I have decided

On Tuesday I wrote  a diary entitled Things not discussed - and more - last night's debate in which I announced

I will no longer consider voting for Hillary Clinton in the Virginia primary on February 12, even though I would vote for her in the general election in November against any Republican candidate

And now I have made up my mind.  On February 12 in the Virginia primary I will vote for John Edwards.
Last summer, well before Yearlykos, I gave John Edwards $100 because I wanted his voice to continue.  I felt he was raising issues that the other candidates were not addressing.  Over the course of the campaign I have seen how issues he raised have moved the other candidates to address at least in part the concerns he expressed.

He is not a perfect candidate, but as Meteor Blades wrote in his diary Thanks, John, We Desperately Need Your Message:

All the candidates - including those who have dropped out - have made policy statements that I very much like, that would, if implemented have positive results. All have taken stances that I think are myopic, narrow-minded, detrimental. All have failed to adequately address some of the major issues of our time. All have said and done things in this campaign that are, to be generous, disturbing.

I will not in this diary parse out every single reason.  I have concerns about some of the positions Edwards has taken during his Senate career and during this campaign, as I do about Obama - and remember, I have decided I will not vote for Clinton in the primary because of the nature of her campaign.  Perhaps I am shaped by my experience, by what I have experienced in my life, by the work I do.  I am passionate about education.  I have in the past two days had off-line conversations with several people with whom I have worked closely on educational policy issues.  Although there is respect for Obama, there is more respect for Edwards, especially on issues related to No Child Left Behind and the devastation it has be wreaking upon America's public schools.   This is seen most clearly in the narrowing of the education received in those school serving the poor, whose test scores tend to be lower because the students arrive in school without the out of school support of middle class kids, whose teachers are often the least well trained or skilled, whose buildings can be decrepit, as is seen in the "corridor of shame" in South Carolina.  In order to try to avoid the punitive sanctions of failing to make adequate yearly progress the educational opportunities become even further narrowed - no art, or music, or poetry, or sometimes no physical education, all in the name of raising scores on low-level tests that are not a meaningful indicator of much beyond how you performed on those test.   All of us agreed that while none of the major democratic candidates is bad on education, Edwards is superior.

Here I must remind people that I had the opportunity to talk about education policy with Elizabeth Edwards.  I do not believe the fact I had that access and had no such opportunity with most of the other campaigns (except with Richardson) influences how I view Edwards on education - my perceptions about his ideas and track record were independently confirmed by the people with whom I discussed in the past few days.  

I am concerned about inequity and injustice.  And much of the injustice in our society flows from too much power in too few hands:  the excessive concentration of wealth and economic power too often converts into excessive political influence.  It may not be outright bribes, but turning to the wealthy and powerful as a means of financing campaigns merely exacerbates the existing problems of inequity.  I realize that some have criticized Edwards for choosing to take public funding, arguing that were he to get the nomination he would have unilaterally disarmed going into a match with Republicans who would crush him by spending.  I think there is something to be said for standing on principle - if you believe that money plays too big a role in our politics, then do not mortgage the future of the office you seek to the commitments you have to make to raise the 100 million or more that some candidates will spend in the primary season.  

I am a realist.  It is unlikely that Edwards will even win one primary, much less the nomination.  But right now that does not matter.   I believe that the changes we need cannot depend on one leader to whom we will swear fealty - we are not in a feudal system.  We have to demand the changes we need.  But to move in that direction we need a persuasive and articulate voice to speak on our behalf.  It would be wonderful were that voice to be elected president.   It is sufficient that the voice forces the others to listen, to have to modify their messages to account for the issues raised by the voice speaking on our behalf.

I am not seeking by posting this message to persuade other to take the path I now trod.  Some may choose to vote tactically or strategically.   Others will have reasons they will support another candidate, or cannot support Edwards.  I will not argue with you.  

