Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on Who Will Washington's Edwards Supporters Back?

1

I'll be caucusing for "Uncommitted".

Posted by Will/HA | February 7, 2008 10:42 AM
2

I say Obama. I think most Edwards folks are tired of the old school Democratic machine and the Clinton and DLC machines best typify the arrogance and control of the old top down approach.

Obama isn't close to perfect but I think his administration would provide a better chance to open up the party and give a voice for grassroots and progressive voices.

Posted by Merkle | February 7, 2008 10:50 AM
3

Can Durkan really not spell Edwards's last name? That doesn't speak well to her campaign chairing skills.

I'm leaning Obama, but I do need to really get into the nitty-gritty of their policy differences and see who I think is best.

Posted by Levislade | February 7, 2008 10:51 AM
4

3/5 aplit for Obama.

Posted by Fnarf | February 7, 2008 10:52 AM
5

I was for Edwards. I am going to caucus for Obama. Hillary permanently lost my respect two years ago when she co-sponsored a bill that would have made flag-burning a federal crime. She was pandering then, and I think she is pandering now. Obama and she have similar stated positions, but I trust that he actually believes what he says.

Posted by Adam | February 7, 2008 10:56 AM
6

@3: Oops. Just typos. Fixed.

Posted by Eli Sanders | February 7, 2008 11:00 AM
7

Was Richardson, then Edwards, now Obama.

Am I happy about it? eeehhhh....

Posted by Cale | February 7, 2008 11:02 AM
8

The Edwards guy in my office is voting for McCain.

Posted by Cato | February 7, 2008 11:04 AM
9

@3,

She can spell his name. She just doesn't know how to use apostrophes.

Posted by keshmeshi | February 7, 2008 11:17 AM
10

@9 - originally the post read "John Edward supporters . . ." - apparently that was a typo. Carry on.

Posted by Levislade | February 7, 2008 11:20 AM
11

Jenny sounds like the wind up toy, the talking political toy - dah dah dah

I thought Edwards was it, both his hair, sweet ass and politics.

Going to go the the veteran who is sounding better and better as the fight enfurls. She will rip Mc Cains throat out.

Viva le tigre, via Hillary.

Let the blood fight begin.

Mc Cain is going to use fear and more fear. Hilary will show experience and an in the trenches persona to counter him.

Obama is new and nice. Obama will crumple when the dirt flies and they find his love child and corrupt donors, etc. (admittted coke use, not just I did not inhale))

Switching to Hillary.

Posted by Essex | February 7, 2008 11:21 AM
12

I was planning on sticking with Edwards through the caucuses as I was pretty sure he would make the 15% cutoff in Ballard. But now that he has dropped out, I feel free to follow the Obama wave of the future.

Let me be clear. Bill Clinton was probably the best Republican president we have ever had short of Teddy Roosevelt, maybe (and that Abe Lincoln guy). And, unfortunately, Hillary may have been an even better president.

But the extremely long list of political betrayals in his eight years in office ('96 Telcomm Act, NAFTA, WTO, welfare "reform," hammering crack cocaine felons over powder, don't ask don't tell, Lani Guinier, kissing Alan Greenspan's ass, Rubinomics, etc., etc., etc.) and Hillary's inability to avoid the same kind of triangulating and accepting right-wing/Repug "framing" of issues on Iraq, Iran, national security, bankruptcy bill, etc. is an absolute insult to anyone who considers themselves to be progressive.

Bill Clinton looks good in retrospect because he was followed by the worst President in the history of the country. And while the economic benefits during his time in office were indisputable, most went to the wealthy. He reinforced and updated Reaganomic policies that have hollowed out our abilility to make things (manufacturing) and left us as a huge, all-consuming, debt-ridden, memoryless pit of thrill junkies. I'm just sayin'.

Frankly, I don't understand how anyone could fall for it – again!

Barack Obama, while not perfect by any means, obviously has a much bigger upside and really shows that he has a chance to be something special once in office. If we send him as many Dems as possible to Congress that can override Repug blocking, stalling and filibusters, there is a chance that we might save America. I definitely trust Senator Obama's judgement more than Senator Clinton's. And he is much more likely to make a break from the entire generation of stupid political judgements made by a DLC-led party for the last two decades.

Posted by Hugh Geenen | February 7, 2008 11:25 AM
13

@12,

In Hillary's defense, I'm pretty sure she opposed the bankruptcy bill.

