Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
WHAT THE ISSUES SAY ABOUT YOU TO CYNICS. I dearly hope that Paul's item yesterdayis wrong about why John Edwards is talking about poverty, but I fear it may not matter too much one way or the other, as I've found that others also share Paul's desire to suss out the "calculation" behind it -- a clear sign that people are questioning the sincerity of his commitment.
At the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees presidential forum last month, for example, I spent some time talking to the workers -- it wasn't all the paper-pushers you'd imagine -- after the candidates spoke, trying to probe why it was that Edwards has not yet secured much support from union workers in polls, despite his strong backing from certain union leaders and serious and ongoing involvement in issues affecting low-income and unionized workers over the past few years. Part of it is clearly a function of demographic and cultural affinities, in that today's union movement is increasingly organizing female and minority workers -- the precise people who polls show cleaving to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and who apparently aren't separating their identities as union workers from all the other facets of their being. (Think of it as an impulse roughly the inverse of the one that gave rise to the Reagan Democrats. In the early 1980s, union members were drawn by cultural affinities to the conservative Reagan, even as union leaders opposed him. Today, the minority women who clean unionized hotels or sew garments may be similarly drawn by the promise of a credible female or minority candidate, even as union leaders back the more explicitly pro-union Edwards.)
But something else may be going on -- something that has nothing to do with assessments of whether or not a politician "understands people like me," as the pollsters like to dub the impulse toward affiliation on cultural grounds. And that other factor is this: The further down the income scale one goes, the more peoples' political analysis is fueled by cynicism, and the harder it is to telegraph authenticity to them. I spoke with two custodians, one retired, at the AFSCME forum who really brought this home for me. Stephanie Hood, an African-American custodian from New York who was well versed in all things Hillary, had just seen Obama speak for the first time and pronounced herself impressed. What about Edwards, I asked. "John Edwards is good," she continued, "but I'm not voting for him." Asked why, she replied bluntly: "I don't like him, basically." The substance of her critique was that she felt he was using the poverty issue for political gain in his campaign. "They don't come out til they really need something," she said. "Was this his issue all the time? Nobody fights for the poor people until they need something, until they need us." The idea that he was running on a platform of fighting poverty bothered her, a custodian who self-identified as poor, and made her think he was an opportunist, not someone who is authentic. "Where was he all this time?" she asked again. Her friend, retired custodian Vera Ogletree, who said she liked both Hillary and Obama, added: "Hillary has a history behind her. She was out there protesting with us since she was a college student."
The assumption that all politicians are cynics who only do or say things for the votes was widespread at the forum. "We expect they're all going to tell us what we want to hear," Donna Arends, an operating room technician for a city-owned hospital in Willmar, Minnesota, told me. Jay Staley, an instrument technician for the Miami-Dade Water & Sewer Department, had a similar take. "They're here to win our votes," he said. "They're long on promises but I don't know how short on answers."
Part of Edwards' challenge in showcasing "authenticity" and genuine concern for the "great moral issue of our time" by talking about poverty is that the poor and formerly poor are prone to looking upon him -- and all politicians -- quite cynically, rather than gratefully. It would provide a huge boon to Edwards' quest to become a tribune for the poor -- and thus his bid for the presidency -- if lower-income voters actually backed him in a significant way. Contra Paul, I don't think simply talking about an issue says much about a candidate; what matters most if if they can talk about issues in a way that inspires allegiance and voter commitment, particularly among those whom they are directly addressing. The political question for Edwards is how he can build up support from lower-income and poor voters if lower-income voters are prone to viewing politicians so much more suspiciously than are higher-income ones (such as the elites drawn by Obama's rhetoric of inspiration and uplift). It's a political conundrum for which there are no easy answers.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
COMMENTS (8)
If poor and working people feel isolated and abandoned by the political system, they're probably right. I would guess that most of these people have no connection to any political party or organization, other than maybe church. And few are represented by unions.
It isn't just Edwards; Dems have a long-term structural problem here.
Posted by: ronin | July 18, 2007 6:09 PM
I don't think simply talking about an issue says much about a candidate; what matters most if if they can talk about issues in a way that inspires allegiance and voter commitment, particularly among those whom they are directly addressing.
Ya think?
Posted by: CJR | July 18, 2007 6:37 PM
Surprise, surprise - another GFR piece "concerned" with John Edwards.
Posted by: Clark | July 18, 2007 6:45 PM
I wonder if this post is related to the one above it, where Edwards echoes his wife's criticisms of Hillary Clinton. At first I found it baffling that they would go after Clinton regarding her support for women's issues, which seems to me to be the one area where she's strongest, but perhaps it's because his poverty campaign isn't connecting with the poor or otherwise expanding Edwards's base of support. By tying it to women's issues, he may be trying to turn it into a women's campaign, which I guess makes some sense given the large block of women primary voters. It still seems risky to choose this particular issue to go after Clinton on and it makes me wonder what the next Iowa poll is going to show, e.g., whether Edwards is slipping to Clinton there.
If this works will Edwards go after Obama similarly - I'm the better candidate for African Americans because they are disproportionally more poor and my programs will help them more than Obama's?
Posted by: BDB | July 18, 2007 6:57 PM
"Surprise, surprise - another GFR piece "concerned" with John Edwards."
It really is a sleazy way to play politics, isn't it? She doesn't have the backbone to oppose him on whatever her real grounds are.
And get used to it. Sleazy is the way the Hillary/Mark Penn crowd is going to play things for the next 6 months.
The truly fascinating Garance columns will come next March after Edwards has locked up the nomination. She'll still be sniping, like a Japanese soldier still fighting on a Pacific island in 1946, unable to come to terms with the fact that the war is over and that she's lost.
Posted by: Petey | July 18, 2007 7:07 PM
Union membership is often a necessity, not a choice. Therefore, someone does not join a union because he ideologically identifies with union politics. He joins a union because it’s a prerequisite to employment.
It’s not like any candidate will make unionizing illegal or force a better collective bargaining agreement. Therefore, being “super” pro-union, instead of just pro-union, is not seen as much of an advantage.
Posted by: Biff | July 18, 2007 7:47 PM
"Surprise, surprise - another GFR piece 'concerned' with John Edwards."
And another one supported only by anecdotal evidence. This is just getting embarrassing.
Posted by: PaulB | July 18, 2007 10:31 PM
I'm just catching up the latest missives from The Garance, or TWPBIA (The Worst Progressive Blogger in America), but I must say, I'm glad The Garance is here to to tell us how poor people really feel.
Check this out from her previous piece. To the claim that low income voters might not at the point know that Edwards is more progressive than Hillary, she says:
"Edwards was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, and has high levels of name recognition in key states; in Ohio, which he will visit later this week, he has 97 percent name recognition."
Does she think her readers have Bush's intelligence? She wants us to believe that because people know who he is, then they know his platform. A dishonest argument that she must know is dishonest.
Posted by: david mizner | July 18, 2007 10:41 PM