Edwards hops 'Main Street Express'
DES MOINES -- John Edwards today kicked off an eight-day tour of Iowa aboard his "Main Street Express" bus, hoping Democrats in this hotly contested state will be there for him once again on caucus night. Edwards, who placed a strong second here in 2004, knows that he must do well in Iowa -- some analysts believe he must win it -- or face elimination.
He launched the tour from a Des Moines convention center, where a couple hundred union members and other supporters saw him off. The stakes in the election, he said, couldn't be higher.
"You are the guardians of what kind of human being we'll have as the next president of the United States," Edwards said, casting himself as the honest, forthright Democrat who will return the government to the people. "Brothers and sisters, it is time to take this democracy back!"
After union activists interrupted his speech with a "President Edwards" chant, Edwards had harsh, if indirect, criticism of the Clinton administration for failing on universal health care, which he said America badly needed, but producing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he said America did not need.
"He has a vision. He can get it through," said Ken Talcott, 61, a pediatrician from Des Moines. "It's the right vision."
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Edwards is against big business, lobbyists etc, but how can he get his ideas THROUGH Congress when lobbyists etc still control it? What's his plan for circumventing their continuing influence on Congresspeople?
Where's the proof Edwards can put his ideas into actions? I can't think of a single issue Edwards has spearheaded or led through all the political machinatios to success. He never even held any office, to include PTA, before his relatively easy win against NC's Forbes-dubbed "Senator For Sale", then abandoned his constituents and senatorial duties to campaign for himself, then when losing, has done nothing to impact or help his own state.
Teddy Roosevelt (a Republican) is the last person I can remember to make any significant dent int the corporate control structure. Yet he is notably absent from the list of 'populists'. That's because he was more of an insider--someone who knew how to play the game, and had enough knowledge and influence to change it. Edwards has none of that.
As a North Carolinians and Independent I supported Edwards the first time but no more