It looks like he's likely to wind up in second. Certainly, I hope he hands on to it, both for the blow it'll do to Hillary Clinton's chances and also because he deserves to do well. It's very hard to see how his candidacy can stay viable without an Iowa win, but he's had a huge -- and entirely positive -- impact on the race.
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Edwards in Second
03 Jan 2008 10:01 pm
Comments (26)
The best possible news. It's like making a win, place, and show bet at the track and coming in the money on all three.
I think his effect has been positive in that he tried to get the field to adopt his anti-business demagoging and they all refused. Edwards' hatemongering has been firmly repudiated.
if only Edwards would stike a deal, throw support to Obama, and then ride second again
If by repudiated you mean warmly welcomed vaulting a southerner to 2nd place in Iowa, you are correct.
Edwards and Obama do carry different parts of the electorate, but they do have more overlap than either of them and Clinton, I think. The fact they're first and second also repudiates Clinton more than anything.
Edwards' hatemongering has been firmly repudiated.
Every year I get less and less interested in policy and more and more interested in what would motivate people to bother. I'm really trying to imagine someone who of all the things in the world to get pissy about would be riled up by the poor, victimized CEO's of the world.
Please go away Hillary.
Please go away Hillary.
Please go away Hillary.
It's tough because I respect Edwards a great deal and I really appreciate his policy stances. I just feel like Democrats have to take this opportunity and try to achieve their Ronald Reagan, an inspirational figure, and Obama seems to offer that. And his politics aren't that far from Edwards anyway. I just want him to quit sniping at unions and equivocating on health care.
Are you saying it's okay to spread hate against the privileged?
...Edwards' hatemongering has been firmly repudiated.
Posted by Adam Herman
Really? For a really close 2nd, which leads the previously "inevitable," establishment-backed, and incredibly well-funded Clinton? Similarly what message has been delivered to Richardson, Biden, Dodd, Kucinich, and Gravel? All "hate-mongers"? There's Obama the positive and everyone else are "hate-mongers"?
Are you saying it's okay to spread hate against the privileged?
He's not doing that - he is privileged himself.
Edwards just wrapped up his speech. The cool thing about it, and about him, is that it's pretty clear that he's not as intent on winning as he is on seeing America turn around. He didn't talk about winning or losing or coming in second. It's not all about him or this stupid process. Kinda cool.
Let's see if Hillary can bullshit her way through her speech...
There's Bill with his goddamn thumb. Yay.
You know, Herman is sort of right from a certain, Ayn Randian point of view. Either you are for the rich, and everything that's truly wonderful about that most magnificent of systems (what we call capitalism), or you are for the poor, in which case you must be an evil and jealous hater of all the successful people.
Dude, don't swallow the bullshit position story. As far as delegates go this is a three-way tie. As far as percentages go it's a tie for second. Your commitment to honesty in reporting should make you reject a second/third place split based on whose corner of the room was better heated.
I'm sick and tired of a lot of the ultra-rich making terribly stupid decisions based on nothing more than moronic short-term logic and horrendously vapid ideology, and it's about time someone aimed to return a rational set of regulations and incentives so that our country's wealthiest people are less frequently encouraged to support deranged and sociopathic policies and candidates.
Just like some indulgent parents may think it's kind to let your extremely young children eat nothing but the candy and junk foods they enjoy, others see that there is a benefit in guidance and regulations.
It's about time the ultra-rich stopped demanding that they be allowed all the candy and junk food they want all the time until they start complaining about how their tummy aches and why do their teeth hurt, etc.
Bunch of whiny babies. Hmmph.
As a resident of SC and an Edwards supporter in 2004, I said to myself that Edwards had to win Iowa to win my vote. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I still think Edwards has the right ideas on the issues, but I no longer think he has a realistic chance to win the nomination. I think Matt is correct that Edwards, more than any of candidates, has driven the Democratic debate. For that I am grateful to him.
Normally, I would vote my convictions and ride with Edwards over the cliff, but I like Obama and hate Clinton. I like Obama much more than I ever liked Kerry. Clinton has so many negatives that I feel I must vote strategically to keep her from getting the nomination. I think Obama is going to get a big bump out of Iowa from anti-Hillary Democrats and Independents.
THe Democratic Party has been quite pro-poor and quite pro-business for a very long time. The two are not in opposition, in fact I'd say they are reliant on one another. Poor people need jobs and opportunities, and only business can provide those jobs and opportunities. Business needs workers and the next generation of executives, and there just aren't enough privileged families to fill all those future slots. Many high paying industries are dying for qualified personnel.
Besides, how can you take a guy seriously who is anti-business, but can't say a single bad word about lawyers? The Trial Lawyer's guild is as powerful in Washington as any dozen corporations, is the top organizational donor to Congressional campaigns most years, and like Pfizer, profit from the misfortunes of others.
Now I don't buy the anti-lawyer shtick any more than I buy the anti-business shtick. But there's no question there are just as many unscrupulous lawyers as there are CEOs. Edwards' unwillingness to attack his own profession the same way he attacks the businessman's profession indicates he can't be taken seriously. He's fundamentally dishonest or misguided in his worldview.
