Not since Al Gore won the 2000 election has there been a more important campaign than the one that will determine which party will largely ignore the needs of the many in favor of the needs of the few: the 2008 presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But let\u2019s not be cynical! These are hopeful times, as evidenced by Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama \u2013 a woman and an African-American, two species of candidate previously believed to be unelectable. In enlightened times like these, about the only thing an experienced, prominent, handsome and intelligent candidate could do to virtually eliminate any chance of being elected is to choose an unpopular issue on which to build his campaign platform. Like poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to a recent Gallup Poll, the Top 5 issues most important in the upcoming presidential election to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike, are: The War in Iraq, The Economy, Health Care Reform, Homeland Security, Education<\/strong>. Moving further down the list one will find \u201cEnvironmental Issues,\u201d \u201cTaxes,\u201d and \u201cForeign Affairs\u201d; and hot button issues like \u201cAbortion,\u201d and a candidate\u2019s \u201cChristian values\/ beliefs\u201d \u2013 even \u201cWorld Peace\u201d! \u2013 turn up in the top 20 issues. But no sign of poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet former presidential candidate demoted-to-running mate and current Democratic nominee hopeful, John Edwards, has chosen POVERTY as the central plank in his presidential platform. Sounds like a good way to get a splinter to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What in the world is the former senator from North Carolina thinking? Here\u2019s a guy from a small-town background with working class parents, a public school kid who\u2019s the first in his family to attend college; he\u2019s as good-looking as JFK, only without the bootlegger family money to live down. In short, a man most Americans would love to pull a handle for while hidden from public view by a curtain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead he insists on talking about \u201cTwo Americas\u201d (the surreal one we currently live in, and the other where we\u2019re all lying in giant murky pods like \u201cThe Matrix\u201d). He lists one of his favorite books as \u201cThe Working Poor\u201d by David Shipler (nowhere near as popular as \u201cMy Pet Goat\u201d). In July, Senator Edwards took his campaign tour to eight of the poorest states in the Union, visiting places like New Orleans’ Katrina-soaked Ninth Ward, and Marks Mississippi, where Dr. Martin Luther King began his own Poor People\u2019s March in 1968 (we all know how well that <\/em> turned out).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why, you may ask, would this man who seems to have everything a presidential candidate could want, build his campaign around something as insignificant as “poverty” and seek the support of a group as hopeless as the “poor”? There\u2019s only one possible explanation: He doesn’t want to win his party’s nomination<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why is he “throwing the race”? Maybe he’s afraid of flying on Air Force One, or doesn’t want to live in a big White House. Perhaps, as happened in recent sports-fixing scandals in the NBA and professional tennis, he\u2019s the pawn in a giant gambling plot; or, like both Jake LaMotta and Richard Nixon, has been ordered to “take a dive” in order to get a crack at the big prize the next time around. Maybe, now that there’s no Weekly World News<\/em> at the checkout counter to expose it, he’s the victim of a body-snatching alien double. I’m not ruling anything out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever crazy reason or poweful alien forces are at work here, don\u2019t let this man subvert the sanctity of our electoral process (automatic voting machines notwithstanding). Let’s band together to show John Edwards that he can fool some of the people some of the time but he can\u2019t pull the wool over our eyes, because we have x-ray vision that allows us to see through his little scheme. And wool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throw a giant monkey wrench into the Edwards campaign by supporting his reluctant presidential gambit.<\/em> Though he clearly doesn\u2019t want you to, take him up on his website exhortations to Join the Campaign; Make a Secure Online Contribution; Spread the Word; Volunteer<\/em>. Show this “presidential hopeless” that he can\u2019t scuttle our democratic voting system, because we won\u2019t let him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n