent]

6. people are losing their jobs every day due to B*sh's economic

choices, it is not a BAD and political-only motivated move to give a damn, ya know?

[Froward69]

10. exactly

but preying on these peoples' imposed misfortune... tasteless and self serving. To garner votes.

[Divine Discontent]

12. I call it caring and he's fought for the regular man

his whole life, not for the corporations, so I think you're not giving him any credit for caring, and really, he is after all RUNNING for president, he's going to make many appearances with people who have had misfortune come to them. I understand your point, but I don't believe it's fair to cast it on him, totally. His heart is in the right place, even though his goal is to show America the suffering under the B*sh adm., so he will be voted in... regardless, I hope he's our nom, and you'll vote for him, like will vote for Biden if he's the nom (he's my backup right now for those who are running)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. The maytag despair man

[Nutmegger]

9. I'll take his so-called "rhetoric" any day.

Will I buy his "used car"? You betcha. Any damn day of the week. John Edwards has proven himself to me.

[illinoisprogressive]

3. i really like Edwards. i support obama but, I also like this guy, too.

[robcon]

4. Maytag's reputation has been shredded.

I have a friend in the appliance business. He tries to unsell Maytag appliances to any customers who want them, because the quality is so poor. He has more guarantee problems with Maytag than with any other brand.

[Froward69]

5. maytag used to be top tier

not anymore.

[robcon]

8. It's amazing to me that a manufacturer like that has fallen so far.

n/t

[Froward69]

11. Fascist Globalization

[robcon]

14. Maytag fell because it DIDN'T globalize.

It's a moribund company because companies like GE and have globalized sourcing, and a company like LG came up with better, more innovative models of appliances. Meanwhile all Maytag has done since it was bought by Whirlpool is lowered quality to keep its production lines "competitive" on price, and has produced some me-too vaccuum cleaners that don't sell well.

It's the crapification of a once-great consumer brand.

[AdHocSolver]

13. Edwards goals of disconnecting health care and retirement savings from jobs and increasing...

capital gains taxes on incomes over $250,000 shows that he really understands what is required to break the lock that corporations have on people's lives, and to level the playing field so as to stop the widening gap in income between the corporate elite and the rest of us.

Not only does Edwards understand what is in play here, but he seems to be the only candidate who is talking about it, or discussing what policies should be implemented to correct these problems. In "bits and pieces", Edwards is developing a platform for reform that could actually reverse the damage done by Bush/Cheney (which actually started with Reagan).