because someone has to.
This is...the time for all good men not to go to the aid of their party, but to come to the aid of their country.
Eugene J. McCarthy
Due to the dedicated and tireless work of volunteers in Iowa
and New Hampshire
as well as a major endorsement from Iowa's First Lady, Mari Culver (Culver 2016) all fighting for John Edwards
the national media is finally recognizing how John's message and call to "Fight" is resonating with voters.
From HuffPo
Hillary Clinton won the Des Moines Register endorsement over the weekend, but Iowa's First Lady Mari Culver threw her popularity and support to John Edwards, promising to campaign for him across the state and breathing a renewed sense of hope into Edwards' bid to win the January 3 caucus.
"I believe John Edwards can win!" said Mari Culver before a crowd of about 400 in downtown Des Moines over the noon hour today.
Mrs. Culver's reasons for endorsing Edwards: He is a great public servant with a very compelling personal story, and he's right on the issues that matter most.
The crowd, many of them men wearing black United Steelworkers jackets and T-shirts, led the crowd waiting for the candidate by cheering, "We love Elizabeth. We love John. We want to see them on the White House lawn."
John Campbell, political organizer for the steelworkers, said, "I'm very happy where we are in Iowa. With the endorsement of Mari Culver and several other choice endorsements and our good statewide organization, it's a good sign. We've got 8,000 members in the state and they're motivated to get out and attend their caucus for John."
The United Steel Workers endorsed Congressman Dick Gephardt during the last cycle and all the union support he received couldn't help Gephardt. Gephardt retired his presidential ambitions after his dismal showing in the Iowa caucuses.
Supported by five major unions in the state, Edwards repeated his stump speech calling for those present to "take back America" by voting for him in the upcoming caucus.
While most of the crowd seemed to be hardcore Edwards' supporters, Don Piper, an IT professional at Principal Financial Group, walked into the event in his running clothes.
"I am in between Edwards and Joe Biden. I like a lot of his [Edwards] policies but he sounds too angry and I think he has to be willing to work with others to get anything done."
Des Moines attorney Robert Oberllig caucused for Edwards in 2004. He said of Edwards: "He's right on most issues. I don't think we can bring about change if you're too confrontational like he is. I'm not sure who to caucus for. It's between Edwards, Hillary, and Obama."
Edwards is releasing a new TV ad calling on voters to 'fight' and committing to be the president who will fight for Democratic voters.
After the event, OffTheBus asked Edwards if his confrontational style would hinder him from getting anything done in Washington.
Edwards answered - sort of - by saying he didn't believe that anything would change by having the big insurance companies and drug companies and corporations at the table.
John Edwards has always been a heat seeking populist missile on the campaign trail. In these final 17 days, though, he has turned up the heat by snagging endorsements like Mari Culver, reminding Iowans that he has been here for years, and continuing his personal narrative of fighting for the 'little' guy despite his millionaire status.
During the 2004 cycle, the Des Moines Register's late endorsement of John Edwards helped him score an impressive second place win in the Iowa caucuses.
OffTheBus asked Edwards' Iowa co-chair Rob Tully how he felt about the Register's endorsement of Hillary Clinton.
Tully said, "We were disappointed with the Register endorsement, but we weren't surprised. They've given her preferential treatment all along. The media isn't getting the story out that she has taken more money from special interests, lobbyists, and the health care industry than any other candidate, Republican or Democrat."
"Edwards has caught the 'Mo' [momentum] at just the right time. We had bigger crowds all weekend than Barack Obama. John's message is coming through," said Tully.
'Mo' is a big factor in this horse race with only three weeks to go before the caucuses.
It may or may not be true that Edwards is catching the 'Mo' but one thing is certain - nothing is certain and no one is being counted out. Certainly, not John Edwards.
His photograph on the front page of Newsweek, Mari Culver's endorsement, big union support, experienced caucus captains, not to mention his goodwill, all add up to a stealth campaign strategy that could put Edwards on top.
And from the New York Times in an article titled "It's Edwards The Fighter in the Iowa Homestretch"
When he did appear, Mr. Edwards strode in as if he were climbing into a boxing ring. For half an hour, he talked about fighting special interests and battling corporations. He urged his audience to “rise up” against health care companies and insurance executives. Pugilistic until the end, he loudly told a story of how his father ordered him to go out and “kick that guy’s butt” after he came home from school with a bloodied nose, suggesting that was a lesson he would carry into the White House as well.
“We have an epic fight in front of us, and anybody who thinks that’s not true is living in a fantasy world,” Mr. Edwards said. “How long are we going to let insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies run this country? Every time this has happened in our country, the American people have risen up and taken action.”
Mr. Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, almost won the Iowa caucuses in 2004 by introducing, in the final weeks of the contest, a closing argument that drew huge crowds and, polls suggest, rallied supporters to his corner right up until the night of the vote. Now, Mr. Edwards, a former trial lawyer, is offering yet another closing argument to his jury of voters here. And there is evidence — from the size of his crowds to the decision by an opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, to challenge him more directly in the past few days — that it may be working.
he is issuing a defiant pledge to fight big business, to voters in a state that has been buffeted by national and global economic forces and is still reeling from the closing of Maytag plant in Newton in October. He is accompanied on some of his stops by one of the 3,900 Iowans who used to work there, and points to the closing as evidence of the damage that trade agreements have done to the middle class. In his speech here, he used the word “fight” about a dozen times in 25 minutes. And in nearly every appearance, he tells the story of the schoolyard bully, complete with his father’s salty counsel.
