Slate does Edwards in 60 Seconds

[cindyw]

This article made me laugh at the end. The writer is traveling with Edwards and boiled his plans down in a few points. I think think this list is something you keep in your wallet or purse and pull out to tell people what Kerry and Edwards will do in office. This final point made me laugh.

John Edwards' To-Do List
The running mate's stump speech, minus the bromides.
By Chris Suellentrop
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004, at 5:59 PM PT

"So, instead of reporting on whatever contrived bit of newness I heard in Edwards' speech today, here's a list of the things he's said over and over again during the past two and a half days. I've stripped out the bromides—"hope over despair, possibilities over problems, optimism over cynicism"—and focused solely on policy proposals. These aren't all the promises or proposals Edwards has made this week, just the ones he makes most often. For best results, crank up Tina Turner's "Simply the Best," Van Hagar's "Right Now," or anything by Bruce Springsteen or John Cougar Mellencamp while reading:

Continue Article

-raise the minimum wage;
-spend more money on: early education, public schools, child care, afterschool programs, and salaries for teachers in the communities where they're needed;
raise taxes on: companies that take jobs overseas; individuals who make more than $200,000 a year;
-reduce taxes for: small businesses that create jobs in communities with high unemployment; individuals through a $1,000 tax credit for health care and a $4,000 tax credit for college tuition (in addition to promising four years of tuition to individuals who perform two years of public service);
-improve health care by: making the congressional health-care plan available for purchase by all Americans; covering all children; allowing prescription drugs to be imported from Canada; and allowing the government to use its bulk-purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices from pharmaceutical companies;
-reform labor laws by: swiftly and severely punishing employers that violate labor laws; banning the hiring of permanent replacements for strikers; "make card-check neutrality the law of the land";
-fight the war on terror by: strengthening alliances to help "get terrorists before they get us";
-improve the situation in Iraq by: improving our relations with allies so that NATO will agree to get involved; keeping Iran and Syria from interfering; and getting "others involved in reconstruction besides Halliburton."

Though the real message is the one-point plan of getting a new president."

http://www.slate.com/id/2105636/