What OTHER candidate has EVER stood up to BIG $$ like this? John Edwards on THIS WEEK:

[BigBearJohn]

"These people have a disproportionate influence on the way the government works and they are stopping progress and let me be specific. We are talking about this too generically. Drug companies/insurance companies have killed healthcare reform in America. Oil companies have kept us from protecting the environment by attacking global warming. The biggest multi-national corporations have set up a trade system and a set of tax laws that benefit them and profit them but the middle class and working people are struggling as a result. That is wrong and I want to be the president who fights for the middle class, fights for working people, the kind of people I grew up with."

"It is not my job to sit and negotiate with insurance company lobbyists. This young woman who lost her life, Nataline Sarkisyan, because her insurance company, one of the largest in America, would not pay for a liver transplant operation, even though she had insurance, they would not pay for it. And people say to me as their president they want me to sit at a table and negotiate with these people? I mean, they're the problem, they're not the solution. And my job is to stand up for the American people against them."

"I have no intention of going and fighting with politicians. I should work with Congress and I will do that as president. It's my job to unify the American people and galvanize them behind this cause, but there is a fight with these very powerful entrenched interests."

(I transcribed these quotes from an interview on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." )


On edit, adding chart from Meet the Press.

MSNBC McClatch Poll Jan 2-4

New Hampshire Democratic Presidential Primary (January 8 2008)

Favorable Unfavorable

   77%              8%        Obama
   64%             19%       Edwards
   62%              21%      Clinton

[Triana]

1. Not...

..one

(except maybe Kucinich)

[Xipe Totec]

2. FDR, JFK, Harrison...

Let's not overstate our case shall we?

[salin]

3. In 1992, Didn't Jerry Brown take some kind of stand - was trying to get

lots of small donations from folks - before the ease of the internet.

[maddiejoan]

4. Andrew Jackson?

[OzarkDem]

5. FDR

[fenriswolf]

6. kucinich, in cleveland while he was mayor.

only he did it with deeds, but those are good quotes coming from edwards, i like it.

[John Q. Citizen]

7. Kucincinh and he was first and better. No hedge fund ties....

[MadHound]

8. Umm, that would be Dennis Kucinich,

The same DK that Edwards has nicked most of his positions from. Unlike Edwards however, DK doesn't have any corporate money tying him to the legal or financial sectors.

[creeksneakers2]

9. Every politician I've ever seen in my life said he's fighting for

the working guy. They all say they stand up to special interests.