Edwards works the union crowd

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NHPrimary.com

Edwards works the union crowd
Published: Sunday, May 13, 2007

By PATRICK MEIGHAN
Telegraph Staff

HOLLIS – John Edwards couldn’t have asked for better weather or a more receptive audience when he stopped by a Saturday picnic for a carpenters union.

The more than 300 members present from N.H. Local 118 weren’t wearing choir robes, but they may as well have been as Edwards preached to them about the important role organized labor plays in America.

Edwards, former senator from North Carolina and Democratic presidential candidate, hammered home a message of strengthening the middle class through strengthened unions.

The stop at the Alpine Grove Banquet Facility was brief. After speaking for about 6 minutes, Edwards spent three times as long working the crowd, shaking hands and accommodating photo requests from families.

Read more: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070513/NEWS08/205130425/-1/news08

[BrotherBuzz]

1. John Edwards: Union man

Here's a very interesting piece from -- of all places -- Fortune magazine on Sen. Edwards' economic populism. As the gap between very, very wealthy elites and the rest of us grows wider each day, perhaps Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama will catch on to the idea that our next President must work to reverse this trend and defend working families against the ravages of corporate greed, aided and abetted by the Bush-Cheney cabal. So far it's hard to detect much of a populist streak in the corporate friendly Clinton and Obama campaigns. Hopefully, with pressure from Edwards, Kucinich, and grassroots labor and economic justice activists, this will change in the months ahead. If the Democratic party does not take the side of organized labor and working Americans, it really has no reason to exist.

John Edwards: Union man

John Edwards believes a new labor movement is the answer to the
country's great divide. Should corporate America be afraid of him?

by Nina Easton, Fortune Washington bureau chief
May 7 2007: 5:53 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) -- No one was paying much attention to John Edwards in February 2006, when a historic contest for control of Congress was getting underway and the 2008 presidential race was still a sliver of light on the horizon. But Danny Glover was. He had to. For three days the Lethal Weapon star and the one-term Senator were glued to each other's sides like a pair of mismatched LAPD cops as they traveled across the country to lend support to hotel workers and their unions on the eve of a threatened strike.

At the time, Glover was the veteran of poverty politics; Edwards was still a rookie in training. So Glover, who prides himself on his ability to sniff out poseurs and users, warily scrutinized the carefully coifed politician from North Carolina. "There's real humility and false humility," Glover says. Which was Edwards?

In Boston, he watched Edwards listen to the plight of a single mother, an Italian immigrant who had managed on a hotel maid's pay to raise four children and send each one to college. In Chicago, Edwards took a lesson in the back-breaking work of lifting 113-pound mattresses and changing luxury duvets weighed down by piles of pillows and shams.

In L.A., the former Senator arrived overscheduled and tired, but impressed labor leaders when he readily agreed to squeeze in an extra meeting with a group of kitchen workers on their break.

The rich lawyer with the soft Southern accent bonded comfortably with this unseen servant class. Like a juror on one of Edwards's personal-injury cases, Glover found himself falling under the trial lawyer's spell. As the duo walked into a meeting of 60 African-American community leaders in downtown L.A. to make the case for greater black support of unions, the deal was sealed. "He was able to talk with them, not up to them or down to them," Glover recalls. "Here was a man who sincerely had empathy."

<more>

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Anyone Ask Why He Voted For Permanent 'Free' Trade With China?

I'd sure like to know why.

[silverojo]

4. Edwards has his faults

But he's still miles ahead of the other candidates, in terms of giving a damn that poverty exists.

[Omaha Steve]

5. Maybe because Clinton was pushing it

The deal was supposed to open China to US companies. We learn from our mistakes.

[Catchawave]

6. Why not tell us Manny :)

I'm sure you know him better than anyone :toast:

[waiting for hope]

7. I'm curious about that too.....

But it's great when a positive Edwards thread gets kicked!

:kick: & :thumbsup:

[Snotcicles]

8. If Edwards were a labor phony, David Bonior would not be his campaign manager.

And thats a fact.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. So You're Feeling Sure That Permanent 'Free' Trade With China Made Sense?

I'm thinking that 'free' trade with countries that have $2-a-day workers is a catastrophe for labor.

(Which it seems to have turned out to be.)

[w4rma]

11. I'm feeling sure that Edwards is the only candidate in the entire field who might change that. (nt)

[1932]

Edwards was against NAFTA, against Chile trade, against Singapore trade

GEPHARDT: I got a trade treaty with Jordan that really paid attention to labor & environmental rights. The Gephardt amendment is in law in the country, and it got markets open, like in Japan, where we've had to face unfair trade practices. Now, everybody up here, except Kucinich, voted for NAFTA and voted for the China agreement. They did the wrong thing. We need to bring up conditions in these other countries so that we work toward a global marketplace that works for everybody. You can't do that if you give in to bad trade deals, like most of these candidates did.