Posted by keshmeshi | February 7, 2008 11:53 AM
14

Former Edwards supporter going for Obama. Hillary is too much of the past. Look at what her 35 years of "experience" have been associated with and have brought us-what breakthroughs or new initiative have captivated the country during that time? None. As B-Clinton was a generational change in leadership from the greatest generaton to the boomers; Obama is the next generational change in leadership. Yes he can.

Posted by Elmofan | February 7, 2008 12:23 PM
15

@13

I stand corrected, though... (This from the New York Times):

"At the Democratic debate last night, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she “fought the banks” on bankruptcy overhaul. She made the statement as part of her defense for taking campaign contributions from lobbyists and special interests.

Actually, Mrs. Clinton has a mixed record on the bankruptcy bill, which wended its way through Congress over the course of several years, and on fighting the banks, which are a major constituency and major source of campaign contributions in New York.

The bankruptcy legislation was sought by banks and credit card companies, which wanted to make it harder for consumers to use the bankruptcy laws to walk away from their debts.

As first lady, Mrs. Clinton worked against the bill. She helped kill one version of it, then another version passed, which her husband vetoed. As a senator, in 2001, she voted for it, but it did not pass. When it came up again in 2005, she missed the vote because her husband was in the hospital, although she indicated she would have opposed it.

In the late 1990’s, as first lady, Mrs. Clinton became deeply involved in the issue, her first real foray into legislation since the collapse of her health-care effort in 1994. She sought a private tutorial on the subject, worked behind the scenes with members of Congress, wrote public newspaper columns and spoke out against it.

Her concern was that the bill would hurt women and children. The law then required that if a divorced man filed for bankruptcy, he had to pay off his alimony and child-support obligations first. The bill gave equal status to credit card companies and other lenders who were seeking to recoup money.

President Clinton pocket-vetoed the bill at the end of his term, after Mrs. Clinton had been elected to the Senate. Congress had left town and did not have the chance to try to override the veto.

The bill popped up again 2001, which was Mrs. Clinton’s first year in the Senate. She worked with Republicans on it and was one of 36 Democrats who helped it pass the Senate, saying it had been improved from when she opposed it. Still, this version was vigorously opposed by consumer groups and unions, and ultimately did not become law.

When the bill came up again in 2005, Mrs. Clinton missed the vote. She did vote against a procedural motion involving the bill and said that had she been present, she would have voted against the bill itself.

Explaining Senator Clinton’s support for the bill in 2001, Phil Singer, a campaign spokesman, said, “She helped forge a compromise in the 2001 bill intended to ensure that custodial parents got child custody payments.” She opposed the bill later, he said, because “unfortunately, that provision was stripped from the 2005 legislation.”

The bill was always tricky for her because it divided her party as well as two opposing constituencies in New York: banking interests and the unions. Between 2000 and 2006, commercial banking interests gave Mrs. Clinton $685,000, according to www.opensecrets.org, the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics. That is a fraction of the tens of millions of dollars she has raised. Banks ranked 13th in the list of industries that gave her contributions. (Her top contributors, by industry, were lawyers, who gave her $6.5 million over the same period.)

For the first six months of this year, as a presidential candidate, Senator Clinton has received $493,000 from commercial banks. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a rival for the Democratic nomination, has received more ($607,000) and is the top recipient of contributions from banks among both Democrats and Republicans.

Mr. Obama and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina have been hammering Senator Clinton for accepting money from “Washington lobbyists,” who have given far more to her ($413,000) than they have given to anyone else this year. At last night’s debate, she defended taking those contributions, saying she had “worked against a lot of special interests for a very long time,” adding: “I fought the drug companies and the insurance companies in ’93 and ’94. I caught — fought them again on the Medicare prescription drug benefit. I fought the banks on bankruptcy reform. So I think that my record on standing up and fighting for people really speaks for itself.”


She missed a close vote on something that was widely considred to be pretty black-and-white in terms of hurting average, middle-class families. Not exactly a sterling moment of "fighting for people."

Posted by Hugh Geenen | February 7, 2008 12:31 PM
16

I'm a former Edwards supporter who will now caucus for Obama.

