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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (13876)	3/5/2006 7:47:52 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541933

Looking Back (and Ahead) With Edwards By George F. Will Sunday, March 5, 2006; Page B07 CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- "Sometimes," says John Edwards, "people need a breather." He is not talking about himself, although surely he needed one after his brief rocket ride through the upper atmosphere of national politics. That ride ended -- or perhaps paused -- when the Kerry-Edwards ticket lost. The people who Edwards thinks really need a breather from presidential candidates are the voters. But Edwards is roaming around, with 2008 in mind. His travels to more than 30 states have been organized around his interest in poverty. His Senate term ended nine weeks after the election, and he went to earth here. While his wife, Elizabeth, continues to recover from breast cancer, he is directing the new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. Most Americans seem to regard as the only searing economic injustice the violation of their constitutional right -- surely it is in the Bill of Rights -- to cheap gasoline. But Edwards believes attacking poverty can be politically energizing if, by stressing "work, responsibility, family," the attack "is built around a value system the nation embraces." In a speech shortly after Hurricane Katrina, he rightly stressed the correlation of family disintegration -- especially out-of-wedlock births -- with many social pathologies associated with poverty. He said, "It is wrong when all Americans see this happening and do nothing to stop it." But no one knows how to stop it. Anyway, spending at least $6.6 trillion on poverty-related programs in the four decades since President Johnson declared the "war on poverty" is not "nothing." In fact, it has purchased a new paradigm of poverty. Edwards has a 1930s paradigm of poverty: Poor people are like everyone else; they just lack goods and services (housing, transportation, training, etc.) that government knows how to deliver. Hence he calls for a higher minimum wage and job-creation programs. And because no Democrat with national ambitions will dare to offend teachers unions, he rejects school choice vouchers and says this: "Give working parents who are poor housing vouchers so they have a chance to move into neighborhoods with better schools." But the 1930s paradigm of poverty was alive in 1968 when the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, created in response to urban riots, thought this would be an imaginative cure: government creation of 2 million jobs. This at a moment when the unemployment rate was 3.7 percent. The 1930s paradigm has been refuted by four decades of experience. The new paradigm is of behavior-driven poverty that results from individuals' nonmaterial deficits. It results from a scarcity of certain habits and mores -- punctuality, hygiene, industriousness, deferral of gratification, etc. -- that are not developed in disorganized homes. Edwards, who does not recognize the name James Q. Wilson, may have missed this paradigm shift. Many people in public life, and almost all those with presidential ambitions, are too busy for the study and reflection necessary for mastering any subject. In 2000, just his second year in the Senate -- his second year in public life -- Edwards was on the short list of finalists to be Al Gore's running mate. Edwards's appetite was whetted, and he began the peripatetic scurrying around that preceded his run for the 2004 presidential nomination. He lost, but he was the last man standing against John Kerry, and he can torment himself with plausible thoughts about how, with this or that tactical move, he could have won the Iowa caucuses -- he finished second, with 31.9 percent of delegate strength to Kerry's 37.6 percent -- and the nomination. When Democrats wonder what red states Hillary Clinton could turn blue in 2008, the wondering does not help Edwards, whose presence on the 2004 ticket did not sway his own state: In 2000 Bush beat Gore-Lieberman in North Carolina 56-43. In 2004 Bush beat Kerry-Edwards here 56-44. And Democrats know that Gore might now be in his second term if he had carried his home state. Edwards says that one lesson of 2004 is that presidential elections "are not issue-driven"; rather, they are character-driven and voters see issues as reflections of character. The issues "show people who you are." Perhaps. But the idea that the candidate's persona is primary and that issues are secondary is a mistake made by some Democrats who yearn for another John Kennedy. He was a talented but quite traditional politician whom many Democrats wrongly remember as proving that charisma trumps substantive politics. Edwards, who has been called Kennedyesque, has a stake in that yearning. georgewill@washpost.com

To: Lane3 who wrote (13876)	3/5/2006 9:57:27 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

It's a complicated subject, one I didn't claim to have a satisfactory answer for. I did say that there has to be a deeper answer; my response clearly stated that it was not intended to be comprehensive. One factor, for sure, is a history of corruption for which the public has not had an opportunity to exonerate them. There is something else: Although I have never considered Bill arrogant, Hillary positively reeks of it. She needs to develop a softer, humbler persona to go along with her competence if she's going to appeal to voters who have problems with her. A little more honesty would help, too. Claiming that she didn't know about Bill's Dubai ventures when they have been ongoing since 2002 is very hard to believe; it is but the latest example. Voters are watching her like a hawk, and every misstep counts as they have a cumulative effect on how she is perceived. For better or worse, she [and Bill, too, since they will be perceived as a team] will be given a lot more scrutiny than other candidates.

To: Lane3 who wrote (13876)	3/5/2006 10:10:21 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541933

Whiff of corruption. If I remember the details of accusations against the Clinton's they appear to have been numerous. So many in fact that I cannot enumerate and maybe someone here can. What I remember there was Travel gate which was not disputed.But that did not seem to be so serious ? Hillary wanted her friends to have the job.. Seems normal to me. There was the one about the land deal which Susan McDougal went to jail for as she said the charges were bogus and she would not lie to the investigating committee. Starr wanted her to testify AGAINST the Clintons and she would not as she said the charges were trumped up ones and that she had been bribed by Starr to incriminate Bill and Hillary. There was purported murder of Vince Foster which was never proved although in some minds I think the Clintons were held responsible. The Ken Starr investigations seemed to go on forever but never produced any concrete wrong doings. When I later learned that Richard Mellon Scarif was behind a lot of the ruckus always coming up with money to pay for investigations of the Clintons, hounding them trying to get something on them. It was all politics. In my biased mind as I liked Bill and Hillary and thought Bill was a wonderful president who represented this Country well they never had any charge that stuck until the Monica Lewinsky debacle...and subsequent impeachment for lying . The latter was the one thing that I have held against Bill.. The other to me was muck raking. Now, I will be glad to reevaluate my opinion if anyone can tell me what they did that was illegal and proved as I might be very wrong in my assessment. And with regard to Bill and the latest charges we really haven't heard all of the details. I even thought that perhaps he, being a good friend of senior Bush, was trying to help the president in his determination to have the deal go through. I know he brokered the 45 day hiatus. I think.. When I mention follow the money.. There are so many things in the current administration where money has been lost... companies hired and paid without bidding.. e.g. Halburton..that it all runs off my back as just the old political cronyism..You scratch my back and I scratch yours. Inevitable it seems although I wish it were not so. Bill and Hillary have been fall guys for so long I really wish there were proof of their dalliances... C2 maybe you could be more specific and detailed.. YOU DO IT OR NO $... from me.(:(