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The Indy in NH: Edwards Visits Lebanon, NH
January 6, 2008 | Posted in IndyBlog | Email this articleBy Steven Wishnia
LEBANON, NH—John Edwards gives a speech that would make many leftists proud. Speaking at the Lebanon High School cafeteria here Saturday afternoon, he said “fight entrenched corporate interests,” “powerful monied interests,” and variations thereof almost as much as Barack Obama says “change” and “hope.”
Edwards runs through several pet riffs on economic inequality: $40 billion in profits for ExxonMobil last year and a $200 million salary for the CEO of a health-insurance company, contrasted with 47 million Americans with no health insurance, 37 million in poverty, and 200,000 homeless veterans. And alluding to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to the “economic royalists” who despised him, he declares, “I welcome their hatred.”
That’s a promising beginning, but when Edwards was pressed on the specifics of his health-care plan by two voters–one a woman whose chronically ill husband’s insurance company won’t pay for home health aides, one a man whose HIV-positive friend had his anti-wasting medication cut off after it was “dropped from the formulary”–he refused to support a single-payer system,
such as Rep. John Conyers’ bill to extend Medicare to everyone. “I commit to my plan,” he told the woman. He argues that it’s politically impossible to enact a single-payer plan without risking spending 15 years in political gridlock, and his plan would give people the choice of buying government coverage and limit the abuses of private insurance.
“The problem with it is that it can create a two-tier system, and the Republicans will cut the government plan,” responded John Riley, a 53-year-old biologist from Manchester, the man with the HIV-positive friend.
“Why not go for single-payer? If he really wants to challenge the big insurance companies, he should come out and say that,” said Eric Sawyer, 53, a carpenter from upstate New York staying with his in-laws in Nashua. “Don’t say that it’s unachievable, educate the people and lead.” Sawyer said his father has had gangrene three times. Medicare cut off payments for therapy before the wound had fully healed, so it became reinfected, he said, and his parents’ supplemental insurance “doesn’t pay a dime.”
Among the more than 200 people who turned out for the Edwards rally, health care and the war in Iraq appeared to be the top two issues, with the environment and education not far behind. “It’s criminal,” said Ernie LaBombard, 57, a carpenter from Hanover. “We’re killing people around the world, and our lower classes are being used as cannon fodder. “And health care,” adds his wife, Priscilla Geoghegan, 56, a teacher. She also worries that the cost of college is
leaving graduates so debt-ridden that they can’t afford to become teachers.
Lebanon, a town of about 13,000 people a few miles inland from the Connecticut River, is historically working-class, but is now catching some of the overspill from the gentrification of Hanover, five miles to the north and the site of Dartmouth College. Hanover was relatively quiet, as the Dartmouth students are just beginning to return for the spring semester, except for a group of about eight students holding up Obama signs on the corner of Main Street, across
from the snow-covered village green.
What is Obama’s appeal, one was asked; what makes you stand on a corner in 20-something degree weather for him? “He’s the candidate that can unite this country and can best move the country forward in a united manner,” he said.
“I’m not authorized to talk more.” Obama volunteers have “strict guidelines” not to talk to the press, the group said–even to the extent of not revealing information about the senator’s campaign appearances in the area.
In both towns, the NFL playoffs were on more barroom and student-union TVs than the debates Saturday night.
The people watching the Redskins-Seahawks and Steelers-Jaguars games might have been better off. The Republicans continued their contest to see who could be the most anti-immigrant, with Mitt Romney lacing into Rudy Giuliani for not turning in illegal immigrants who sent their kids to public schools in the city, and Mike Huckabee contending that if we built the Empire State Building in 14 months, we could finish a wall on the Mexican border in a year and a half. On health care, they repeated the mantra that the market will solve everything.
“Don’t turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys,” said Romney. “The market will work.” He added that most people who don’t have health insurance have chosen to go without it. “We have 47 million people saying ‘I’m not gonna play.’”
The bluntest statement of the night came from Fred Thompson. Asked if he was bothered by high oil-company profits, he said no. On the other hand, the GOP has grudgingly accepted that global warming exists, although their solutions for it usually include nuclear energy.
On the Democratic side, the most annoying people were the ABC moderators. One asked a question about “change” that seemed designed to provoke a pissing match between Hillary Clinton and Obama. It definitely irked Clinton.
The other asked Clinton why she thought the polls has rated her low on “likeability.” Another question was about whether “relative youth” would disqualify a candidate–essentially inquiring, “Would you you say that Obama is a 46-year-old pisher, not yet tall enough to urinate in the maelstrom of politics?” To their credit, neither Clinton, Edwards, nor Bill Richardson took the
bait.