I cannot write as extensively on behalf of Edwards as has Kid Oakland on behalf of Obama - because I do not have the time. Nor am I as eloquent.  I  can only offer the reasons that lead me to the decision I have now made.  If you do not care for Edwards, or do not care what I think, these may not matter to you.  I accept that.

But as an active member of the two communities in which this is being posted, Daily Kos and Raising Kaine, I feel an obligation when I have chosen to remain neutral as long as I have to explain, as I did about Clinton, why I am leaving that position of neutrality.

John Edwards is neither a perfect candidate nor a perfect man.  He was wrong on many important issues during his time in the Senate, starting with his vote on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq.   Were I voting only on that issue - which is very important - I would not be able to support him either in the primary or in the general.  And yet, I was prepared in 2004 not to vote for John Kerry:  I live in Virginia, and as I noted were my vote needed for Kerry to win Virginia, my vote would not matter - no Democrat has carried Virginia presidentially since Lyndon Johnson.  But I did vote for Kerry, precisely because he picked John Edwards as his running mate, because in 2004 John Edwards was talking about poverty at a time when others might only talk about the middle class.

Perhaps the issues of poverty and discrimination and inequity and of concentration of power do not seem interconnected to others, but they are to me.  Perhaps to some they are less important than the environment, or the war, or even the erosion of the Constitution.  All of those ARE important, and are discussed, and Edwards does not ignore them.  But the one voice that has consistently addressed the least of these among us has been John Edwards.

I have never been truly poor, although there were times when things were very tight.  But I was white, from a middle class family, and even when I had dropped out of Haverford the first time to enter the Marines, better education than the majority of Americans, better able to get a job - I can remember after dropping out the second time being offered entrance into the college graduate training program at a big Wall Street firm because I tested and interviewed better than most of their college graduates.   I did not have to worry about my ability to survive, to live a decent life.

But I have taught students who are homeless, who miss school because on some days they have no place to wash and they don't want to come to school dirty and smelly because then people will know.  I have lived in slums, although in my case my residence was voluntary, where people had little hope of escape, of a better life for their children.  I played on a softball team in Brroklyn where I was the only white with a batch of working class blacks.  I was occasionally invited into their homes, where they were generous with what they had, which was not much, in apartments with little furniture, where the children had one good set of clothes and two sets of every day clothes.  I have worked for a principal who grew up that poor, who told me about having only one set of underwear that she had to wash out by hand every day, taking care not to scrub too hard lest they wear out before her mother could afford to replace them.  I have in my travels seen far too many slums in cities, ramshackle dwellings in rural areas, people living on steam grates, in doorways, in subway tunnels.  

And I have seen the incredibly wealth to which others claim entitlement, who want their taxes abated and are unwilling to give back to the society which enables them to gain wealth, who benefit from an unfair tax structure in which Warren Buffett's secretary pays a higher overall tax rate than does he, in which people can make massive amounts through obscene profit levels while denying their workers health care or their customers decent products or services.

If we as a society do not address these issues, we are immoral.  If we look the other way, we are heartless.  If we do not speak out, we are complicit.

Matthew 25:31-46 is called the Gospel of the Last Judgment.  In the Orthodox Church, of which I was a member for 14 years, it is read as one is about to embark on Great Lent, on Meatfare Sunday, the last day on which one can eat meat until the Paschal celebration, one week before entering into the period of Great Lent.   The text serves to remind one of our responsibility to one another:

  "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
  "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
  "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
  "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
  "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
  "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
  "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
  "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

I can put it far less elliptically, without a teaching parable.   I prefer to think of the words from Hillel which I have quoted before:

If I am not for myself, then who will be for me?
And if I am only for myself, then what am I?
And if not now, when?

For these reasons, and for many more, I want the voice of John Edwards to continue through the rest of this campaign.  Perhaps lightening will strike and he will find a way to achieve the nomination. In all likelihood that will not happen.  But in the meantime I want his voice speaking for all those who have no voice, and in speaking for them, he speaks for me.

I endorse the candidacy of John Edwards for Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

Peace.

Comments