Norah O'Donnell reports that Iowa polling data shows the poor and union households did not support

him.

I hope his ground game and team is able to re-group and take this information into NH and make adjustments.

It makes no sense. Were they star-struck by Oprah, or what? I don't get it.

I'm mentioned so many times about the need to reach out to us poor folk, and it's like spittin' in the wind.

Maybe a loss will get people to think about it?

This has been frustrating me for years. There is such a strong determination by people to completely disappear and erase the poor from the scene that even when it would make the difference in an election and help their candidate, people will not go to the poor neighborhoods and will not talk to the people there. People are simply air-brushed out of the happy "middle class" suburban scene, and there are more invisible people than not.

I worked for years in the most distressed neighborhoods of Detroit, and in the eldercare facilities and homeless facilities, and while the good liberals would praise that, they did not get it and would not help. This is no exaggeration, and it is completely consistent with everything else that is happening in our country. It is a national disgrace. Money rules everything, yet we are supposed to pretend that this is not true - many liberals express the idea that somehow if you are thinking the right thoughts, emanating the right vibrations, or making the "right choices," that "abundance will follow." In other words, that money follows our choices. This is merely a pale and cruel modern variation on the dogma of certain Christian sects that say God will reward the virtuous with material abundance, so therefore if I am rich I must be good, and anyone who is not must be bad. But money does not follow our choices. All of our choices are controlled and dictated by the pursuit of money.

The frantic scramble to get to the top of the heap fuels the mechanism that is creating poverty. You cannot separate the two. That means that we all have a moral responsibility.

You see, for people who are well off—and there is a high percentage of people at DU who are in the upper 10% income bracket—it just cannot be that there are so many poor, that so many are teetering on the brink, but most especially they will not face that it is not “bad choices” that causes people’s problems. It is the good choices that are punished in this society—dedicating oneself to something other than pursuing materialism and material security, for example, as the prime and only motivation in life. Teachers, farmers, nurses—just a few of the career choices that have nothing to do with competing on the “free market,” with “selling one’s skills to the highest bidder.” It is the bad choices that are most lavishly and reliably rewarded—the selfish choices, the exploitative choices, the choices that cause suffering and want for others, the choices that leave the world a worse place for everyone.

The worst thing that can happen to any of us is to die, and if I am not mistaken, the death rate among humans is still 100%. I am much more concerned with how we live, and we are living in moral depravity, we are living a lie, we are corrupted and we are spiritually dead inside.

Now I find myself in a situation of losing my job and home, and on top of that get a bad case of the flu and pneumonia without adequate resources to get much in the way of medical assistance. But I am not looking for sympathy, not asking for help, and not asking for advice. All of that is yet another way to disappear people - "solutioning" and sympathizing them to death. You are made to feel ashamed. "Oh, no problem. Let me help. You seem like the kind of inferior being who could use the sage advice and generous assistance of someone just like me! You see, in this wonderful society - hey don't get me wrong I know it isn't perfect! - all you need to do is just fill out these forms, stand in this line, make this call, go to this counselor. And hey good luck getting back on your feet." Bullshit. Every time I hear "why don't you just...." thrown at a person I want to scream. There is no “just.”

I volunteer to be the last person to have work, housing, and health, so long as we are all in fact working together to take care of our people. I will take the last place in line.

But then, I can't understand why everyone isn't freaked out after yesterday.

We poor folk are ignored.

It's just assumed that we will vote for you.

Time to reassess.

I mentioned some things before the caucus, and it didn't make much of a dent among Edwards supporters either locally or on DU.

NOW maybe some will start to listen.

You can't keep taking us for granted!

There is an intense battle within the Labor Union movement today, between the old top-down model and a new insurgent democratic union movement.

The old unions are going to side with power - the party insiders and favorites - and advocate that their membership do the same. The revitalized grass roots union movement members are supporting Edwards.

The same battle is going in everywhere in the country - between the high and mighty muckety mucks and the grass roots; between aristocracy and democracy; between the perfumed and credentialed and the everyday people; between the "practical" who are selling us down the river and the dreamers who are driven from the table; between the beautiful people and the suffering people; between the smug and self-serving "winners" and the rest of us.

Edwards picked up big union endorsements. I'm surprised he didn't get top to bottom at sideways support from all union people.

I will post some information about this for background when I get the chance.

What you have to say about the unions is interesting, and good info.

However, what I heard from the OP was about POOR folk. I don't consider most unions to be made up of poor folk.

Working class, yes, and lower muddleclass.

But not truly POOR.

You are right.