The whole dialogue about “change” and “experience” is second only to the it’s- over-before-it-started horse-race coverage as the most puerile aspect of the campaign. What is “change”? If I wrote a best-selling book, that would definitely change my life, but having a stroke that destroyed my verbal faculties would be “change” too. And while no sane person would hire Michael Brown to oversee hurricane preparedness, no humane person would have Henry Kissinger run foreign policy, despite his experience.
Richardson probably talked the most sense: “You need experience to know how
to change things.”
The New Mexico governor also was the only one of the four to advocate immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Obama uttered the dread phrase “phased redeployment,” adding that we need “to send a signal to Iraq’s government that we are not going to be there in perpetuity.”
Meanwhile, the people at the Edwards rally were concerned about health care, jobs, college debt, global warming, and getting out of Iraq. “We need to get out of there immediately,” said Jose Vargas, 50, an environmental consultant from West Lebanon. But Juanita Paynter, a 47-year-old Army veteran from Lebanon, said that if we leave before we’ve trained Iraqi troops, “we’ll be back over there in another two or three years.” Both of them would prefer a single-payer health plan, but would settle for an Edwards-style plan that would at least make health care universal.
Some people leaned toward Obama. Bryan, 25, a Midwesterner working in Vermont who wants to be a farmer, said he found Edwards and Obama’s environmental ideas “pretty even,” but liked Obama’s initiatives to encourage new farmers. Clinton, he said, “took a big chunk of money from Monsanto.”
Steven Wishnia will be covering the New Hampshire primary for The Indypendent. He is a better bass player than Mike Huckabee.
5 Responses to “The Indy in NH: Edwards Visits Lebanon, NH”
January 6th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I was disappointed by both Edwards and Obama on their health care positions. Obama said if he were to start from scratch he would choose universal health care but because millions already have employer paid insurance (he didn’t mention how woeful the coverage can be), he would do universal coverage. The guy next me immediately said, “oh why doesn’t he just do universal-the health care system is in shambles.”
Is Edwards for real?
January 7th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Dear Friends on the Left:
I talked to Elizabeth Edwards at an event and told her many of my friends on the left stick with Kucinich because he supports single payer and John does not. Elizabeth explained that John’s plan has a “path to single payer” and it certainly does.
John’s plan calls for private insurers to compete with a federal plan (essentially Medicare writ large) in regional markets organized by the federal government. To compete every plan MUST cover mental health, no pre-existing conditions, preventive care etc. They must provide exactly what members of congress get, what Elizabeth gets. If they can do it for less than the federal plan, they get the region. If they cannot, the federal plan wins.
Medicare operates at 6% overhead and does not have to worry about the abomination of profit on health care. If private insurers cannot compete (and they likely cannot) the federal plans wins and you move closer to a single payer plan. Ask Paul Krugman of the New York Times. John’s plan is the best. I told Elizabeth I’d let my Kucinch friends know John’s plan is designed to lead to single payer.
John keeps emphasizing he’s a fighter. The plan described above will force a major shake up of the health insurance industry and they will fight it tooth and nail. If anyone can fight that fight it’s John — he was every corporate attorneys worst nightmare in his days as a trial lawyer. Now imagine if he walked in and said “Ok, Blue Cross, Health Net, Humana, Kaiser, close up shop and go home. You’re all out of business. The feds are now the only game in town.” Does that strike you as a winning game plan? It sounds like a plan for failure to me.
Oh yeah, did you know Obama’s health plan isn’t even universal? Why did Kucinich send his people over to that guy?
WORDS TO FELLOW PROGRESSIVES ON OBAMA:
Obama’s health plan does not cover 15,000,000 people, he supports nuclear power, he supports coal, he has taken money from every major corporate interest. He has been groomed for this race by the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC), the right wing (Liberman wing) of the Democratic Party, since his days in state government. That’s how he got that plum spot at the convention for his career making speech. He has voted for every war funding bill, he voted to confirm Condoleeza Rice, an architect of the war he decried as the “wrong war,” as opposed to just plain wrong. He does not speak about the plight of the poor. He ignores the disproportionate share of hardship borne by the African American community to the point where even supporters like Jessie Jackson write editorials to call attention to his sad disinterest in the conditions of the many who live in poverty. Ralph Nader has fallen behind John, saying Obama is “too conciliatory to corporate power.”
(Chris Matthews said to Ralph, shocked, “are you saying Obama is not a progressive?” and Ralph, equally confused said “why would you call him a progressive?”)
Why did Kucinich send his young well intentioned supporters in Iowa to Obama? On a personal grudge? Where did his principles go? We all know John and Kucinich’s policies were much more in line. Does Kucinich now believe in coal and nuclear power? John stands for complete federal financing of elections, Obama does not. John calls for no nuclear power and total nuclear disarmament. Did Kucinich forget that?
