I was planning to vote for John Edwards on Tuesday. I confess, I don’t understand why he didn’t wait until after Super Tuesday to drop out. However many delegates he got, it would have given him that much more power and influence. Perhaps he already knew was going to get clobbered and wanted to go out while he was still doing well enough to be respectable. I am still deciding whether to vote for Hillary or Obama, or neither. In the meantime, I will quote at length from Paul Krugman’s editorial today, which lays out a lot of my own feelings.
So John Edwards has dropped out of the race for the presidency. By normal political standards, his campaign fell short.
But Mr. Edwards, far more than is usual in modern politics, ran a campaign based on ideas. And even as his personal quest for the White House faltered, his ideas triumphed: both candidates left standing are, to a large extent, running on the platform Mr. Edwards built.
To understand the extent of the Edwards effect, you have to think about what might have been.
At the beginning of 2007, it seemed likely that the Democratic nominee would run a cautious campaign, without strong, distinctive policy ideas. That, after all, is what John Kerry did in 2004.
If 2008 is different, it will be largely thanks to Mr. Edwards. He made a habit of introducing bold policy proposals — and they were met with such enthusiasm among Democrats that his rivals were more or less forced to follow suit.
It’s hard, in particular, to overstate the importance of the Edwards health care plan, introduced in February.
Before the Edwards plan was unveiled, advocates of universal health care had difficulty getting traction, in part because they were divided over how to get there. Some advocated a single-payer system — a k a Medicare for all — but this was dismissed as politically infeasible. Some advocated reform based on private insurers, but single-payer advocates, aware of the vast inefficiency of the private insurance system, recoiled at the prospect.
With no consensus about how to pursue health reform, and vivid memories of the failure of 1993-1994, Democratic politicians avoided the subject, treating universal care as a vague dream for the distant future.
But the Edwards plan squared the circle, giving people the choice of staying with private insurers, while also giving everyone the option of buying into government-offered, Medicare-type plans — a form of public-private competition that Mr. Edwards made clear might lead to a single-payer system over time. And he also broke the taboo against calling for tax increases to pay for reform.
Suddenly, universal health care became a possible dream for the next administration. In the months that followed, the rival campaigns moved to assure the party’s base that it was a dream they shared, by emulating the Edwards plan. And there’s little question that if the next president really does achieve major health reform, it will transform the political landscape.
Similar if less dramatic examples of leadership followed on other key issues. For example, Mr. Edwards led the way last March by proposing a serious plan for responding to climate change, and at this point both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are offering far stronger measures to limit emissions of greenhouse gases than anyone would have expected to see on the table not long ago.
Unfortunately for Mr. Edwards, the willingness of his rivals to emulate his policy proposals made it hard for him to differentiate himself as a candidate; meanwhile, those rivals had far larger financial resources and received vastly more media attention. Even The Times’s own public editor chided the paper for giving Mr. Edwards so little coverage.
And so Mr. Edwards won the arguments but not the political war.
One thing is clear, however: whichever candidate does get the nomination, his or her chance of victory will rest largely on the ideas Mr. Edwards brought to the campaign.
Personal appeal won’t do the job: history shows that Republicans are very good at demonizing their opponents as individuals. Mrs. Clinton has already received the full treatment, while Mr. Obama hasn’t — yet. But if he gets the nod, watch how quickly conservative pundits who have praised him discover that he has deep character flaws.
If Democrats manage to get the focus on their substantive differences with the Republicans, however, polls on the issues suggest that they’ll have a big advantage. And they’ll have Mr. Edwards to thank.
I went to a screening of SICKO last night and Michael Moore spoke afterwards. He referenced the same editorial article about Edwards’ impact on the race. He also kept saying that everyone should eat their fruits and vegetables, but he’s such a fat bastard that when he sat in the director’s chair, he had to rest his arms on his own immense fat roll because it completely covered the arms of the chair! GROSS!
I agree with my funk soul cousin that HIllary will get more done, and get it done faster. In my book, experience really matters when dealing with intransigent Republicans and knowing how to get your legislation through the system. People seem to forget that the President can’t really dictate very much of what they promise in their campaigns. They can come up with the ideas, but they have to get the legislation through the House and Senate or else it’s all dreaming. One candidate has had on-the-job training in that since 1992. The other hasn’t. I want someone who will get things done.
I’d also like to remind everyone of how little “I’m an outsider and I’ll change the world” candidates usually end up accomplishing, and how rough their first couple of years is as they learn on the taxpayer’s dime. Let’s point to a few recent examples – Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenneger, Deval Patrick, and Eliot Spitzer.
I wonder, though.
Will a Democrat President being in the White House cause a bigger change in the behavior and effectiveness of Congress than the White House itself?
Basically, which will change more, the executive branch or the legislative?
I’m thinking that the legislative change might be more important/significant.
I give Obama a 70% chance of failing to do anything, much like you described. I give him a 30% chance of actually doing a lot of bipartisan transparty thingsaregettingfixed transformational stuff. Particularly with a Congress that gives the Democrats a bigger edge than today.
I’m not sure how I feel about those odds. I’ll still fence-sitting. I may decide in the booth.
Yeah, I didn’t think really think you were a one issue voter but I thought maybe I could trick you.
Think about it this way:
After 8 disastrous years, why would you want to sit through another two years of on-the-job training? Anytime candidates run on poetic rhetoric and uplifting speeches, it never goes well when they actually take office. I guarantee you it will be a repeat of what we have seen in Massachusetts in the last year. He will take office, and realize right away that “Hope” is not an issue, and the Washington establishment will prevent him from getting anything done because he will arrive with this “OK, I’m here, let’s completely change the entire system of governing” attitude, just like Clinton did in 1992.
He is not ready for the big stage, his opponent is.
I do support universal health coverage. I agree that Hillary’s plan is better than Obamas.
However, I think both plans are a huge step up from what we have now. 15 million uncovered is vastly better than 40 million uncovered. And the eocnomics of each are at least in the same ballpark, and get some control over the costs.
At any rate, I am not a one-issue voter. I don’t like Hillary’s views on Iraq ferinstance.
If you were an Edwards supporter, I can only assume that you support universal health coverage, which leaves only one candidate. Obama’s plan leaves about 15 million people uncovered.
I still haven’t found a satisfactory answer from an Obama supporter to this question:
Which 15 million people should they be?