Edwards: "we're going to have to take on a system that's rigged and corrupt and doesn't work"

[babylonsister]

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/29/435861.aspx

From NBC/NJ’s Tricia Miller
When he filed for the New Hampshire primary this morning, Edwards signed “One America” on the poster signed by all the candidates in the Secretary of State’s office. A crowd of supporters chanted his name in the hallway leading into the media-packed office. He first signed the placard on the legendary desk, then moved to a table in the back office to take reporters' questions.

"What I have to say to New Hampshire primary voters is, if they want to ensure that, in fact, we do what 20 generations have done before us and that we meet the great moral test of our generation, we're going to have to take on a system that's rigged and corrupt and doesn't work," he said in response to a question about the impression that the Democratic nomination is a two-way race.

He said Americans voted not necessarily for Democrats but for change in 2006.

"What Bush has done and what the Republican leadership has done is not what we want to see," he said. "We want to see something different. If we want to continue the success that began in November 2006 it will have to be a change candidate in November of 2008. If it's not, if it's an establishment, status quo candidate, we're going backward, not forward, and ... there's a very good chance the American people will reject us. We must be a party and we must have a candidate that believes in real and fundamental change.”

Edwards next gives a speech expected to frame what his campaign will focus on through the primary at noon in Manchester.

[SteelPenguin]

1. Edwards is winning me over

I initially started in the Obama camp, left that to be more undecided and unenthralled with the candidates, but lately I'm listening more to Edwards. I was thinking to myself that what we needed this year was a Howard Dean. Someone who was going to tell it like it is, and be a populist, but not a panderer. Edwards feels the closest to that kind of candidate to me this time around. I'm not commited yet, but I'm coming close to chooseing Edwards as my candidate.

Which of course is usually the kiss of death as since Tsongas none of my primary choices ever get the nom.

[acmavm]

2. Edwards is gonna be the big surprise in the primaries.

Don't anybody write him off.

[AndyA]

3. Edwards is truly the only one promoting a change from the norm.

No lobbyist money and public financing tells me he means what he says.

We must get away from a government run by whoever has the most money, which is normally big business. And we can all see what allowing big business the run of the White House the past 7 years has done for us.

It will take major change to break away from this.

Edwards is the guy to do it in my book.

[Froward69]

5. Thats a mighty bold statement

I believe the same from my guy.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?Ind=K01

[AndyA]

10. I guess I missed the point of your link.

Lawyers and law firms shouldn't donate?

Biden was on there too, for almost 2 million... :shrug:

[Hieronymus]

13. Yes, and we so need that change. Hillary is more of the same.

[MGKrebs]

16. I still have trouble understanding this anti-lobbyist thing.

Edwards has several lobbyists as advisors. If the point of not taking lobbyist money is to reduce their influence, why would he cut out the middleman and just accept their influence directly?

Is the deal that he will listen to their advice but not take their campaign contributions? What sense does that make?
Why does Edwards not trust himself enough to take lobbyist money without feeling beholden to them?
Can Edwards not see that many lobbyists actually DO represent the interests of the people?

This seems like a silly, useless gesture that I wish he would abandon, or else it's going to seem to many that he isn't sophisticated enough to make complex decisions, and doesn't even trust his own self-discipline and willpower.

[spooky3]

20. Could you name these lobbyists and their affiliations?

There seems to me to be a big difference between asking someone to advise you (especially if you are paying them) versus your being dependent on their campaign contributions. In the former you are saying that they may have some useful information but you are not only free to reject their advice, if you pay them, you have power over them. You have no obligation to do what they want. In the latter, they may believe they are getting a quid pro quo--they help you get elected now and you'll help them later. If you don't, they'll take their money elsewhere. Therefore you need to be appealing to their interests to attract their $, even if you don't have an implicit obligation.

[MGKrebs]

21. Here's a couple, but I don't think we should get too

distracted by who they are or their resume. To me, the point is that candidates don't have to let lobbyists have any extra influence over them if they don't wish to.

If Edwards won't take their money at all, by your logic, won't they just go support somebody else with their money anyway? And paying them may be even worse- they're going to tend to say what the candidate wants to hear rather than the truth. It just becomes P.R.


Gen. Paul J. Kern, former Army Materiel Command commander who directed the internal investigation into the abuses at Abu Ghraib and now a lobbyist with the Cohen Group.

Maj. Gen. Allen Youngman, former Kentucky adjutant general and now a defense lobbyist with American Business Development Group

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/the-war-over-the-wonks.html

[spooky3]

22. Thanks for the names.

I'm not sure how your conclusion follows from my "logic." But to offer one answer to your question, they may indeed go to someone else with their money, but why would Edwards' letting them talk to him make any difference in whether they give someone else their money, and how does that incur any debt or obligation for him to repay them if he's elected? It doesn't.

