Steve: I had the opportunity to meet John Edwards. He is charming in person, a great speaker, and has the right focus on working people. But he needs to learn to work the room better. If he does master that, he will be truly formidable in retail politics.

I like Edwards but he is a phony. He got good looks alright but he does not have the right stuff.

What qualifications do he have? none. The same can be said of Obama. none.

I agree with bob in that Edwards is a fake. He spent his time in the senate doing nothing and no legislation.
I don't agree about Obama. He has done a ton of legislation and is known as a hard worker and we know he's been a good senator for us. he is also extreemly verse on the issues and even the old pros think he is amazing in his understanding of them.
He also has an international upbringing as well as his family is like he says :the UN
He has a really deep and interesting view of the world.

Posted by vwcat at December 27, 2006 11:54 PM
>>>>>>>>

Obama has done a ton of legistation? What bills has he authored and gotten passed?

When I checked out his record on Govtrac I saw 59 bills ofered and none passed. He signed on to almost everyone else's bills but evidently no one returned the favor.

Edwards was my senator and I voted for him originally. However he was a dud.

I won't go into the details but I had a problem related to something I wanted to do and I tried to get some direction or help on it from Edward's office in DC in '98. His staff was very polite but totally dumb. To make a long story short I then mailed Hillary Clinton's office at the WH out of sheer frustration....lo and behold...two weeks later I got the desired help in the form of a phone call from an attorney at the DOL in DC who said the WH had forwarded my letter and asked her to assist me. She intervened with the "originators" of my problem and it was settled in three days to my satisfaction without my having to resort to my private attorney and Jesse Helms's federal district joke court here in NC.

As an attorney Edwards should have known exactly who and how to refer me to what I needed...if he didn't know he should have found out...and if his staff is so incompetent they don't know to mention to him one of his voters and donators called with a problem that could be solved in Washington ..well then he isn't serious about servicing his district.

He will get my vote only as a last resort. He sounds good to the simple minded but where is his plan to make his 'free trade' stance mesh with restoring some industry and jobs in the US? I haven't heard a plan yet. As the "son of a mill worker" he should show a better understanding of what has gone wrong with free trade since GATT.. his only answer to date has been "re-education" for workers.
What does he want to 're-educate" the hundreds of thousands of former mill or industry workers
to be?..dentist?.. beauticans? .. constructions workers?... whose jobs can't be exported?..because unless a job is "hands-on"..it can and will be sent offshore along with our former manufacturing base.

We need to get serious about bring business and jobs back home. We should start with tarrifs and import duties based on the wages in the country of export. The lower the wage paid in China, Mexico, etc. the higher the US tariff should be on importing their goods to the US. This sliding scale should apply to all imports to even out the field for both US based competition and to give multinational offshorers a choice of upping their wage pay in cheap labor countries, with the added benefit of improving living conditions in those countries, or paying more to sell their goods in the US.

You know, Carroll, it would be extremely disappointing for someone to judge my entire career based on my missing a vein I was trying to stick a needle in.

-----
Here is what I like about Edwards and it is exactly what radical conservatives love to hate: his courtroom experience as a dreaded trial lawyer. Oh, the horrors! But, when you watch him closely and listen to him closely, you notice that this is a guy who has faced tough opponents in the courtroom (remember they were trial lawyers, too) and I would venture a guess that he didn't flinch. To me, this is a guy who can go toe to toe and head to head with anyone but that isn't his only tool in his toolbox. He doesn't give the impression that he just depends on "might makes right" and I think he has the potential to go a long way to mend some of our fractured relationships around the world as well as here at home. Those are skills we need desperately and I don't particularly care if he honed them in a courtroom.

It would be interesting to know what Matthew's perspective is on that point since he has met him. Maybe I have read him all wrong.