It is a major victory of the progressive movement that college educated young adults see sexism and racism as an anachronism — it’s almost unintelligible to them. They are also, unfortunately, part of a generation who’ve been politically decontextualized by corporate media and the war to remove critical thinking from our testing based schools. They think an African American who speaks about “hope,” “reconciliation” and “bringing people together” — in contrast to years of silly in-fighting by old school folks in Washington — tarnished by those awful 60’s and 70’s — is the way to go. His total lack of substance on policy is meaningless to them because they respond more readily to images and slogans. I volunteer for John and I can say anything I want to anyone. Obama’s folks cannot speak to the press because you can only go so far on platitudes. Perhaps they don’t want to embarrass these kids.
Progressives have a massive responsibility. Washington DC did not invite Martin Luther King to sit at the table to discuss civil rights. African Americans and white activists suffered privation, persecution, torture, lynching and death to desegregate the South. That was, and continues to be a fight. Did the robber barons open their conference rooms to dicuss labor conditions? No they hired private armies to shoot demonstrators. Will we honor what they fought for? The press has forgotten. Will we?
The best thing the left has is its dead-on criticism of our political system. The differences between Democrats and Republicans is played up by our media to give the impression of rigorous democratic debate while both parties do the bidding of their corporate paymasters. Mr. Obama’s vision of Democrats and Republicans sharing a Coke misses the point. Our elected officials, be they republican or democrat, no matter how well intentioned, cannot do the work of the people while the big money, corporations and lobbyists bankroll the show. John has never taken money from lobbyists and PACS, unlike Obama, who did when he ran for State Senate and the Senate. John gets our critique, it makes sense to him, it allows everything to fall in place for him. He get the critique, and he has taken on our agenda.
Norman Solomon, co-founder of F.A.I.R., Fairness and Accuracy in Media, producer of the MSNBC Donahue show cancelled for its anti-Iraq War stance, calls John Edwards the “most progressive American presidential candidate in the last 50 years.”
I largely think Democratic politicians suck. Corporate democrats ravaged welfare, gave us DOMA, bombed Belgrade, gave us NAFA. etc. I listen to the substance of the John Edwards campaign and now I am I die hard. The Republicans are terrified of him, cause he can take his populist message and southern drawl to red states and win. Even Huckabee knows this message sells. The American people are truly worried about the future. We have an enormous opportunity here.
It’s the issues, not the messenger. We progressives have the critique, we understand the political system, we know the issues that matter. Follow the issues. They will lead you to John Edwards. We who care about social and economic justice, the environment, peace and total nuclear disarmament finally have a candidate. Yes, he’s a white southerner. But no one has articulated the things we care about as accurately, effectively and passionately as he. It’s time to hit the streets for our issues — with a John Edwards sign in hand. (Oh yeah, Mike Moore agrees too.)
BTW, Rasmussen polling today has Edwards up 9 points nationally since Dec. 29th, with Clinton down -7 and Obama up only 1 for this outcome:
1/6/08 36% 25% 23%
Check is out at: http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/genera_scorrick_080106_rasmussen_surprise_21_21.htm
ALSO, a guy named Paul Street has written a lot to help progressives understand the Obama phenomenon. Check them out:
“ ‘Angry John’ and KumbayObama: Reflections on Iowa, Business Rule, and the Democratic Party’s Democratic Disconnect,” ZNet (December 20, 2007)(http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15969)
“Why I’ve Focused on Obama: Seven Points,” ZNet (December 29, 2007), read at http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16046
“Obama Speaks: ‘Oh Great White Masters, You Just Haven’t Been Asked to Help America,” ZNet (December 12, 2007), read at
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15801
“Obama’s Role: to Confuse and Divide the Progressive Base,” ZNet (October 19, 2007), read at http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/15602
January 7th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Edwards is an idealist regarding the improvement of our Healthcare system - but he is also smart enough, and enough of a pragmatist, to know that you can’t just switch from the current hodge-podge of coverage models to a single-payer system overnight, like a light switch. He is proposing the creation of a public coverage model - with the expectation that it will be ultimately seen as better than the current mess - getting single-payer in the back door.
A lot will have to change for single payer to work across the country - health care coverage is part of the contract with employees, and some plan for offsetting those benefits will have to be made, as the shift to single payer starts to happen.
GIve him some time - and trust John Edwards! He has proposed a plan that can be accomplished, and that covers every American!
January 7th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I don’t think we should let Democratic politicians off the hook with “back dooring” universal health care coverage into being. It should be a rallying point for these candidates, not something to be bashful about around the big insurance interests.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
So this article questions why Edwards’ universal healthcare plan is not single-payer, but doesn’t mention that Obama’s plan isn’t even universal? Trying not to disabuse those still of the misguided and very false notion that Obama supports universal single-payer?
One wonders how independent you truly are.