| I will update this list periodically throughout the next few days to provide links directly to their coverage:
Writers covering the story
Daily Kos~ This Story Cross-Posted There
Colorado Lib ~ His Story Here
Progress Now Action ~ Their Story Here
Talk Left~ Preliminary Report Here
Colorado Confidential~ Rosa and Bane have the Story Here
Colorado Pols
5280 ~ Jeralyn's Full Story Here
Slate
Others at the table
Sustainable Politics Stapleton
Advomatic
Drinking Liberally
I am an easy audience for the Senator. I like his energy and charisma. I like his domestic agenda. I think he should have been the top of the ticket in 2004. I have met politicians who have humbled me with their solemn wisdom. I have met politicians who have energized me with their lofty progressive vision. But Colorado has seen a unique few days with Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Edwards both visiting us. Both of them have a vitality and drive that makes me optimistic for a future that is competent, progressive, and actually politically possible. Toss the two of them on a ticket together, you can pick who heads it, and I will donate the maximum.
Still, we didn't go easy on him, and I was not entirely satisfied with his answers.
Jearlyn Merritt of TalkLeft threw out the ceremonial first pitch and asked about the role of blogs in politics.
"First of all, I think blogs are way cool."
The Senator said that blogs had changed and continue to change politics in the United States. He related a story about a writer he knows on the Washington Post who says that blogs are the first place he goes for information in the morning.
Glad handing the blogs is a common practice when talking to internet journalists, but I liked that he recognized the more subtle feedback between the net and the mainstream media. This was the first time I have heard a non-writer understand that 'we' don't just report on 'them', but that there is a conduit of information gathering and analysis that flows through us both.
From there, I could kiss goodbye my carefully prepared stash of political questions about who is running when and who in the past made which choices on what campaign, because my colleagues were too insightful and interested in policy to get tied up in personality and process.
Colorado Luis showed leadership in that regard by jumping right into a question about economics. He wanted to know how to turn around our Nation's expanding deficits.
Edwards laid out a broad plan of domestic investments that included universal health care, changes in energy strategy, and fifteen to twenty billion dollars a year in poverty relief. He would like to see both the Senate and the House establish 'pay as you go' policies, and he planned to fund his investment through rolling back the Bush tax give-aways, ending oil subsidies, controlling 'pork barrel' earmarks, and that we...
"...probably have to find some other revenue sources and that will require some hard choices."
ColoradoLib mentioned that he had heard Edwards speaking in March at an event in Denver, and that he was confused by something that sounded like Edward's desire to force low income families into some sort of socio-economic integration program. Edwards clarified his program that was entirely voluntary, and designed to give families mobility and flexibility in choosing their own communities.
The Senator said that our current housing policy is totally broken, and we would have to restructure the Department of Housing and Urban Development, because:
"Most people believe HUD is a bureaucratic disaster, which it is."
Decrying a system where we allow mobility to only those with capital or education, he proposed new housing vouchers that operated differently than the current model which aggregates people into low income clusters. If the holders of these vouchers so chose, they could migrate into better neighborhoods.
Johne, president of Denver's Drinking Liberally chapter, criticized the administrations claims that the economy was moving upwards when in reality the wages of our workers were clearly under downward pressure. Edwards said that in a way we do have economic growth, but its impact was only positive on the top incomes. Low incomes were down in real dollars, and middle incomes have been alternatively stagnant or falling for years. He indicated the hidden dangers of the modern two income track. In the past when times worsened, the parent at home could perhaps take on part time work and scrape out emergency income, but with two income families there is no safety net. If both parents are already working and debt levels are still increasing, then minor downturns mean disaster. His solutions to this bankruptcy trap include raising the minimum wage, introducing universal health care, and strengthening the ability of workers to organize. He said the recent decision to move towards unionizing the Denver Hyatt Convention Center meant that the workers would be instantly in the middle income range; wages, health care, and a pension. Meanwhile, the neighboring hotel workers would be in poverty.
