1115.org

As the 2008 Democratic field started taking shape in the days after the 2006 election, I was most focused on Al Gore running and John Kerry not running. Kerry still hadn’t properly answered for the utterly pathetic campaign he ran in 2004, but was making noise about a run on the strength of his email list he misused two years earlier. He wisely decided to re-focus his attention on being a better Senator. Coming off a smash documentary and book, Gore seemed like the ideal candidate. But as I thought more about it, it seemed that he could better serve the country advancing awareness, acceptance and action on global warming rather than reliving the 2000 election.

I had also been keeping an eye on John Edwards, but more as a curiosity. Here was a man who ran a shiny happy campaign with a nice message in a year that required something much different. But clearly something happened to Edwards in the intervening years, something that closely tracks my own political and idealistic evolution during the Bush era. I don’t mind that Edwards started off as a moderate Third Way Democrat because that’s where I was at the time. I don’t hold his 2002 AUMF vote against him because for a few days after foolishly reading Kenneth Pollack’s Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq I had visions of Saudi oil fields engulfed in an inferno and the ensuing economic apocalypse. I don’t even mind that he insisted on taking the non-confrontational high road in 2004 because there was still a chance that this country would wake up and make Bush the one-term punchline he deserved to be. But when Bushism was ratified by a couple of percentage points and then accelerated based on phantom “political capital,” everything changed for John Edwards, and for me as well.

So when it became an open secret that Edwards was going to run on a true populist platform and that his announcement was going to take place in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, I realized that I’d better start paying attention to him, and quickly. And it was the urgency with which he spoke that day in New Orleans that closed the deal. Suddenly the Op Ed he had written a year earlier was in context; it was time to lay it all on the line because things were only going to get worse until someone stepped up to directly challenge the people whose mission is apparently to ruin America from within. The issues he highlighted and the frank language he used communicated to me that not only did he share my priorities, he matched my intensity.

I watched as many interested Democrats decided to stay neutral in the primary for reasons that probably make sense for them. No one wants to back a loser, no one wants to be denied access based on support for an opposing candidate, and no one wants to open themselves up to accusations of bias as they cover the campaign. I briefly considered that position until I realized that I don’t care about access, would rather be up front about disclosure, and place more importance on the messenger and his message than popularity contest polls. In short, Edwards was my candidate from the beginning. I knew it was the right call when writing about his campaign here just seemed redundant; his speeches and policy proposals — from ending the Iraq war to calling bullshit on TWAT to universal healthcare to confronting the President to raising the minimum wage and more — were all in line with what we were already writing. What was the point of sticking in lines about how “John Edwards agrees”?

It was a difficult spring when the media decided to declare war on Edwards, and his campaign didn’t make it any easier when they fed raw meat in the form of gaffes to the high school girls of the press corps. But none of that changed the underlying equation, that Edwards was where I was where it counted. And with lines like this…

“No more pontificating, no more vacillating, no more triangulating, no more broken promises, no more pats on the head, no more ‘We’ll get around to it next time,’ no more taking half a loaf, no more tomorrow.”

…to the Take Back America conference and other venues, I never had to look back. This is someone who understands what I’ve been saying all along about Barack Obama, a man who, despite being on the campaign trail for eight months and in the national spotlight for three years, still hasn’t explained what his “half a loaf” style is supposed to accomplish. Maybe in 2000 something like this would have worked, but not today, and not until the damage of the last six years is repaired. It’s time to fight for what’s right first, and I’m not getting that from the frontrunners.

There’s a very strange dynamic at work in the Democratic primary, one where the third place candidate is driving the debate. On each of the President’s last two Iraq war spending requests, Edwards was far ahead of Obama and Clinton in calling for no funding without timelines. Clinton’s healthcare plan followed Edwards’ by several months, yet is nearly indistinguishable. While the leaders are busy trying to play it safe and cultivate their media constituencies, it’s Edwards who is actually leading. And this is why he has my full support, financial and otherwise.

John Edwards was in San Francisco this past weekend for a fundraiser, and as a big donor, I was able to go and meet him and hear his stump speech in person. What I saw there was a man who is passionate about his issues in a way that can only come from being around long enough to see what doesn’t work. In a room full of CEOs, lawyers, bankers, and society-types, Edwards didn’t hesitate before telling them that he would be fighting tooth and nail for an increase in the minimum wage, taking on insurance companies over health coverage, and dislocating the perverse fusion of big money interests and legislative favors. I also saw a human being who has no problem laughing at himself. When Edwards asked a questioner where he got his tie and the man said he’d only tell if Edwards told him where he got his haircut, the result was a full-on belly laugh. Most importantly, I saw a man who wants to be President very badly, but one I’d wager would trade that for implementation of his agenda. This stands in stark contrast to Obama’s cult of personality and Hillary’s calculated corporate centrism.

I’d love to see a two-person race between Edwards and Chris Dodd, but you go to the primaries with the top-tier candidates you have, not the ones you wish you had. And out of the top three, only Edwards is running as a proud Democrat. Even if all else were equal, shouldn’t this be enough in a Democratic primary?

More photos are up at Flickr.