Edwards is THE progressive candidate - help him!

north carolina | elections | news report Thursday January 24, 2008 09:10 by caroline

Corporate Dems & corporate media sideline the REAL progressive

[the report below says it all: the bullshit Dem celebs and the corporate media are sidelinning Jon Edwards, the REAL preogressive candidate. the ball is in our court. please let our southern neighbors know the truth]

John Edwards campaign | Close to do or die
S.C. native needs a win desperately
By RODDIE A. BURRIS - rburris@thestate.com
Erik Campos/ecampos@thestate.com

On the issues, John Edwards says he should have the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination wrapped up.

For starters, the U.S. economy is on shakier ground now than it was four years ago when Edwards ran for president, decrying job losses due, he said, to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

“We’ve all seen what happens with these trade deals,” he said recently.

But a clearly frustrated Edwards, the Seneca native who is running third in his native state, said his message has been lost in the media glare given two “celebrity candidates.”

More attention is focused on whether he’ll quit after Saturday’s Democratic primary than on what he’s saying.

Campaigning across South Carolina, Edwards has made it clear that if he were president, it would be unacceptable for 47 million Americans to not have health insurance. He also promises a swift end to the unpopular Iraq war and more focus on the problems of middle-class Americans.

On Tuesday in Conway, just days before voters cast their ballots in Saturday’s primary, Edwards was driving his points home.

“What Bush has been doing is strengthening the top of the pyramid, but not doing anything to strengthen the foundation — middle-class working families,” Edwards told 200 or more people who had turned out to hear him on a cold morning in a circa-1900 warehouse.

But, on his bus later, nursing a hot cup of coffee, Edwards says, “I can’t get my message out.”

A former U.S. senator from North Carolina, Edwards still is searching for his first primary win since his unsuccessful bid for president in 2004, when he won South Carolina.

Edwards’ best finish so far in 2008 was in Iowa, where he placed second behind U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Edwards is sure that if people in South Carolina could hear his message, they would respond. On the campaign trail, he relies on “the passion of someone who grew up here,” telling his rags-to-riches life story as he tried to connect with voters.

But, all signs say Edwards has not made the connection he needs to with S.C. voters.

Polls show him in third, trailing Obama and New York U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. Polls and crowds at his events show Edwards’ political base has been limited to white voters, who will cast roughly half the votes in the primary. He trails Clinton among white Democrats.

In Conway, for example, only seven out of the crowd of 200 or more were people of color in a city that is 42 percent black.

“He has a great message,” said Sherrie Orazem, who came with her husband, John, to hear Edwards. Retired teachers, the Orazems moved here several months ago from Aurora, Minn. “We always thought he was sincere.”

Cate Edwards, 25, the former senator’s oldest living child, campaigned for her father Wednesday in Columbia and spoke about the frustration her father feels.

“It’s been hard,” she said. “But what we have seen is, when he talks to people, they listen. His message resonates because he believes what he is saying.”

Edwards’ supporters point to new numbers that show he has narrowed a 10-point gap with Clinton for second place in the state, according to a Zogby poll released Wednesday. However, that same poll, taken after the Democrats’ debate Monday in Myrtle Beach, shows Obama ahead of Clinton by almost 20 percentage points.

“Unless he pulls a shocker and wins, he will confirm he is dead third and he will have a decision to make,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Accepting an endorsement Tuesday from the S.C. Council of the Communication Workers of America, Edwards said he is in the presidential race “for the long haul.”

Sabato said Edwards may be looking to gather as many delegates as possible so he can be a power broker at the Democratic National Convention this summer in Denver.

Or, Sabato said, if Edwards drops out of the race after the S.C. primary, he may be looking to endorse Obama before the Feb. 5 primary in California, where Clinton is campaigning this week.

Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University, said it would be a big story if Edwards finishes higher than third in South Carolina.

Added Black, “There’s really no rationale for his staying in if he finishes third.”

Edwards’ supporters disagree.

“He has to stay in the race,” said Eric Marchbein of Pennsylvania, a campaign volunteer here. “He has to get into the place where it’s one-on-one.”

Otherwise, Hillary Clinton is likely to prevail, Marchbein said.

“The great day is coming when gender doesn’t matter, when race doesn’t matter and people will have to look back and live with their decisions,” Marchbein predicted.

That day, he said, will be Nov. 4, the day after the general election when a Republican — or the wrong Democrat — wins the White House.