While we were speaking of the Denver Convention Center, Jeralyn asked if Edwards would support bringing the DNC Convention there. He acknowledged New York as a strong competitor, but said that he would like to see the convention in Denver.
"We want all of America to feel that they are part of the Democratic Party."
The conversation turned to the perception by CNN and other outlets that the Democrats suffer from an image high in "wuss factor", and why we shouldn't turn that around by adopting a strategy of showing how weak the Republicans really are on national defense.
"Rather than think of the political strategy involved, I like to think about what America should be doing in the world and show leadership in that." Yes, he felt the Republicans followed a policy of "proactive stupidity", but the bigger problem was their, "lack of understanding of what strong leadership means."
Leadership, according to Edwards, was the combination of power and moral authority, and he wanted to see America's moral authority restored. If we coupled our 'hard power' with the 'soft power' of taking a leadership role in global diplomacy (such as engaging in a serious way in the genocide in the Sudan or in the crisis in Uganda) we could express a different vision than the failed vision of the Republican administration.
I asked how the Military Commissions Act or "Torture Bill" impacted that vision of moral leadership. On this Edwards made strong statements, but seemed to me to keep opening backdoors to each of them. He said he was, "deeply disappointed in what McCain did," and said that Abu Gharaib and Guantanamo undermined our moral authority, but when Merritt pressed him if he would close Guantanamo he started talking about a scenario that, "nobody wants to talk about," where we have a bad guy, a pending terrorist attack, and a short time to get information.
First of all, everbody talks about this scenario all the time. The television show Twenty Four runs it over and over. The problem with the premise is a belief that torture yields useful information. The North Vietnamese had John McCain for years and all he gave them was the starting line of the Packers. Even if we could cram five years of Vietnamese torture into five minutes, we could get the victim of our torture to confess to being a witch if we wanted to, but that information would still be garbage. We are talking about suicide bombers, plane hijackers and jihadists. Do you really think you can do anything to them in two hours that they won't just ride out on their way to a promised heaven? And what is worse is the presumption that you have in your control a "bad guy" on which to practice your torture. I doubt that any administration that would authorize electrical shocks to prisoners on short notice has really done the investigative work to know who they have. Even the most well meaning President would have to base his decision on no real process of justice and rely on the say-so of someone in some secret prison camp down the chain of command.
But Edwards did not support torture. He said so repeatedly. He said that we should have a process that respected the Geneva Conventions and upheld our "basic values of Justice and Fairness," but in some "extreme extraordinary" situations we would have to move outside of that process and, with Presidential authorization, engage in "very aggressive interrogation." In those cases, he added, there would have to be full public disclosure of what was done and why so that these things could not happen in secret backrooms.
It sounds like torture to me and I think that the President would simply not comply with disclosure, as no doubt the Executive Branch could find a reason why disclosure would interfere with an ongoing National Security threat, and could thereby be concealed as a 'State Secret'. My impression in the end, after listening to the careful questioning by Ms. Merritt was that Edwards lies a bit closer to the current policy than I do on this topic.
Alan Franklin of Progress Now asked an excellent question about these "extreme extraordinary" situations:
AF: Do you believe there has been such a circumstance since the events of 9-11?
Sen. Edwards: No.
Erin Rosa of Colorado Confidential turned the conversation towards the role of the West in national politics and Edwards was very enthusiastic. He saw pickups in the Colorado Governor's race, Congressional seats throughout the West, the implosion of Jim Gibbons in Nevada, and he believes it will culminate in a strong role of the West in chosing our next President.
With time running out, the Senator was asked if he might consider further campaigning for Ned Lamont, as he did prior to the primary. Saying that Lamont should be in the Senate, Edwards said he would be happy to head out to Connecticut again if he can find a way.
Despite my ranting on torture, I came away from the meeting very much respecting the Senator, I am grateful that he made himself so available to our questions and I look forward to him being part of a fantastic group of candidates in the '08 primaries. At this point in the game, he is my choice, but there is a lot of time between now and then and the vote in two weeks eclipses nearly everything else for me.
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