John Edwards speaks of two Americas frequently. He talks about how he wants to change things ....
then he doesn't when he has the opportunity.
In North Carolina, Americans citizens are being disenfranchised from the American health system based discriminatorily on the diagnosis of Lyme Disease.There is a ton of conflicting information about this zoonotic disease but do people realize zoonotic diseases are used as bioterrorism agents?
The NC Board of Medicine obviously doesn't care or think much about that and neither does John Edwards. He was called upon early to help keep 500 Americans from loosing their health rights but sadly, he did not bother to even answer the letter much less the call.
If you want more of the same... a vote for Edwards is in order. If you want a different America, the one like it used to be, where ALL people had the same opportunities and illegals didn't roam the streets gobbling up our health care dollars... consider another candidate.
John Edwards is just all talk.... no action. status quo and not right for America. He has done nothing to help better anything at all.

Carroll - check out the Lugar-Obama legislation for conventional arms threat reduction for at least one example of his work.

http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/12/bipartisan_secu.html

Alex writes: "Here is what I like about Edwards and it is exactly what radical conservatives love to hate: his courtroom experience as a dreaded trial lawyer. Oh, the horrors! But, when you watch him closely and listen to him closely, you notice that this is a guy who has faced tough opponents in the courtroom (remember they were trial lawyers, too) and I would venture a guess that he didn't flinch."

I like Edwards too, but it's fair to say that none of this toughness showed itself in his debate with Cheney. At least as I recall, he was a bit of a puppy dog, and Cheney toyed with him pretty good. He needs to show that he can fight--sort of the opposite of Hillary's problem.

Liz writes: "If you want a different America, the one like it used to be, where ALL people had the same opportunities and illegals didn't roam the streets gobbling up our health care dollars... consider another candidate."

Such as?

Edwards is another neatly packaged media product, just like Obama, and anyone else that we are intended to imagine we put in power. If a candidate becomes popular, it is because the media tells us he is popular. Then, we, the "buyers", flock to the polls to "buy" him.

Unfortunately, the politicians that are willing to buck the system, such as Kucinich, or Conyers, are ignored by the media, and by Washington insiders, such as Steve here. Kucinich has consistently been RIGHT in his predictions of the outcome of Bush's policies, and he has consistently opposed Bush's policies. Yet I rarely see him mentioned in the opress, and have NEVER seen Steve mention him.

Edwards is really nothing but pro-war, pro-nuclear, pro-Patriot Act. He has already been invited to appear before the Bilderberg group, so the super rich here and in Europe will "accept" him if he somehow ends up being the candidate.

Maybe the establishment Dems will settle on an Edwards/Obama ticket -- good looking on the outside, but 99 44/100 % symbolic with no meaningful substance to their fiscal and social agendas. And certainly nothing that will rock the boat on big government expansion, AIPAC support and associated big military spending of American lives and dollars.

Edwards proves to me that an honest, truly independent third party is our only hope for real change. And when this emperor-wannbe takes off his robe, he'll expose himself that he ain't the one who will fully support our Constitution, fully support our rights as citizens and fully support a peace process in the ME that will bring our troops and tax dollars home.

Looks like the Wonkette pretty much has Edwards pegged.

http://tinyurl.com/ymzmhk

CitizenPac. I just made that up. The point is we need our own lobby. We need to get in the candidates' faces with questions about who controls them. We can make the next two years untenable for msm-branded politics, starting now. Edwards hasn't proved anything of substance to me. If his lawyerly skills are so finely honed, how about starting with impeaching the criminals in office on behalf of the People?

Let's face it folks, neither party has a candidate worth voting for.

Members of the GANG OF TWENTY-NINE turncoat Democrats include Edwards, Biden, Clinton and Kerry. They want the public to forget and/or disregard their actions of 10/10/2002, when they each voted for the Dennis Hastert sponsored H J Res 114, "US Military Force Against Iraq".

The thousands of Americans who have needlessly died in Iraq, at the very least, must have their memories served by a resounding, mass, rejection and repudiation of those who are responsible for sending them to those killing fields.

I say NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, to any and all members of the GANG OF TWENTY-NINE. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!

http://www.usnewslink.com/29turncoats.htm

CitizenPac. I just made that up. The point is we need our own lobby. We need to get in the candidates' faces with questions about who controls them. We can make the next two years untenable for msm-branded politics, starting now. Edwards hasn't proved anything of substance to me. If his lawyerly skills are so finely honed, how about starting with impeaching the criminals in office on behalf of the People?

