The Democrats

I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder--alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady, unthinking application of force, of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware--is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribe, dooms us all.

Suffice it to say that the perspective of the Democratic candidates in this race contrasts against the Republicans a bit.

Republicans and Democrats are going to adopt different solutions to solving poverty. And they're going to emphasize their fight against poverty in different ways. But this election seems to be shaping up as a special contrast between parties in terms of how often and how forcefully the poverty issue will be publicly addressed. While a couple of the Republicans are running away from even their own efforts in support of the poor, the Democrats are approaching it head on. And because of the publicity that's surrounded the candidates' proposals, we hear more about what they are saying about the issue than what they have actually done. So who has had the most to say, and who has done the most to back it up?

And now for the Democrats:

John Edwards
John Edwards has picked up an image as the "candidate for the lower-class". He ran in 2004 on the theme of "two Americas", a powerful and a powerless. And Edwards has spent much of his time the last two years campaigning for rights of the poor, running a poverty studies center at UNC, and undertaking a demonstration of his college aid proposal. His 2008 campaign has taken on much of the same themes as the 2004 campaign, with even greater vigor.

What worries me about Edwards is the disconnect between his recent public life and everything else he's lived for in the 53 years he's been around. As others pointed out already, if there are two Americas, he's a member of the rich and powerful one. So what was he doing for the poor in his law career? At what point are the poor going to take priority over his enormous house and bank account? And if he is so single-minded for this issue, why did he have such a paltry record in the Senate on it? Unlike some of the candidates I mentioned yesterday, John Edwards doesn't need to say more on behalf of the poor. He needs to explain how everything he says aligns with what he's done, and show specifically why his presidential service would look different than his Senate service and the rest of his life.

As a side note, I also worry whether he is concerned with the foreign poor. In his populist tack, I see inklings of a protectionist ideology that "protects" the American worker while ignoring the plight of those overseas. This may help win votes among the working poor, but I would not consider it a good indicator of someone whose heart is truly in line with the needy.

Hillary Clinton
Before doing this research I had assumed Clinton was basically an average Democrat in regards to concern for the poor. It was nice that I could be surprised by the record of someone who has had so much public exposure. Clinton's concern for children, women, and health care has been strong throughout her life, from volunteer work during her college years, through her professional life, her terms as First Lady, and her Senate career. And it hasn't stopped with those concerns - her effort on other poverty issues has been strong as well. She has both talked the talk and walked the walk in these manners, and I believe her feelings on this issue are legitimate.

A question I have about Clinton is whether she will be effective in addressing her concerns. During the 6+ years she has spent in the Senate, only one of the poverty-relevant bills she sponsored became law, and that one was buoyed by 9/11 sentiments. She attacked Republicans on their lack of concern...but in such a way that I felt would have been more appropriate from their constituents, not from a lawmaker they have to work with. A second concern that I have about her effectiveness is whether she understands these issues at the root. All of her work for the poor has come from "helping" them from above - working as a lawyer in courts and dictating policy from public office. As wordcat mentioned earlier, she's a little bit of a wonk. Does that mean she won't make good policy? No, but I worry that there might be something missing from it.

What I really want to hear from Clinton is this - how have your own personal experiences informed what you are going to do for the poor from the presidential office? Are there things that you have learned from all your time in public service? What good things have you done that you will replicate, and what mistakes have you made that you will learn from? And with a country whose parties are so incredibly divided right now, how will you work with the rest of government to make sure that the things you want to happen actually come to pass?

Barack Obama
Because of his more recent appearance on the national scene, Obama was the candidate whose public record I had probably known the least about when I started blogging. I was amazed to find him to have a longer and more personal record on these issues than any major candidate in my lifetime. The first part comes from spending part of his childhood in a third-world country, spending part of his adult life as a community organizer in the inner city, and choosing to work as a civil-rights attorney when he entered the legal world. But the important part is that he matched this personal experience with ten years of public service that show a consistent concern for the poor across all demographics - domestic and foreign, working and unemployed/homeless, majority and minority. I haven't imagined that we would get a candidate with such a broad set of experiences working on behalf of the poor, and that such a candidate would be intelligent, elegant, and bipartisan-minded enough to make me believe that he could get [i]significant[/i] things accomplished on their behalf as well.

The greatest questions that need to be raised about Obama's candidacy have to do with his unfamiliarity with the national stage. The presidential office would be substantially different from the positions he's held so far - what is he going to do on behalf of the poor when he gets there, and how will he get it done? What policies will he follow that will look different than what the other Democrats plan to do? And how has his personal experience informed the policy that he will make? He needs to answer these questions very specifically in order to quell the concerns of some that he is too much of a political neophyte to thrive on the biggest stage in the world.


As I mentioned at the beginning, the Democrats have shown far more of a response to the cry of the poor than the Republicans have shown so far. But this does not mean that they don't each have their own weaknesses that they need to address. Before my research I shared the mistaken impression of many that Edwards was the candidate who cared the most about the plight of the poor - can he show that he actually does care despite his light public record on the issue, and can the other candidates show how they will continue their own strong records while in the presidency? And can all three candidates show that their policies will be successful in an ideologically split nation where Congressional control could flip once Bush leaves office and stops dragging down Republican sentiment?

Most of all, can we as the voters keep these issues on the forefront of the campaign? Can we make enough noise that Obama and Clinton will speak as often about poverty as Edwards does? Can we even, in the brightest of hopes, make enough noise that this becomes a deciding issue in the general election where the Republican candidate will be forced to address our concerns and respond to his opponent's proposals?

Only if we hear the cry ourselves.