Reply #15: John Edwards has lived the American Dream... [View All]

[DjTj]

...and his career has been all about helping other people do the same.

That's the fluff I wrote a while back:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/01/19_edwards.html

But if you're interested in his voting record, you should visit his Senate web site:

http://www.edwards.senate.gov/

There's a pretty good breakdown of a bunch of votes here:

http://www.issues2000.org/John_Edwards.htm

I don't know what issues you care about the most, but I think the important thing to look at are the things that John Edwards cares the most about.

You know about his millworker background, and John Edwards cares a lot about protecting jobs for working Americans. He has spoken out against NAFTA, and he voted for PNTR with China with great reservations (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r106:23:./temp/~r1069fF0o4:e303978:)

He also spent much of his career fighting against the health insurance industry, and his greatest accomplishment in the Senate was getting the Patient's Bill of Rights passed, although it never came to a vote in the Republican House of Representatives. He's currently pushing another similar bill. He has also voted for drug reimportation, for the Democratic prescription drug proposals, and against the Republican prescription drug plans.

Another area where he has been very consistent is the issue of taxes. He voted no on almost all the Bush tax cuts, but vote din favor of a larger deduction for college tuition. His "work" and "wealth" rhetoric here definitely rings true.

He has been unequivocally successful at everything he has done, and his stump speech is ample proof that he could effectively use the bully pulpit. His career was spent working with regular working people and is unlike the other candidates, only 6 years removed from the "real world". I believe he is better positioned to help working Americans than any other candidate we've had in a long time.

...eh, that's probably already too long, but I hope that helps.