Someone aggressive. Someone who takes a side and sticks to it especially in meetings with the polite get-along Establishment. A blunt direct clear speaker, who knows the issues in the heart-break of losing organizing campaigns to unfair tactics. I want a Labor Secretary who is sick and tired of losing to employer-bullies and won't take it anymore. I've been there as a union organizer for workers in a non-profit and those employers were brutal, broke the rules, lied, intimidated their low-pay very kind workers for the homeless and poor women.  

What I found wrong about his presentation was how undisciplined it was.  As a college class paper it would be festooned with red ink  - for organization and clarity. Worse, it lacks serious analytical tools. It mixes one kind of tool with another, interrupts its flow with promises to get back to that item later, mixes anecdote with data, and overall shows an extreme discomfort with the subject. I can't think of any science gathering that would tolerate such a mash of methods. No professional science or social science magazine would accept such a paper that didn't include a statement of the question, the result, and the outline for further inquiry.

This man's critical analysis is just a mess on this topic.

I miss John Edwards in the debates.

This argument about healthcare plans is a waste of time. Neither plan will make it a president's desk - the congress will decided what goes into a plan. The best plan, the one the majority wants is single payer. That's what the polls say. Medicare for all - just like the other modern countries have. Obama and Edwards have said they wish for it single-payer, but think it would fail congress because the insurance companies have so much power.

I miss John Edwards who was happy to say aloud what he thought of too much corporate power harming our democracy.  

it's innacuarate.

The establishment favorite lost her inevitability campaign. The Money Party lost, the People's Party won.  

http://thepage.time.com/text-of-edwards- des-moines-register-full-page-ad/
Full page ad in DMR
Every Iowan Knows the Truth - We Must Fight For Change.
An Important Message For Iowa Caucusgoers From John Edwards

"I believe there are four truths that must be spoken in
this election if we're going to meet our moral responsi-
bility to pass on a better America to our children, just as
20 generations of Americans have done before us.
The first truth we must face is that everything that
makes America America is threatened today: the promise
of equal opportunity, good jobs, a strong middle class,
and each generation doing its part to give its children a
better life is at stake.

Corporate greed has gotten its way in Washington for
25 years and our elected leaders let it happen. If we elect
another president appointed by the status quo - or just
trade corporate Democrats for corporate Republicans -
the middle class will fall further behind and our children
will pay the price.

The second truth is that this election is not just
another four-year fight between political parties or com-
peting ideas; it is an epic struggle for the future of
America. We are fighting for the America we believe in
against a small band of profiteers that has sold out
America for their own greed and power.

The third truth is that these forces of corporate greed
and powerful interests use their money to control Wash-
ington, and this corrupting influence is destroying the
middle class.

The fourth truth is that real change is going to take a
real fight. It always does.

Thanks David, for another very clear summation of what's at stake here. I'm a sucker for truth, too. Obama and Clinton rely on platitudes too much of the time. John Edwards loves the truth, loves speaking it, the feel of true words in the mouth, the ring of truth to the ears is what we hope moves people. Not the platitudes, the manipulations, the equivocation of Obama and Clinton. Then comes worse, the misrepresentation of what Edwards says, which is what Obama is doing now accusing Edwards of having too much, too little and the wrong kind of money, a hypocrite, in other words, untruthful and untrustworthy. It's an amateur's game, and a mistake that Clinton won't make I think because she knows that Iowans hate that kind of talk. I'm counting on Iowa caucus goers to hash it out behind closed doors. Edwards supporters are well prepared with the truth and the fight.

John also said that the best position to take up now as candidates and for Americans is to promote calm and stability.

See the page I write on this blog. http://johnedwards.com/action/contribute mygrassroots?page_id=MjgxOTc  

http://www.alternet.org/story/70781/
Compare how Edwards and Clinton do in head-to-head match-ups:

Edwards 54% (+10)
McCain 44%

Clinton 48% (-2)
McCain 50%

Edwards 53%(+9)
Giuliani 44%

Clinton 51%(+6)
Giuliani 45%

Edwards 59%(+22)
Romney 37%

Clinton 54%(+11)
Romney 43%

Edwards 60%(+25)
Huckabee 35%

Clinton 54%(+10)
Huckabee 44%

Here is authentic journalism, from Paul Krugman of the NY Times who examines Sen. Obama's political philosophy. It's about time for the MSM to analyze political philosophy of candidates.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/opinio n/17krugman.html

This is how you win - play offense. Get them to play on your turf. Pundits didn't go in for team sport or even debate, you can tell. they don't even recognize the game Edwards is playing. They don't recognize the happiness of playing your winning game ["not angry anymore"].  

Hi David - right on as usual. This has always been a real campaign, not a Public Relations response to polls and focus group think. John Edwards looks so happy now (not the changed from "angry" campaigner that only pundits see) - because he he really happy. I know I am. The campaign strategy is working according to his plan that you can easily see without the MSM blinders. John has walked into the courtroom and is now addressing the jury after a year's preparation - and they get him. Hooray! [Republicans like him too. We've got to get Republican votes.]

You see what is happening now, and few here get it because the MSM doesn't get it, won't report it; still report politics as sport.

Most campaigners work on the appearance in politics. Edwards works on the reality part of the equation, appearance vs. reality. Why is John Edwards so happy now? They write that he has abandoned the "angry" theme - which is more MSM soap opera invention. He is happy because his strategy is working. He's got that winning feeling that he had going into trial after years of preparation on a case.

I've seen an intelligent campaign from the beginning. It doesn't whipsaw, it moves according to a plan relentlessly. The reported story themes are always wrong. Only by looking back after a win, will pundits be able to analyze the strategy of this intelligent campaign and the intelligence of the campaigners, John, Elizabeth, and David. This campaign is there to be seen if you are looking at it as trial preparation, with a beginning, middle and end, and with an understanding that at its heart is a political philosophy and purpose that is at one with the candidate's life experience.

Let's call on all the campaigns to pledge to never use push polling. It's dishonest and sleazy. It invades privacy.

I like the analysis. Here's where JRE was calling it right once again when he said he was reminded of Bush when he heard the planting story. There is a distinction in criticizing a policy and not a person. To react personally is immature. clinton's staffers are reacting in a petulant way - or is it Clinton? I never thought I would agree with gasp the New Republic on anything, but here it is: Bunker Hillary, on reporter's take on her campaign

Though few dare offer specifics for the record--"They're too smart," one furtively confides. "They'll figure out who I am"--privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers.

Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. Reporters' jabs and errors are long remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call.

Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered Clinton. "They don't see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?i d=6e01fdce-ad97-4dab-a07d-bf98dc52f681
snip
It's enough to make you suspect that breeding fear and paranoia within the press corps is itself part of the Clinton campaign's strategy. And, if that sounds familiar, it may be because the Clinton machine, say reporters and pro-Hillary Democrats, is emulating nothing less than the model of the Bush White House, which has treated the press with thinly veiled contempt and minimal cooperation.

"The Bush administration changed the rules," as one scribe puts it--and the Clintonites like the way they look.