John Edwards

Our featured Presidential candidate for today is former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, a Democrat.

Like a lot of Americans, I first heard of John Edwards in 2004. For a while, I didn't know who all was running on the Democratic side, nor did I really care, since I was planning to vote for Bush anyway. I picked up Edwards on my radar screen when I was listening to Sean Hannity's radio program. Hannity was interviewing Newt Gingrich, and he asked him which Democratic candidate would be the hardest for Bush to beat. Gingrich answered Edwards, since he was a good speaker, charismatic, and nice looking.

I didn't have a television in those days, so I was limited in my ability to evaluate Newt's claim. I saw Edwards' picture in the newspaper, and he looked all right, not that I'm the best judge of men's looks. But there were some nice-looking women at my school who thought Edwards was "cute." Unlike with Bill Clinton, I didn't particularly mind women swooning over Edwards, since he was faithful to his wife and appeared to be a fairly decent guy. The first time I heard him speak was on the radio, when I was listening to the Democratic National Convention on 550 AM, the right-wing station in New York. He was an okay speaker. He had a Southern charm about him, and he brought up his working class background (which was the first of many times).

As far as his positions were concerned, I heard somewhere that he was against gun control, which I thought was pretty good for a Democrat. Rush Limbaugh did a good job portraying him as uninformed, however, when he played a clip of Edwards discussing gay marriage in a debate. Edwards said that he was against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and wanted the states to decide on gay marriage. Rush aptly noted, "Well, that's what DOMA does! It allows the states to decide. Does Edwards even know what DOMA is?"

Edwards has gotten a lot of heat from the right for his "two Americas" motif. "Whenever I see John Edwards say that on TV, I want to throw my remote at it!" Mitt Romney says. "There is only one America." I wish that people would address Edwards' point, however. Edwards is saying that there are people who struggle economically, and there are people who are wealthy. Well, then again, I guess the right does address that point: they dismiss it as class warfare. Interestingly, however, I have a 1998 book by Pat Buchanan (The Great Betrayal) with a chapter entitled "The Two Americas." I wonder if Edwards has ever given Pat credit for that phrase.

Will Edwards' plans help the America that struggles--the poor and the middle class? He has good ideas, such as tax credits for college tuition and children. He also proposes to give the poor housing vouchers instead on focusing on federal housing projects, a plan that brings to mind Jack Kemp. But many of his ideas reflect a liberal mentality that may do more harm than good. He wants to raise taxes on the rich, which can result in businesses passing on higher costs to consumers. He's against drilling for oil in Alaska, which means continuing the oil shortage that afflicts the poor and the middle class (and, according to John Edwards on the Issues, he also voted "YES on defunding renewable and solar energy," which makes me wonder what exactly he wants as America's power source). He supports raising the minimum wage, which could result in higher prices and fewer jobs. Plus, most of the people who earn it are not even at the poverty level (see here)!

He has a health care plan that guarantees universal coverage. His plan gives me some food for thought, since it sets the government in competition with private providers, and a little competition never hurt anyone (though, ironically, Edwards does not apply this same logic to the school choice debate). But he has stated his hope that the plan will lead to a single-payer system. So maybe he plans to run the private providers out of business before he gives us what Canada's got. As a former trial lawyer who has presided over multi-million dollar lawsuits (some of them legitimate), he is not really interested in tort reform. He's against getting money from lobbyists, but he thinks money from trial lawyers is okay because they don't influence policy. Well, they sure influence health care costs!

And what exactly is his experience? He served one term in the Senate, and I can't even find anything significant that he did, something that Obama's been quick to point out. And Cheney remarked in 2004 that Edwards had the nickname "Senator Gone" because of his number of Senate absences. So I'm not sure why he thinks he's qualified to be President. He mentions his working class parents and the tragedies his family has experienced, and he deserves admiration for his accomplishments as well as compassion. But these things by themselves do not qualify someone for America's highest office, do they? A person needs some kind of record.

So, surprise, surprise, I won't be voting for him. I didn't even want to write about him today, but I felt that I had to because the Iowa caucus is so close. Hope you enjoyed it!