In an interview, Mr. Edwards, a former senator, said his sharp-edged message, which at several stops brought people to their feet as he urged them to “rise up,” was barely different from what he told voters when he ran in 2004 or, for that matter, what he was telling them six months ago.
Joe Trippi, a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, said the campaign was confident that a victory in Iowa would bring him enough in contributions to carry him through the nomination. “We have a plan to execute this,” Mr. Trippi said. “Nobody understands that.”
“A lot of things have to go right for this to go through,” he said. “But so far, it’s gone the way we planned for.”
Mr. Edwards’s strength here is also a function of the political operation he has built over five years. Mr. Edwards’s aides said he had not one but two precinct captains in 90 of the 99 precincts. They have been going through caucus drills to master the tactic that worked so well for Mr. Edwards in 2004: to quickly recruit caucusgoers who, on the first ballot, supported a rival candidate who gets less than 15 percent of the vote, and is thus eliminated from the competition.
And he is arguing that he is far more electable than Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton, an argument that, like his economic populist pitch, has resonated in the past with Democrats in this state.
{RELATED: "John Edwards would make the strongest general election presidential candidate in North Carolina according to Public Policy Polling's newest survey.
The poll tested nine potential general election matchups. Edwards led Rudy Giuliani 48-43, led Mike Huckabee 50-43, and led Mitt Romney 52-40. Edwards gets more crossover support from Republican respondents than the other Democratic front runners
do, and he also gets a higher percentage of support from Democrats.
The survey also found that Republican candidates led all potential matchups with either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Giuliani leads Clinton 46-39 and Obama 46-43. Huckabee leads Clinton 48-42 and Obama 47-42. Romney leads Clinton 46-42 and Obama 45-42.
"These results show that John Edwards is the best hope for the Democrats to take North Carolina, and probably anywhere in the south," said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling}
But more than anything, Mr. Edwards’s success in these final days appears to rest on the resonance of this fighting-words appeal with which he has now identified his candidacy
People are excited and people are ready to fight for their country. And that's why there is "frenzied enthusaism" in Iowa for change and for John Edwards as seen in this from the Daily Kos
"The two candidates both spoke at Mason City on Saturday night, and experienced a reversal in roles, with Edwards packing a huge hall that was so crowded that the press left their risers and went into the balcony to shoot the event. Obama also drew a sizeable number of people, around 450, but in a comparison of press reports by NBC reporters, it lacked the frenzied enthusiasm that greeted Edwards.
There is no doubt that after Edwards dominated the final Des Moines Register debate, we can summarize his closing argument to Iowans with one word: FIGHT. While one candidate thinks that lobbyists are actually a good thing, and another hopes we can all get along, Edwards understands that this kind of thinking by Democrats in the Senate and the House is why we're seeing one surrender after another to President
Edwards knows that taking our country back from the corporations and their lobbyists will be a FIGHT, and he's counting on Iowans to understand that fact as well.
Apparently Obama's internal polling numbers reflect that Edwards' message is getting through, because you don't go after another candidate by name unless you think you have to. In Spencer, Iowa, today (Monday, Dec. 17):
At a town hall here, Obama directly questioned Edwards' record in the Senate, contrasting his record with Edwards' in regards to taking on the special interests. "The reason now that I raise this issue of the special interests is because everybody now in the campaign talks about how I am going to fight for you. Like Sen. Edwards, who is a good guy -- he's been talking a lot about, 'I am going to fight the lobbyists and the special interests in Washington.' Well the question you have to ask is: Were you fighting for'em when you were in the Senate. What did you do? Because I did something, immediately upon arriving in the Senate, despite the fact that it wasn't a popular position to take."
Obama's campaign obviously is worried about Edwards, but notice they aren't willing to take him on head-on by running a more pro-working people, anti-corporation campaign. This kind of negative, backward-looking attack isn't what works with Iowans, who want to know how a candidate will go to battle for them and their families against the special interests.
"I guess the Obama campaign is starting to realize what others have already: There is growing excitement on the ground for John Edwards as we enter the homestretch," said Edwards communications director Chris Kofinis in a statement. "But the truth is that John Edwards is the only candidate in this race who has never taken a dime of PAC or lobbyist money and he’s also the only one urging the Democratic Party to reject lobbyist money. Unlike others, John Edwards has beaten corporate special interests his entire life, and won’t be obliged to compromise or negotiate with them as President."
The American people voted for Democrats in November 2006 because they wanted to FIGHT back against Bush and the Republicans. They haven't gotten their money's worth. In order to convince them to show up again next November, the Democrats need to nominate a FIGHTER. There's one candidate who has demonstrated clearly that he gets this and is ready to battle for us: John Edwards.
Fight for America. Demand Change. Vote John Edwards.
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