Above and beyond the fact that his positions seem to reflect more of what Edwards stands for, I think that there's just too much barely-suppressed glee on the Republican side at the chance to run against Hillary. The rabid hatred evangelicals hold for her, not to mention a likely pile of "scandals" they're just waiting fling at her if she wins the nomination, would make the election far too close.

More than anything? It's time for something and someone new. Let's just wipe the slate clean and start again.

Posted by rlv | February 7, 2008 12:35 PM
17

I switched from Edwards to Obama. I actually switched before Edwards dropped out, though... Obama won me over with his classy response to the Hillary crying incident, which was a nice contrast to Edwards's using it as a grandstanding opportunity.

Posted by giantladysquirrels | February 7, 2008 12:51 PM
18

Obama. Reluctantly. I don't like him much, I didn't like Edwards much more, and I really don't like Clinton. I don't forgive pro-censorship positions very fast.

Posted by Sean | February 7, 2008 12:52 PM
19

Used to be edwards, now for obama. Same goes for my husband.

Posted by sara | February 7, 2008 2:00 PM
20

Hugh wins @12.

I started Gore, then Richardson, then jumped straight to Obama.

Posted by Will in Seattle | February 7, 2008 2:03 PM
21

I'm tired of lefty candidates that lose, resulting in more rightwing policies from the supreme court to wars to economic policy. I think the only responsible way to vote is to consider the parlay. Some may think it cynical but I prefer realistic. The question is: who can beat McCan-I-drop-the-bomb-on-Iran? If you think they both could win, then feel free to support the candidate whose policies you like the most. However, if you don't think one or the other could win you must support the other. Otherwise you might as well vote for Nadar, again.

Posted by LMSW | February 7, 2008 2:46 PM
22

Me: Edwards-->Obama

Though I think the actual order going back to immediately after the 2004 election was something like emigrate, Feingold, Edwards, Kucinich, Dodd, Edwards, Clinton (for about 12 hours just before NH when the Edwards and Obama people were pissing me off), Kucinich, Uncommitted, Edwards, then Obama. For the record, I always expected that any Kucinich, Dodd, or Uncommitted vote was likely to be non-viable, and Edwards was always my backup. So really I was kind of leaning Edwards ever since Feingold said he wasn't running.

I like Hillary Clinton personally and admire her skills and personal story. I think Bill Clinton was a competent Republican president who stabbed liberals in the back so many times that anyone left of Mitt Romney would be crazy to trust him again. Also, Hillary's campaign is run by the sorriest bunch of establishment hacks running, the kind of people who brought us Mondale, Dukakis, Gore v. 2000, and Kerry. So by choosing the wrong friends and pandering more to fear than yielding to hope, Hillary Clinton lost my vote.

Posted by Cascadian | February 7, 2008 3:52 PM
23

With no Gore, and after Dodd left, I'd planned to caucus for Edwards (or maybe Uncommitted). I now plan to caucus for Uncommitted (or maybe Obama).

Clinton is waaaaay too far inside the Beltway for my taste. Her first order of business if she's elected President will be to ditch Howard Dean as DNC chair and kill the 50-state strategy. While never really attached to any presidential candidate this time, I've consistently been in the ABH camp. Though I'd still vote for her in November if it comes out that way.

P.S. to Hugh Geenen -- I've been using the "best Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt" line about Bill for a long time. I get a lot of rueful nods.

Posted by N in Seattle | February 7, 2008 4:09 PM
24

My wife, who resisted all of my attempts to convert her to Edwards while she was holding out for Kucinich, is now resisting all of my attempts to convert her to Obama because she's moved on to Gravel. Her take is that you vote for policy in the primary, and obviously electability or personality plays no role.

However (and this is how it's relevant to this Slog post), she was planning on voting Edwards as her second choice until he dropped out, and her current second choice is Obama. So that's another point supporting the Edwards-to-Obama trend.

Posted by Cascadian | February 7, 2008 4:13 PM
25

@24: I liked the phrase "she's moved on to Gravel." It's still a long jaunt until she reaches reality, dude.

Posted by J.R. | February 7, 2008 4:15 PM
26

Edwards has only suspended, not ended, his campaign. You can still caucus for Edwards. If you can sway enough people in your precinct, you might even get him a delegate or two. I'm sticking with Edwards, and so is my husband. The point being to have enough Edwards delegates to keep his issues on the table.

Posted by Geni | February 7, 2008 4:35 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).