I've got about fifteen minutes to bang this out, so right to it:
- Because he's the only leading candidate focused on economic justice.
- Because strange things happen.
- Because he's run a bold, honorable campaign deserving of respect and loyalty.
- Because he's pulled the race to the left and will continue to do so.
- Because no genuine Edwards supporter would jump ship this early.
- Because he beat Clinton and finished second to someone who spent more money on TV than Mitt Romney.
- Because he's the only candidate who has said the word "poverty" in a TV ad.
- Because I want to get excited about Obama (and believe I could) but when he talks about hope I'm still not sure what he or his supporters are hoping for.
- Because the party would be strengthened by a vigorous debate in which, for example, Obama is forced to defend his vote for the atrocious 2005 Energy Bill.
- Because of what I wrote when I explained my reasons for supporting him.
But one reason rises above all others: the stated and demonstrated rationale of his campaign is to fight inequality. The monstrous power held by the few at the expense of the many causes unnecessary hardship and agony. It hurts, it maims, it kills. It threatens what Thomas Frank calls the Middle Class Republic. It threatens our democracy and our freedom. And because power corrupts, because economic insecurity breeds fear and fear breeds militarism, because corporations have a vested interest in war and place profits above all else, the disproportionate power of the few threatens humankind.
Call it what you will--our class war, our bleeding wound, our dirty open secret--it's the problem of our time, and John Edwards has chosen to spend his political life addressing it.
And if everyone from Hillary Clinton to Mike Huckabee now talks about our class divisions, it's in part because Edwards began to do so at the national level in 2003, when it was a deeply unfashionable thing to do. It was on the advice of no consultant, at the suggestion of no poll that Edwards took it on himself in 2003 to speak out against inequality. His policy prescriptions have evolved in the last four years but the wound targeted by those prescriptions has stayed the same.
John Edwards is this century's most prominent progressive populist, the candidate most likely to give more power to more people. This alone makes him worthy of the presidency
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