EDWARDS: I didn't vote for NAFTA. I campaigned against NAFTA. I voted against the Chilean trade agreement, against the Caribbean trade agreement, against the Singapore trade agreement, against final passage of fast track for this president. Gephardt has sent out mailings attacking and identifying all of us and putting us in the same category.

GEPHARDT: Well, you weren't in Congress when NAFTA came up. But you voted for China.
Source: Democratic 2004 Presidential Primary Debate in Iowa Jan 4, 2004

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/John_Edwards_Free_Trade.htm

[1932]

12. Edwards was against NAFTA, against Chile trade, against Singapore trade

GEPHARDT: I got a trade treaty with Jordan that really paid attention to labor & environmental rights. The Gephardt amendment is in law in the country, and it got markets open, like in Japan, where we've had to face unfair trade practices. Now, everybody up here, except Kucinich, voted for NAFTA and voted for the China agreement. They did the wrong thing. We need to bring up conditions in these other countries so that we work toward a global marketplace that works for everybody. You can't do that if you give in to bad trade deals, like most of these candidates did.

EDWARDS: I didn't vote for NAFTA. I campaigned against NAFTA. I voted against the Chilean trade agreement, against the Caribbean trade agreement, against the Singapore trade agreement, against final passage of fast track for this president. Gephardt has sent out mailings attacking and identifying all of us and putting us in the same category.

GEPHARDT: Well, you weren't in Congress when NAFTA came up. But you voted for China.
Source: Democratic 2004 Presidential Primary Debate in Iowa Jan 4, 2004

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/John_Edwards_Free_Trade.htm

[MannyGoldstein]

14. China Was The One That Counted Most - By Far

He votes Right on the most important legislation, votes Left on the smaller stuff - just like Mrs. Clinton. Voting records are very similar.

[1932]

15. I'm not sure that's true.

China had to pull back to get into the WTO. They were cheating before and are probably cheating now, but that bill required them to reign in their activities.

[1932]

13. Edwards rated 17% by CATO, indicating a pro-fair trade voting record.

Edwards scores 17% by CATO on senior issues

Studies by Cato Trade Center scholars show that the United States is most effective in encouraging open markets abroad when it leads by example. The relative openness and consequent strength of the U.S. economy already lend powerful support to the worldwide trend toward embracing open markets. Consistent adherence by the United States to free trade principles would give this trend even greater momentum. Thus, Cato scholars have found that unilateral liberalization supports rather than undermines productive trade negotiations.

Scholars at the Cato Trade Center aim at nothing less than changing the terms of the trade policy debate: away from the current mercantilist preoccupation with trade balances, and toward a recognition that open markets are their own reward.

The following ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization's preferred position.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/John_Edwards_Free_Trade.htm

[1932]

19. Manny, are there any Dems you like with a CATO rating lower than 17% on free trade?

BTW.

[Catchawave]

16. Edwards also won the Paul Wellstone award....

I doubt they give those out to labor phonies :D

[Catchawave]

3. The Nation weighs in also....

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/cooper


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laboring for Edwards
by MARC COOPER



Seattle

When the AFL-CIO asked each of the Democratic presidential candidates to participate in a separate labor town hall meeting, John Edwards quickly chose Seattle as his preferred venue. He was determined not to repeat his mistake of 2004, when he did almost no campaigning in the Northwest. The price he paid was high: finishing fourth in the crucial Washington caucus behind minor candidate Dennis Kucinich.

So here was Edwards on May 1, very early in the 2008 cycle, appearing before a wildly enthusiastic crowd of 800 unionists in a Seattle machinists hall. He desperately wanted labor's endorsement and its vote. "In the midterms, we delivered twenty-six legislative seats," says Dave Freiboth, head of Seattle's King County Labor Council, "more than anywhere else in the country. Candidates are paying attention."

And it's a two-way street. This year, more than ever, organized labor is striving to push its agenda hard and early in the presidential race. In March the nation's largest healthcare union and richest PAC, the Service Employees International Union, summoned the contenders to Las Vegas for a debate on healthcare (and the union has given them an August 1 deadline to submit specific plans). The AFL-CIO is sponsoring its own series of one-on-one town halls with the candidates, culminating in August, when the Democratic rivals will appear together before a federation gathering in Chicago. "Working families will have the chance to ask candidates what they will do to make America work for working families," said AFL-CIO president John Sweeney.

Sometime after Labor Day the unions in both major federations, the AFL-CIO and the SEIU-dominated Change to Win Coalition, are expected to make their official endorsement, opening the floodgates for tens of millions in contributions and thousands of campaigning union foot soldiers......

Cont'd at link, but print subscription is required, sorry :(

[Czolgosz]

10. Nice article.

[JNelson6563]

17. All my UAW friends support Edwards

I figured that would be the case when I heard Bonior was his manager. MI labor and Bonior go way back. Hard to think of a better friend to labor than Bonior.

Julie

[covadcalifornia]

18. this will be the middle gournd to grab

unions and Edwards. Perfect fit with his working class background.

excellent article and thank you for posting it!!