The Most Important Blog... Ever

The biggest highlights from the 2007 California Democratic Party Convention, of course, were the speeches from the most exciting slate of presidential candidates in the history of the party. Here's what sticks out in my memory, one day after the convention wrapped. Stick with me through to the end for the moment you've been waiting for - the Erik Love 2008 Endorsement for one of the candidates!

Senator Clinton had enormous support from the dais. I remember joking about "subliminal messages to vote for Hillary" as Art Torres opened the convention's first general session by saying "God has a new voice, and it's a woman!" Torres and other party officials mentioned their support for Clinton in passing, almost as if it's no longer even worth mentioning since it's so obvious who we should vote for. And most of all, Clinton's position on the agenda was very friendly - she spoke first and no other candidate spoke in her time slot. I overheard later in the day that Clinton was allowed to schedule a "meet Hillary" session with delegates during Barack Obama's speech in the early afternoon, ensuring that Hillary supporters wouldn't get wooed by the charismatic challenger to Clinton dominance.

Perhaps all the support from the party elite is helping to distract from the fact that Hillary Clinton made a huge gaffe in her speech, on the issue of immigration. Everyone I talked to said that they thought Clinton's speech was strong, and it's true that she went out of her way to decry the Iraq war (without apologizing for her pro-war vote). She told a few good stories about her childhood. She came off as strong on universal health care and she sounded very tough on terrorism. In fact, I think I picked up on part of her campaign's general strategy of the moment, the "tough stance on everything" plan. And that's where her gaffe on immigration came in. She said that the federal government should register and keep track of all immigrants (documented and otherwise) because immigration is a "national security issue." In other words, if you want an even stronger PATRIOT Act and a bigger FBI and Homeland Security department, vote for Hillary Clinton. It seems to me that immigration is not at all a national security issue - it's a human rights issue. No undocumented immigrant has ever committed an act of terrorism in the United States. The vast majority of terror attacks - Oklahoma City, the Unabomber, the Atlanta Olympics, and the many bombings at family planning clinics - were all perpetrated by home-grown Americans. 9/11 was carried out by people who were registered with the federal government. Clinton's remark at the convention about tracking all immigrants met with deafening silence. She honestly sounded like a member of the Minutemen, and I was stunned along with the rest of the delegates. Her stance on immigration (which doesn't appear anywhere on her website, by the way) is even harder to understand since she said just last month that "taking a harsh position is not going to solve the problem [of immigration reform]" ("Mrs. Clinton Says G.O.P.'s Immigration Plan is at Odds With the Bible," NY Times, March 23, 2006).

As for the lesser candidates, Obama's great speech got the most cheers, but it was John Edwards who stole the show.

Edwards came clean about his mistaken vote and early support for the Iraq war, and then he went off the charts on the progressive scale. He talked about the labor movement and the need to protect worker's rights. He spoke of the long overdue drive toward universal health care, reminding us that if other candidates don't get specific on how to pay for their plan, then they don't have a plan. Edwards offered his plan, gave it's estimated price tag ($90-120 billion), and he said that he'd pay for it by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Edwards took us to our progressive roots, saying that if we don't stand up for the 37 million Americans who wake up every day, worried about how they will feed their families, then why do we even exist as a Democratic Party? He spoke of the need for a living wage for all Americans. He said that all Americans need access to college. And, on the anniversary of the violence in Los Angeles, he stated the obvious (but too often ignored) fact that race still matters in America: if you're black you're more likely to be poor or in jail. We've got to do something - and Edwards gave specifics and, wow, did he do it eloquently. "The time is over for poll driven politics," he declared, and said that on his first day in office Guantanamo Bay would be closed. He said that thousands of children in Africa die because their parents can't afford a $4 vaccine, and then he made me cry when he chided me for spending $4 on my cup of coffee. Edwards promised to restore America's image in the world by standing up once again for human rights and against genocide. What does America look like when we declare that a genocide is going on and then we do nothing? What does America look like when hundreds of people in one of our own major cities drown? Edwards hit all the right notes, and he now has this progressive blogger's vote in the primary.

Let's think strategically here. Looking at the Republicans, they're already on the defensive and at this point it doesn't look like any of them has a good chance at getting enough electoral votes. The apparent front-runner is a New Englander running on his (shaky) "hero" biography. The former man to beat is a legitimate war hero who has legitimately made about a half-dozen crippling campaign mistakes already. The 2008 campaign is the Democrats' to lose.

This Republican weakness means that we've got a real chance to swing the presidency to the Democratic base, if we can just get past the establishment support for Clinton and put a real Democrat up. There's no reason to "play to the middle" this time (and it's not like that strategy works, anyway). The Republicans are too weak to get past someone with progressive bona fides and a real chance to win 250 electoral votes like John Edwards. That's why I'm joining One Corps today, and I'll see you at a John Edwards event in Santa Barbara sometime very soon.

UPDATE: Here's a link to mp3 audio of the Edwards speech.

From The Courage Campaign

Labels: 2008, From The Courage Campaign, Politics