My Vote 1/8/08

Don’t call it an endorsement – I have a preference I feel I should be open about, but in the final analysis it’s just me. I’m explaining myself, not trying to convince anyone else.

Things I know:

• Any of the Democratic candidates (not counting Mike Gravel) would make a fine president. Several could be presidents to be proud of; who knows, even great ones.
• On Tuesday, January 8, I will have to vote for one candidate only in the New Hampshire primary.
• Being an indecisive person confronted with several choices with much to recommend them and some things to be held against them is a kind of hell.

In the end, my answer is the same as it was in the beginning: Ever-questioning, but nonetheless identifiable, for John Edwards. Here is a bit of my thinking, stripped as much as possible of reference to the other candidates I still would support enthusiastically in a general election. Qualities that appeal to me in Edwards are not necessarily missing in other candidates, but I feel them most strongly from him.

While I could cite specific Edwards policy positions that draw me (healthcare comes immediately to mind), the tipping point for me lies in the style of politics he espouses and has built into his campaign.

I feel a deep urgency about this election. I feel it as someone who recently spent two years with inadequate health insurance, learning the kind of fear you live with every day. I feel it as I watch our dwindling New England winters. I feel it when I read about death after death in Iraq, and torture inflicted by our government.

John Edwards is the candidate I see expressing that same sense of urgency.

I believe, as a general principle and particularly with regard to the Republican party as it now is, that change requires struggle. Powerful institutions will have to be dragged kicking and screaming even into policies that are overwhelmingly popular with the American people.

John Edwards is the candidate I see committing to that struggle, acknowledging how hard he will need to fight for his agenda, and asking for voters to be partners in that.

I believe that electoral politics must be joined with movement politics, and in recent years, no national-level politician has been as committed to the labor movement as John Edwards. Labor is of particular interest to me, but the simple fact of movement involvement is as important to me as the specific issue. And not just working with issue groups, but working with groups in which members, not bureaucrats, set the agenda and create the energy.

On the issues, my support for Edwards derives from domestic more than foreign policies. If he had not strongly repudiated his Iraq vote, I could not consider supporting him, and that vote continues to be a blot on his record. But he has been speaking consistently and strongly against the war for some time now, and the other candidates I have most seriously considered are imperfect here too.

My greatest concerns about Edwards center on some strategic questions. Plenty has been written at this site about the problems with Edwards’ decision to take public financing. I think it was a mistake that could needlessly weaken his general-election candidacy and that will not take the money out of the race, instead shifting it into less transparent entities. But I don’t think it’s a disqualifier.

Then there’s his problem with the press. As Hunter wrote a few months ago,

Where Edwards has fallen flat is in his relations with the press, which from this far-off vantage point seem dismal, or at least aggressively apathetic.
--snip–
This isn’t a small point. If the press decides to bury a candidate, he gets buried.

I saw this in person in August. I had a brief interview with Edwards, and the man I saw then was flatter and less engaged than the man I’ve seen in campaign appearances. If it seemed to be an anomaly – that I’d gotten him when he was tired, that he didn’t feel a need to put on all his charm for a blogger – that would be one thing. I wasn’t personally offended that when a major presidential candidate gave me (me, seriously?) an individual interview, he didn’t suck up to me. If anything, it’s kinda nice that he gives more attention and energy to people in his audiences. But unfortunately, from what I hear he’s often disengaged with reporters, and it is reflected in the treatment he gets. With many more people exposed to him through the media than through personal appearances, that’s a problem.

These concerns are real, and they’ve kept me teetering for a while. Most of all, I want the nomination to be decided so I can commit myself wholeheartedly to a candidate and work with all of you to obliterate the Republican nominee on November 4, 2008. But taken as a whole – not just the candidate as an individual, not just the policies, but people around him (David Bonior is a big plus for me), and the kind of politics built into the campaign – and because I have to make one choice, for me, it’s John Edwards.

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