JRE Buzz (25): Weekend Edition

Today is the 25th edition of JRE Buzz, whereby between JRE News Round-up at One America Committee and here, you can catch the buzz about John Edwards.

Events this past week:

Mbair did another very fine CJ piece at the Daily Kos this week about JRE in NH. It was cross posted at the DU and OAC. Excellent work as usual.

One America Committee released another podcast this week. Rather than getting into all of the details, Edwards talked about his travels then answered questions. The one about the minimium wage was the best one as he advocates a raise because studies show that if people can support their families, they can pay taxes, they can be contributors to society and public goods, and they can spend or save more. Right on, JRE!

Edwards' forthcoming book, Home, was mentioned in a NYT piece on Tuesday as well, in the context of going down memory lane.

Elizabeth Olson interviewed Edwards briefly about the first home (seen on the right) in Seneca, SC.

"Mr. Edwards, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, has put together a book about his own childhood home with reminiscences by more than 75 Americans, including two dozen high-profile types like Steven Spielberg and Robert Dole, about the homes they grew up in.

The book was inspired by a pilgrimage Mr. Edwards made to his first home in Seneca, S.C., during the 2004 campaign.

“When I walked up to the house — for the first time in many, many years — I was flooded with memories of my childhood, and growing up in other houses like this one as we moved around the South,” he said in a statement when he announced the book, “Home.” But his vivid memories of “the light making shadows on the floor, sitting on the front step waiting for my dad to come home, the sound of my mother cooking in the kitchen” sidestep the fact that Mr. Edwards lived in the pink three-room cottage only for his first year of life, in 1953. His parents then moved into a larger house in Seneca.

(Mr. Edwards declined to be interviewed further because he wants to save his remarks to coincide with his book’s publication in November.)

Nice.

Edwards was in Greensboro to visit a non-profit business incubator center, the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship on Thursday. He said it was the biggest incubator he had seen for small businesses and spoke to some of their "residents." Was there a bunch of buzz--mainly in the form of snarks--about that. Yours truly offered some questions to ask the editor who was meeting with Edwards at 4pm that day. Doug Clark found it interesting that someone from Illinois might have an interest in Edwards who lives and works out of NC. What Mr. Clark forgot is that in addition to my interest in Edwards, I was interested in seeing how the Center could tie their activities to business growth and our community building (and I am a business librarian, so I follow entrepreneurship in an academic sense), but no, Mr. Clark and other media were too interested in Edwards' views on foreign policy, which means we didn't get any good sense of the visit and what Edwards learned from the residents of the Center.

On Friday the Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity had an open forum on Friday about the aftermath of Katrina. Rob Christensen of the News-Observer attended the forum and jotted this quote from Edwards, "It's very hard to see any difference, any change over the course of the last year," said Edwards, referring to the poorest neighborhoods. "You go through the neighborhoods and speak to the homeowners, and they feel like they have no contact with anybody connected to the government."

It was interesting that money was not the issue, but rather, "panelists said the recovery was complicated by complex social and political issues. Should neighborhoods on dangerous low ground be rebuilt? Should new neighborhoods strive for racial integration or be rebuilt along old segregated lines? Should the troubled school system be run by the city or be operated privately? What efforts should be made to get people who left New Orleans following Katrina to return?"

Meantime, Politics 2008...

Steve Kornacki wrote in the New York Observer that Gore is standing by while watching Edwards and of course, the HRC factor, in which both Gore and JRE are considered the Anti-HRC candidates. But Kornacki asserts the advantages Edwards has in this way:

"But there’s only space for one to Hillary’s left, and Mr. Edwards—for now, anyway—holds two advantages over Mr. Gore. The first is his reputation as a candidate. There are Democrats who believe that President Bush would’ve been unseated if Mr. Edwards, and not John Kerry, had been the party’s nominee in 2004, while Mr. Gore’s 2000 effort is mostly recalled as the political equivalent of a blown save. (The counter-argument to this is that Mr. Edwards only managed to debate Dick Cheney to a draw—at best.) But more importantly, Mr. Edwards is free now to do what Mr. Gore can’t: act like a candidate. Every state legislator he corrals while traversing Iowa represents a small but significant blow to Mr. Gore’s comeback dream."

While Kornacki and others have compared Al Gore's stance for a potential run to Richard Nixon's, I don't see that Al is going to run when he has stumped for no one. His opportunity is to stump for Harold Ford, Jr for senator, and I don't see any signs of that.

Poll Released yesterday by Quinnipiac showed JRE number three Dem as favorable, according to Angus Reid.

Snarkville

There were more than enough snarks this week and I collected the links, but the list was beginning to pile up, so I decided to pick the snarks I saw today, freeperville withstanding.

A LTTE writer, Jason W. Webster, pens to the Galveston County Daily News that Nick Lampson vows to reduce the tax burden for Texas, but brings in John Edwards, as someone who never met a tax hike he didn't like. Ok, typical snark of any prominent Dem, but then procedes to write this: "We all face decisions that will mold the future for us and our children. I don’t want to look in the eyes of my daughters and tell them we cannot afford to do something because Lampson and Nancy Pelosi have raised our taxes." Mr. Webster, the Republican Party already is making your great-great grandchildren under a terrible debt because of reckless spending, in which Texas is one of biggest pork barrels, and because of a senseless war.

Elizabeth Edwards was the subject of snarks on Ed Cone's blog when he announced she was going to be one of the discussion leaders of the Converge South Conference next month. One woman, Dr. Mary Johnson, railed on Elizabeth because of an unresolved issue during JRE's senator tenure, and other snarks were more broad brush about a politician coming to be a discussion leader and being objective. Finally, I posted the Personal Democracy Forum audio clip of Elizabeth's talk, in which I pointed out that she knew how to talk about web discussion issues without being political, and Cone was kind enough to give me a shout out.

Snarkville Honor Roll

It is true that Edwards blasted Bush and Rummy, and the GOP put Edwards on the "Dean Honor Roll" for the day. Howard Dean must be pleased.

Coming Events

JRE is en route to SF to participate in a rally to bring awareness to Ahr-nold's veto of SB840, that healthcare reform is needed, especially for low-paying health services workers.

Edwards will be speaking the Laborers International Union conference on Monday in Las Vegas. There will be a 9/11 program of sorts, according to Winston-Salem Journal:

"Kim Rubey, a spokeswoman for Edwards, said that the program will commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In addition to Edwards, a veteran from the war in Afghanistan will be also be speaking."

Yesterday it was it was announced that Edwards would be making a return trip to Greene County to promote another round of "College for Everyone". Last year's pilot project garnered quite a bit of cash, and JRE is out to raise more, plus find some new applicants. He'll be there next Thursday, according to WilsonDaily.com.


More buzz l8tr...

Tags: John Edwards, JRE Buzz, Elizabeth Edwards, Center for Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, Katrina, Naussbaum Center for Entrpreneurship, Greensboro, Ed Cone, mbair, vlogs, podcasts, One America Committee, Home, polls, snarkville, Benny's World