The Anti-Establishment Edwards

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The Anti-Establishment Edwards

==Can ideas move voters? That is the theory John Edwards began testing once again today with his speech in Iowa about taxing the wealthy and providing new tax breaks for the middle class.

Edwards's speech was the latest in a series this year designed to lay claim to being the boldest Democrat in the presidential field. He was first out with a universal health care plan. He spent three days last week elevating the issue of poverty to the 2008 agenda. Today he returned to a theme that was central to his first campaign: turning two Americas into one.==

==In that earlier speech he referred to himself as part of the Washington power structure. Today he has nothing but contempt for those in the capital. Twelve times he mentions Washington -- all in a negative context. "Washington is broken... Washington puts Wall Street before Main Street... The powerful "scratch Washington's back and Washington scratches theirs."

That kind of rhetoric crowds Barack Obama, who is seeking the mantle of the fresh face who can shake up the political system. Both aim their criticism at a political system they argue is dominated by corporate interests and lobbyists; both promise to sweep the capitol clean -- but with a difference. Edwards offers a pugnacious pledge to fight and fight and fight some more; Obama offers a gentler and more uplifting call for citizens to help him transform the very nature of our politics.==

=="Only one person's going to be president," Elizabeth Edwards said, "and 18 campaigns will have been about some person and accomplished nothing else. If he's one of the 18 - he certainly doesn't hope or expect to be - but if he's one of the 18 who goes home, he wants to have a campaign that accomplished something, that remains or lasts."==

Read the rest at http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/07/26/edwards_makes.html