Kerry, listen to Edwards

Kerry, listen to Edwards

He' the only national Democrat with cross-party appeal

THOMAS OLIPHANT

Boston Globe


Where the economy is concerned, John Kerry is Bill Clinton in one important sense. Like Clinton, and advised by many of the same people, Kerry believes sustainable economic growth must be built on a foundation of financial sanity. That means raising the income taxes of 1 or 2 percent of America's highest-income citizens in order to maintain and broaden tax relief for those who live off their paychecks while investing in cheaper and more available health insurance.

Unlike Clinton, Kerry says the United States must get a better, fairer deal out of globalization. It was John Edwards who helped lead him there during the primary season, and sticking to his guns is important both to the economy and to Kerry's political fortunes.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/opinion/8790428.htm?1c

just NO Gephardt!!!

had paid more attention. Meyerson, a leading columnist on labor/trade issues, observed the Senate climate as a whole in 2002 and had this to say:

http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/11/meyerson-h.html


Senatorial Heresy
The Democrats rethink free trade.
By Harold Meyerson
Issue Date: 6.17.02


Few things in contemporary American politics have been more certain than the Senate's support for free trade. While the critics and criticisms of global laissez-faire have been growing in number and the House's support for free trade has become increasingly iffy, the Senate has rolled merrily along, Republicans and Democrats alike ratifying whatever trade bill was up for a vote.

Imagine, then, the stunned bewilderment on Capitol Hill, at the White House, and among K Street's cadre of corporate lobbyists on the afternoon of Tuesday, May 14. The Senate had just refused to kill the Dayton-Craig amendment to the bill restoring the president's authority to negotiate fast-track (that is, unamendable by Congress) trade treaties. The amendment, by Minnesota Democrat Mark Dayton and Idaho Republican Larry Craig, struck at fast track's very heart. It gave the Senate the right to review, and reject, any language in a trade accord that weakened U.S. anti-dumping laws -- that is, statutes prohibiting other nations from selling steel, computer parts, or any commodity in the United States at artificially low prices intended to damage U.S. manufacturers.

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Not entirely. As we go to press, fast track has yet to come to a final vote in the Senate but is almost sure to pass, with much more Democratic support than it had in the House. Still, Senate Democrats spent mid-May backing all manner of amendments designed to reassert the primacy of U.S. laws and regulations -- in effect, national sovereignty -- over certain aspects of trade accords. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, a free-trader who took the lead in the battle for one such amendment and supported almost all the rest, says, "The elements are different this time. There are elements that have raised people's consciousness."

And new elements -- in politics as in chemistry -- merit some scrutiny.

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By the time fast track came to the House last year, not just California officials but the National League of Cities, the National Association of Attorneys General, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors had sounded the alarm against incorporating Chapter 11. Massachusetts's Kerry offered an amendment to fast track, stripping the bill of its Chapter 11 language, which won the support of 40 Democrats in the course of being defeated.

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Over the past year, partly through the work of groups such as Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, this arcane knowledge has finally radiated beyond Byrd. The key factor in the Democrats' awakening to their own power, though, is the change in the White House. "You have a Bush administration," says Kerry, "whose entire stance is antithetical to a Clinton administration, which negotiated decent labor and environmental agreements as part of its accord with Jordan. Zoellick has made very clear that he's opposed to that sort of thing."
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Much more at link

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I like Edwards alot, and think either he or Clark would make a fine choice as VP, but, Oliphant is stretching to say that Edwards influenced Kerry on free trade. In fact, Kerry wrote the amendment to the free trade deal that was strongly backed by labor. Unfortunately that amendment was defeated. But, Kerry was always a free trader who believed that the deals should also be made FAIRER for labor and the environment.

one of the criticisms of trade is no regulations in regards to how it will hurt the environment. but kerry had attended many international meetings on the environment and how to deal with it. this includes talk of trade, jobs, health etc. he also has the best ratings of anyone when it comes to environment. this shows he isn't just talking but has actually done something.

...table in WI, and then in MN and OH.

He forced Kerry to acknowledge that their are limits to free trade -- ie, that you can't allow it to undervalue labor and that it must consider environmental issues in the short term, not the long term.

He also created expectations on the issue. Now many midwesterners (especially) will measure Kerry's first term in office (with or without Edwards as VP) according to what he accomplishes for American labor (ie, they'll be making sure that we don't sign trade deals with countries that don't protect labor and the environment).

and had advocated free and FAIRER trade since it first became an issue.

I expected Oliphant to know that already.

However, Edwards only voted for two or three of the trade bills and against a bunch that Kerry foted for.

A discussion followed about what Edwards saw in those bills. People who didn't want Edwards to get mileage out of this simply said that Edwards was more or less the same.

However, Edwards himself said that he voted for the Jordan trade bill because Jordan has labor and environmental-protection standards on the books.

Kerry's job seems to have been to create trade bills Democrats could live with through negotiation. Edwards set the bar a little higher: no trade bills with countries which will use the law to undercut American labor and environmental protections.

I'd just like to see more of Edwards on the front page.

:)

:toast:

I like Wesley Clark, too!

I like them both, too! :)