Well, it appears the influx of impassioned Edwards diaries yesterday, including my own have failed to convince anyone that we are doing what we believe in. Today, this site is ripe with yet more people telling me I should vote against my conscience and throw my support behind a candidate who hasn't earned my support. Thats right, HASN'T EARNED MY SUPPORT!!! I have never supported centerist talking points for our party and I never will!!
I mean, people are trying to tell me I should support the only Progressive candidate in this race who has a chance? Which one is that? The one who has attacked Social Security? The one who accepts the Bush Administration propoganda ploy of a "Global War on Terror"? The one who voted to outsource more American middle-class jobs with his Peru Free Trade Agreement vote? Or the one who wants to give the insurance companies that kill by spreadsheet a seat at the table? The one who wants to make sure that insurance companies can continue to allow people like me to slip between the cracks, and not get the healthcare I desperately need?
I am sorry so many people seem to be buying into the MSM's framing of this race. That is your problem, not mine. Have you not seen enough in the last few years to know that the MSM is just as corporate controlled as the HMOs, Big Oil, and Big Insurance? The same people that assured a man lived almost his whole life with a cleft pallate, and the same ones that are insuring that I get to walk around with a partially broken thumb because I am the working poor?
Where is the Progressivism or the hope in that for me? I have studied your candidate thoroughly, and to be quite frank with you, I am not impressed. Sure, he may have been Progressive at one time, but in this campaign in my view he is running to the right of even Hillary Clinton!! I know all of you have gleefully pulled up Edwards mistakes from the past, and to that I have always answered the same way. The way I answer when you tell me that your candidate opposed the war from the start, yet continues to fund it.
I say, the past is the past!! I have made a lot of mistakes in the past too!! If you would have seen me 15-20 years ago, I was a train-wreck!! I woke up, grew up, and now am desperately searching for redemption, and working full-time, going to college full-time, and desperately trying to redeem my wasted years by doing some good for this country, the world and the people I love. Twenty years ago, I could've cared less about any of that, but does that mean that I don't now?
Edwards has made mistakes, and his whole campaign this time has been centered around the fact that he realizes his mistakes and wants to redeem himself by doing what is right. He has boldly led with Progressive vision and pulled Obama and Clinton back towards the rest of us while they are desperately trying to run centerist campaigns. You may think that Edwards past was wrong and you are entitled to your opinion. Just remember, Edwards isn't the only candidate whose current rhetoric doesn't match his past. If the others were Progressive in the past, then their centerist rhetoric now surely doesn't match that. Edwards has learned bitter lessons from his past, and it has made him a much better Democrat because of it. It has made him a Progressive Democrat, determined that Americans like me are finally going to have a real voice in this process!!! And some people want to shallowly and selfishly tell me I should walk away from that? Dream on!!! Maybe you need to look at who you are supporting and why, and walk away from that!!!
The way I see it is Obama is not ready. I said that before he ran and people were talking about him running. I still say it now. The fact that he is walking away from his roots and embracing the centerist advisors and the rhetoric they provide only re-enforces that belief. He is in the process of learning the hard lessons that John Edwards has already learned. The best thing for him to do is run second on a ticket with John Edwards, a ticket that would win and give him the wake-up call he needs to be a good President.
Now, what I have said here is going to make a lot of people mad. Sometimes people need to be mad. Before you come into this diary cursing me like a dog and TRing every comment I make, you need to consider the fact that this is America and I am every bit as much entitled to my opinion and my vote as you are. My opinion is there is only one "change" candidate in this race, and their is only one candidate running on Progressive policies and the ideals this party was founded on, and not the fantasy cooked up by centerist hack advisors that we cannot win on our ideals. Like it or not, that candidate is John Edwards and I suggest you get on board. We are quickly losing our window for real change in this country.
But since this message seems to be falling on deaf ears, Maybe if I detail what has made me believe this is so, finally Edwards supporters will be able to get some peace, and exercise our god-given right to our opinion and our vote.
When myself, and other Edwards supporters say Edwards has consistently led on the issues and driven the debate, this is not opinion. IT IS FACT!!! Starting with the most pressing domestic need for millions of Americans, healthcare. It seems so long ago when Edwards released his healthcare plan, because it was!!!! To refresh your memory, here it is:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
Of course, the MSM didn't tell you that this plan was largely adopted by both candidates later, after of course it was watered down with centerism.
Of course it was followed very closely by a Bold New Energy Plan that has recieved praise by environmentalists everywhere, but unsurprisingly no play in the MSM:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
All while "Progressive" candidates were endorsing Nuclear power and Coal-to-Fuel. However, John Edwards took bold, brave, Progressive stances!!!
Before the problem had started to get national attention, Edwards was right there for the American homeowner by fighting against Predatory Lenders, who would soon create a crisis for our economy with mass foreclosures:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
Long before other candidate even thought about it, Edwards was speaking on building our Rural communities, who have suffered greatly from the horrible trade deals voted yes to by other "Progressives":
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
He was leading the fight against more of these deals:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
Most importantly, while other leading candidates foolishly embraced the propoganda ploy that is Bush and Cheney's "War on Terror", Edwards staked out a bold, Progessive position which validated what true Progressive were trying to say, but couldn't because if we did we were branded as un-American:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
At the first debate when Obama raised his hand that he believed in the "War on Terror" framing just as Clinton did, I knew that he had sold out to centerism and presented absolutely no alternative to Clinton.
But Edwards not only shed the propoganda, he came out with a REAL plan on Terrorism that doesn't endorse a Bush/Cheney view of the world:
http://www.johnedwards.com/...
I could state more and more instances where John Edwards gas driven the debate and staked out the only Progressive stances in this primary. This diary is getting long however.
The point I am making is that I only see ONE truly Progressive candidate in this race and it is John Edwards. I see Obama and Clinton as almost identical. Instead of begging me to give my vote away to a candidate who has not earned it, why don't you write your candidate and beg for him to drop the centerist rhetoric and reach out to me? I definately won't give him my support as long as I see no difference between he and Clinton. After all, a Clinton Administration would bring people I trust such as Wes Clark, Madeline Albright, Bill Clinton, and James Carville back to Washington. While I might not agree with them all the time, I know they know how to run the Executive Branch.
So please, give the Ralph Nader talk a rest. Throwing our primary to Clinton is nothing like giving the Presidency to George W. Bush. However, blaming Nader for the victory of Bush in 2000 is lunacy anyway. Gore could have won that election, but listening to centerists and coming up with the same centerist rhetoric Obama now is embracing made what should have been a landslide close enough to steal. Gore could've stuck to his guns like Edwards supporters now are, and won easily.
I have learned the lessons of the past, and you should too. If we insist on running a Republican-light centerist campaign we will lose. This is not 1992. When we refuse to run on our ideals, the American voters see us as cowards, and punish us for not giving them a true choice. I for one, cannot blame them.
So before you yet again compare the candidacy of John Edwards to Ralph Nader consider this. Yes, you are right, there is only one truly Progressive candidate in this race and there is one Democrat who can win in a landslide this November against any Republican. Whether you or the MSM wants to admit it or not that candidate is John Edwards. If you will not wake up and realize that, please at least stop badgering those of us who do. We think you should be joining us, not the other way around.
As for me, these colors don't run and they don't change easily. I have seen absolutely nothing in this primary that makes me think that I am wrong, and that someone else represents my views better than John Edwards. If I gave up on what I believed in so easily, I would be nothing but a coward. Besides, if I am gonna die, I choose to die with my boots on!!