Your logic is confusing in your assertion about how it's worse if he is paying them. If you are paying someone to tell you what you want to hear, exactly what influence do those people have over you? Absolutely none.

Edwards should talk to and listen to whoever he wants to. Somehow I think he is intelligent enough to decide what to do with inputs rather than to be dictated to by it. It's completely different to talk to people versus to take large contributions that could be seen as quid pro quo.

You're missing Edwards' point altogether, which is that his objection is to the fact that politicians may feel an obligation due to large contributions to campaigns, to repay favors after election. This power-dependency condition (or borderline bribery) simply is not present in any of your examples.

[MGKrebs]

24. But it strikes me as a sign of weakness.

Edwards seems to be saying "I don't have the willpower to resist the powerful lobbyists, so therefore none of the other candidates are strong enough to resist them either".

Edwards is painting with far too broad a brush to reject all lobbyist money. There are many good lobbies, and many good lobbyists. If he wants to avoid big corporate donations, he should say so and define his criteria. To ban all of this money shows a lack of sophistications and comprehension.

Or,

This is all just campaign rhetoric, which would be OK except that once again he is presenting himself one way and acting the other. He repeatedly presents himself as "honest" and uses words like "corrupt" when referring to Washington insiders. He decries pandering and hypocrisy but is no better.

It assumes that all corporations are bad. It assumes that all politicians cannot resist lobbyist influence. It ignores the difference between campaign contributions and perks to legislators. It ignores the similarity between cash and in-kind contributions. If Edwards can't even resist lobbyist pressure, how the hell is he going to resist Vladimir Putin?

[jaksavage]

4. Hope he has great security. nt

[goodgd_yall]

9. I take it you mean

trying to change the system as is, is going to stir up some strong opposition. You're right, but I hope you're wrong about the dire result.

[loudsue]

6. I'm going with Edwards all the way.

He's the Kucinich alternative for what we really need right now. The media & the right wing are going to fight him with every smear they've got. They're going to blow up every little thing out of proportion to disenfranchize his base...twisting things like they did his partial investment in a questionable company. Hell, even I don't know what holdings my mutual funds have, all the time, because they can buy & sell whatever the hell they want, any time they want. (That's why they're a mutual fund, and not a stock. )

Edwards will be fought hard by the DLC, because his IS a populist agenda, and the DLC hates it. Hillary will bring out all the big guns when she sees Edwards gaining support of primary voters. Then, we have the electronic voting machines.

We have a MAJOR uphill battle, not just to get him elected in the primaries, but to see him through the general election, and then we'll have to fight like hell for the next 4 to 8 years. It's a battle where all the marbles are at stake.

Either we're going to clean up this country, or we're not. And if we don't, we're going straight to the bottom.

Is Edwards as liberal as I am? Not by a country mile. But he's the MOST honest, sincere candidate we have going besides Kucinich. I know Kerry, Kennedy & Boxer will support Edwards from the Senate side, and the Black Caucus will eventually support him from the house side. That's a start. But most of it will be up to us, up to Howard Dean and his 50-state strategy, and we'll eventually get rid of all the corporatist dems that haunt our party.

This is war. But it's our country, and it's a war worth fighting.

[AmBlue]

15. I think we've got us a "Let's Roll" moment....

Seriously. This passle of corporatists are threatening everything that we as Americans believe in, and everything this country was founded on.

Let the cheer ring out, "....Of the People, By the People, and For the People." That is what America was, and can be once again if we will all lock arms and stand together.

Let's take our America back now.

:kick:

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[Nutmegger]

8. Edwards 2008!!!

:thumbsup::applause::kick:

[earth mom]

11. To do this, Edwards must revoke Corporate personhood. It's the only way to get rid of the corruption

That said, Edwards is sounding better and better.

If I can't have Gore.....

[Yael]

12. Nice to see him stumping for the primaries

as opposed to overlooking the competition and going straight for the GE tactics.

Nice job, Senator!

[smalll]

14. "... because I'm not winning!" /nt

[MethuenProgressive]

17. For his sake, I hope they stage this speech better than the last NH one on C-Span

They had his back to the street, where in full view of the camera several hundred people walked by on the sidewalk just a few feet away from him, ignoring him and all the cameras completely.

[Ninga]

18. You do, really?

[MethuenProgressive]

19. Yup. As much as I wanted Obama and Clinton to ditch McClurkin and Berger.

And it's be nice if Barack would leave out his "Fired Up!" rap, if Hillary would stop telling us about the 95 year old ladies, and if Edwards would just once make a speech that didn't mention his dead son and his wife's cancer.

[penguin7]

23. Is he talking about the legal system?