Posted by ET at December 28, 2006 10:18 AM
>>>>>>>>>

ET you are dead right...we do need a citizens LOBBY....a grassroots lobby. Actually it is pretty easy to form one. Some time ago when imagining that type of lobby I looked up the requirements for registering and it's not too complicated. I believe the forms are at the Office of the Clerk..I had the link but can't find it right now. I will go back and look at the info again.

Posted by Alex at December 28, 2006 04:11 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Re: Edwards

Edwards is a very precise speaker and critical thinker...BUT it is not difficult to win personal injury cases with a jury...so that doesn't get it for me. I listened to his speech in the senate when the health care bill was debated and he did an excellent job....but his eye is always on the big picture, which is good, but along the way he ignored the small one at a time pictures he was sent to Washington to represent. Was it becuase he didn't care, his staff was incompetent? he was thinking of his own national opportunities instead of his current job?...whatever, he failed to live up to job tarheels sent him to do but he did make a name for "himself", didn't he? He didn't care enough about his own constituents but he cares about the whole nation? Huummm..

Put Edwards in front people like me who demand a detailed answer to exactly what his plans are for those decimated areas of industry and lets see if he actually has a plan and what it is.

It doesn't matter if he has the entire labor camp on his side if they and he don't have any idea how to stop the bleeding of American industry and jobs.

I am so not interested in "impressions" and how "likable" someone is..this country is gagging on that fluff stuff.

John Edwards's views today have been painted as farther left of those he held during his one term in the Senate. He's being called an "economic populist." Does economic populist = main stream liberal? Possibly the wrong kind of liberal?

Carroll, Looking forward to the info for a possible CitizenPac. Let me know what I can do.
Best, ET

Posted by Alex at December 28, 2006 04:11 AM
>>>>>>>>>>>>

Continuing my thoughts on Edwards I have to say that between him, Hillary and Obama and the dirt bag Biden...I would most likely vote for him.

I like him on domestic issues ...BUT I want to hear about our foreign policy from him...of all the possibles mentioned so far, Hagel, who doesn't even seem to be running yet if ever, has made the most sense to me....if Edwards is close to Hagel's position then that would be a plus for me.

Three things:

1) I like Hagel too, but I will never vote for another republican for the rest of my life for any office. Period. I have had it with the wingnuts and the southern strategy and the new gilded age. I. Have. Had. It.

2) I only used the word 'impression' because I have not personally met Edwards. And I couldn't care less about likeability.

3) I meant his legal opponents, not the jury.

Other points -

The point about pictures made by Carroll was too confusing for me to follow for sure.

Third party? Nader and his third party run is how we got Bush. 90,000 Nader votes in Florida cost Gore the election. That ain't fuzzy math; it's an inescapable fact. Third party = republican win.

A basic, fundamental truism that requires acceptance is that no presidential candidate will ever win election without tacit approval by the "powers that be", whomever they are, and it is politically naive to believe otherwise.

A basic, fundamental truism that requires acceptance is that no presidential candidate will ever win election without tacit approval by the "powers that be", whomever they are, and it is politically naive to believe otherwise.

Posted by Alex at December 29, 2006 04:29 AM
>>>>>>>>>

As the Godfather to be said ..."Who is being naive here Kay?"

The most naive people in the world are the ones who think they are going to get anything different from the repubs or dems ..without overturning the "powers that be".

You know people really do get the goverment they deserve...caused in part by people who just "accept' that.."that is the way things are"...and all the non powers are powerless to change it.

Hey, Carroll,
As Kay said to Michael:
This must *all* end.

Please keep me posted if there is anything I can do about CitizenPac, now or in the future.

Carroll is correct, Edwards is not considered to have been an effective senator from NC. He likely would not have been re-elected had he run, which not coincidently he chose not to do. Why not run for president as a sitting senator? He made most of his money and fame as a malpractive attorney handling cerebral palsy cases with no scientific merit. At least we know he has the propper cynicism for politics