Anyone else notice Kerry swiped Edwards' "Two Americas" riff last night?

During the ABC interview with Koppel, Kerry used the "Two Americas" riff. It's a good one, too.

But it's a good point, so spread it around. I wish they'd all start making it, frankly. :)

Many of the candidates are now sharing campaign messages. I feel good knowing that Edwards is the best at conveying them.

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and yes, it is a good line or phrase. it's been used often, but of the democrats running now edwards has used it the most. it's become a big theme. and check out the author and excerpts from the book if you can because it's a good one. very worth reading.

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but she still looked great!

i believe she was one of those who filled in for her husband at some of the events early morning in iowa when he lost his voice. and she has already been campaigning hard the entire campaign.

please, read it and click the link to read the rest of it.

<The Two Americas
by Stanley Greenberg
Published by Center for American Progress

Today, we are trapped in an ugly politics of parity that diminishes the nation. The two parties are joined in a destructive struggle – both trapped, neither really able to vanquish the other, but each with a realistic chance of winning any time the battle is rejoined. The result is not only a rising political acrimony but a diminished set of policy options for the country.

The politics of the Two Americas has changed the partisans. With the two parties closely matched and with each party having an equal change for victory, there are strong incentives to get as many votes as possible, to elevate the passions, from your existing partisans. The result: partisans have become more partisan. Politics has become more polarized. America has become more divided.

The current divide has actually formed over the last half-century, when no party has really succeeded in dominating at the polls over extended periods or commanding the realm of ideas. This uncertainty has invited a series of bold efforts by the Democrats and Republicans to become the leading party of the era, but each fell short, shaking up political loyalties without creating a new majority in the country. Kennedy and Johnson, Nixon and Reagan, Clinton and Gore all fell short. That set us on the road to political deadlock and deepening political divisions, particularly in the last decade.

In this culminating period since 1992, closed by three national elections, our politics has become cultural, with each side offering distinct and counterpoised views about government, values, the family, and the best way of life. The politics of culture has pushed other voting issues off the public agenda, though not out of the consciousness of ordinary voters.>

http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040112Greenberg.shtml

The "Two Americas" Edwards and Kerry are using is about globalization, money, taxes, corporatism, and opportunity. When it comes down to it, it is really about progressive taxation.

spoke of 2 cities on the hill in 1984 ...

But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. A shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one, where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city.

In fact, Mr. President, this is a nation --. Mr President you ought to know that this nation is more a "Tale of Two Cities" than it is just a "Shining City on a Hill."

(San Francisco, California, July 16, 1984)

http://www.foothilltech.org/rgeib/am-ex/coldwar/primary_sources/cuomodnc07-16-84.htm http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/cuomo1984dnc.htm

How the Other Half Live by Jacob Riis
http://www.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html

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Sadly, the theme still rings true.