Reply #13: JRE can tell a similar story. He also worked his way through college. [View All]

[spooky3]

He has lost a son through a horrible accident, and managed to come back from that.

You DO deserve a lot of credit for what you have done. I think Edwards is trying to say that he understands what you have done because he has lived a self-made life that is similar to yours also.

I don't think that he's trying to make the point that parents define the person. I think he is responding to and trying to pre-empt the inaccurate perception that many people who know much less than you do about the candidates have--that he is a rich lawyer who must have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so how could he know anything about the middle class? They look at his current reality rather than how he got there. His millworker story is just a shorthand way of doing this and it DOES resonate with a lot of people.

And by the way, I have yet to see a link to any evidence that his dad was a manager in a mill throughout much--or even any--of his career. His dad probably worked his way up too (not your claim, but something others have claimed).