Not to mention, how can you take a guy seriously who will negoiate with Kim Jong Il but not Pfizer?
I wasn't hoping for an epitaph, but if that's what this post is, it's not the worst one we could have.
Obama does not bash unions, which explains why msnbc says he beat Edwards among union members. He does not equivocate on health care, he just emphasizes cost control over a mandate that probably won't work.
I dislike a lot of Edwards' rhetoric, precisely because it doesn't get us to the governing coalition that Obama looks like he can do, but after seeing his speech, I now straight up hate him. And it seems he'd rather tear down the other Democrats and play on base emotions (pun intended) to win the nomination without thought to how he'd govern or what his "fighting for the little guy" would entail. He'd be an OK president, as would HIllary, but Obama's the only one who can be great.
Thanks, Iowa! Namaste
like Pfizer, profit from the misfortunes of others.
... and dont get me started on those greedy doctors and nurses, expecting a decent lifestyle on the backs of the infirm and the unwell! Waitaminute, I thought you liked capitalism, considering your following complaint:
the same way he attacks the businessman's profession
I cheered when Edwards raised the red banner high and proclaimed that the workers must seize the instruments of production ... oh, wait, that didn't happen? Edwards was making an argument about excessive greed rather than denouncing all capitalism?
how can you take a guy seriously who will negoiate with Kim Jong Il but not Pfizer?
I dunno. Can you name me a guy like that? I rather thought trial lawyers often preferred negotiated settlements. Also, get your villains straight: it was Obama who said he'd negotiate (and Churchill who said that 'Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War', but let's not start that debate).
I mean, I don't even like Edwards, but these trolls that see Trotsky under every bed are just a joke.
Are you really trying to draw conclusions from the fact that Edward "beat" Hillary by less than half a percentage point? I know it's your job to pay attention to trivia like these caucuses, but can you try not be a complete loon about it?
I'm a reasonably successful businessperson who has given more money this year to Republicans than Democrats, but I'm not offended by Edwards' rhetoric at all. If you look at income distribution in the 1960's vs. today, it's pretty clear that there's been a lot of "class warfare" going on in this country, and it hasn't been the poor attacking the rich. Even some of the country's wealthiest individuals--Bill Gates and Warren Buffett come to mind--know this is a problem. The best way, whenever possible, to solve any problem in this country is to make it business's business to solve it, rather than letting business regard it as an externality. Nobody is going to unilaterally disarm and give up advantages they've wrought in the marketplace unless forced to do so, and unless everyone else is forced to do so.
Take health care for example. The system is clearly broken, even for the insurers. If Americans don't start taking better care of themselves, the whole system is going to go down the tubes. There's a lot that the insurance industry could do to solve that problem (for example, the current system completely disincents preventive medicine), but there's no gain for any individual player to take it on alone because of the transition costs involved.
When Edwards says he's not going to give the insurance industry a seat at the table, what he means is he's no longer going to let the insurance industry decide whether there is a problem, to define the problem in terms of their current business model, to negotiate whether the problem can or really needs to be solved and/or to what extent. We don't need industry spending its time or money doing those things (and wasting government's time and money responding)--we need business out solving the problem, the way industry has always done when really compelled to do so (best example being WWII military production, but there are many others).
Clearly there's going to be some discussion with industry--even in the purely adversarial business Edwards comes from, you depose hostile witnesses, and you do your homework on what's reasonable and what isn't to win your case. But he is right--the traditional "seat at the table" industry has had in the past dealing with a whole range of issues Edwards is talking about must fundamentally change in character, if not in existence, because it's been completely abused by industry to stymie progress on problems like health care, global warming, and energy independence that are now almost too overwhelming to face.
At bedrock, the purpose of the "seat at the table" has become wrongly defined as making certain that industry's current model is served, not the interests of the country as a whole. And there's no reason an American marketplace that could convert auto factories almost on a dime to produce 10,000 part bombers every hour on the hour during WWII should have that presumption where problems as daunting as we now face are concerned. No input from business that isn't directly related to solving the problem should be countenanced--I take this to be what Edwards means, and I agree with it where the problems he cites are concerned.
"Not to mention, how can you take a guy seriously who will negoiate with Kim Jong Il but not Pfizer?"
Clever line. Complete horsecrap. But clever.
Far as I know, Kim Jong Il does not control all access to international diplomacy the way big pharma controls medical policy in the United States. Edwards' point is, you don't go into a negotiation and sit down at a table owned by the opposition, on terms controlled by the opposition, with positions in which you have already caved in to half of what the opposition wants and expect to win the negotiation.
Last time I checked, Kim Jong Il wasn't holding all the cards and he certainly doesn't own the table. Pfizer owns Congress.
How do you beat that? You get elected with a clear agenda, including public campaign financing, and you let the people know if they vote for you, they are sending a message to the corporations to get the hell out of the way.
Comments closed January 17, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Thanks for the post, Matt. I completely agree: Edwards has jump-started the policy part of the nominating process with conviction and smarts, and both Obama and Clinton are better candidates for his presence in the race. And the party as a whole has grown richer and wiser for his contributions.
Posted by BryklynLibrul | January 3, 2008 10:07 PM