Edwards Blazed A Progressive Trail
Returning to where he began,
former North Carolina senator John
Edwards ended his presidential campaign yesterday
in New Orleans's
Ninth Ward, imploring his supporters to "not give up on the causes that
we have fought for" in the effort "to
make
the two Americas one." During
his campaign, Edwards laid out policy
areas that will continue to animate the national debate in 2008,
calling "for the United States to reduce its troop presence in Iraq"
and issuing "a
plea for citizen action to
combat poverty, global warming and
America's
reliance on foreign oil." As CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric said
last night, "John Edwards may
have ended his presidential campaign. But what he
started isn't over. He
and his message have left a lasting impression."
PUTTING
POVERTY FIRST: No
issue was more important to Edwards than
poverty and the plight of economic inequality in America, which he
sought to cut
by
a third in a decade and end within 30 years.
In his farewell
speech, Edwards said that he
had obtained pledges from the remaining Democratic candidates, Sen.
Barack Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), to "make
ending poverty and economic inequality central
to their
presidency." Edwards's efforts to guarantee that "his
quest for economic justice would be carried forward"
is emblematic
of the role he played throughout the campaign, boldly
challenging his fellow candidates to take on big issues with
progressive policy prescriptions. The Center for American Progress
shares Edwards's goals, having offered
a plan to cut poverty in half in
ten years. Last week, the House of
Representatives, without objection, approved a resolution by Rep.
Barbara Lee (D-CA), declaring that the House supported the goal
of cutting poverty in half in ten years.
GUARANTEEING
HEALTH CARE: When Edwards unveiled his health
care plan "in early
2007,
it won widespread acclaim for proposing" to "cover
everybody and make health care, once and for all, a
right of citizenship." As The New
Republic's Jonathan Cohn notes, it was "something no
mainstream...presidential contender had proposed since
the early 1990s." Soon after he rolled out his proposal, other
candidates followed suit, embracing his ambitious goal. The American
Prospect's Ezra Klein writes
that "the mixture of a
progressive, transformative health care
plan and a
credible candidate instantly
reshaped the politics of health care."
By proposing a universal
health care plan "long before that of any other
major candidate," Edwards changed the debate so that "any politician
who proposed an overly cautious or incremental plan would lose voters."
As The New York Times's Paul Krugman wrote in Feb. 2007, Edwards's
plan addressed "both
the problem of the uninsured and the waste and inefficiency
of our
fragmented insurance system," which forced other candidates to
"come up with something comparable."
COMBATING CLIMATE CHANGE: Declaring
that "our
generation must be the one that says, 'we
must halt global
warming,'"
Edwards was "the
first presidential candidate to call for reducing U.S. greenhouse-gas
emissions 80 percent by 2050"
and the first to make his "campaign
carbon neutral." Following Edwards's lead, both Clinton
and Obama
made similar commitments to reduce carbon emissions. As he did with
health care, Edwards was the
first candidate to introduce a detailed energy plan.
After Edwards
laid out his plan, the League of Conservation Voters applauded it as "the
most
comprehensive global warming plan
of any presidential candidate to
date"
and encouraged other candidates to follow suit. As The Atlantic's
Matthew Yglesias wrote
yesterday of Edwards, "his climate change proposal is sweeping enough
to meet the standard that scientists tell us is necessary to avert
catastrophe," which might sound "bizarre to hail" as an achievement,
"but the
truth is that" other candidates "weren't on board until Edwards was."
BRINGING
TROOPS HOME: In 2002,
Edwards voted
in the Senate to authorize the use of force
against Iraq, a
vote that he did
not
repudiate as both a presidential
and vice-presidential candidate in
2004, even though he was a critic of the war. But on Nov. 13, 2005,
Edwards
penned an op-ed in the Washington Post definitively declaring that "it
was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002,"
saying, "I was
wrong." As
a presidential candidate, Edwards insisted that "there
is no military
solution to the chaos in Iraq"
and called for "an immediate
withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 troops and a complete withdrawal within
nine to ten months." Unlike New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson,
Edwards never committed to removing all residual troops from Iraq, but
he did take the lead in committing to "withdraw
the American troops who are
training the Iraqi army and police." As
the Center for American Progress's Brian Katulis and Lawrence Korb have
argued, "[T]raining and
equipping Iraqi security forces
risks making Iraq's civil war even bloodier
and
more vicious than it already is today."
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"Prompted by what he called the increasingly vocal hostility of some religions to science, and some scientists to religion, the president of the United Church of Christ has appealed for both groups to communicate more openly and to recognize, as he put it, that each has something to contribute to the other."
CALIFORNIA:
In an "effort to reduce industry's reliance on toxic compounds," state
environmental officials announce increased development of
"green"
chemicals.
NORTH CAROLINA: Duke University
basketball fans bleed blue, live
green.
FLORIDA:
"For the first time in 20 years, a whopping 41.3 percent of Florida
voters went to the polls to vote in a presidential primary."
SCIENCE:
"California,
Connecticut, Illinois,
Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin -- are leading the
world in
financial and political support for stem-cell research."
THINK
PROGRESS:
The right wing attacks U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
Zalmay Khalilzad for not defending John Bolton's honor as "a lack of
testicular fortitude."
THE
BLOTTER: Key 9/11 Commission
staffer held secret
meetings
with Karl Rove and scaled back criticisms of the White House in the
report.
HORSE'S
MOUTH: Video retrospective of
Elizabeth and John Edwards taking on
conservative media stars.
ERIC
BOEHLERT: Fox News is in for a
very rough 2008.
"I would say the security
situation is good."
-- Secretary of State Robert Gates, 1/30/08,
on Afghanistan
VERSUS
"The prospect of again losing significant parts of Afghanistan
to the forces of Islamic extremists has moved from the improbable to
the possible."
--
Report from ret. Gen. James
Jones and former U.N. ambassador Thomas Picker, 1/31/08
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