Edwards Makes A Statement

We've already seen John Edwards attack the war on terror frame, but it didn't gain a hell of a lot of traction. Now he's back with another broadside, one that goes much further than any Democratic candidate on the need for transforming the conventional wisdom.

"Small thinking and outdated answers aren't the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia," Edwards said in the prepared remarks. "The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn't. It's not just that the answers of the past aren't up to the job today, it's that the system that produced them was corrupt — and still is."

Edwards also planned to tell voters they can't simply replace "a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other." He criticized "ideas and policies that are tired, shopworn and obsolete."

That is a real indictment of Clintonesque DLC corporatism. The whole speech is right here, and it's good.

What Edwards is asking America to do is seize the moment. The Republican brand has been trashed by six and a half years of Bushism and the culture of corruption. America is ready for a totally different direction and a new set of policies to guide the future. Edwards is demanding that we not shrink from this moment.

The choice we must make is as important as it is clear.

It is a choice between looking back and looking forward.

A choice between the way we've always done it and the way we could do it if we dared.

A choice between corporate power and the power of democracy.

Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again.

It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle.

It is the establishment elites versus the American people.

It is a choice between the failed compromises of the past and the bright possibilities of our future. Between resigning ourselves to Two Americas or fighting for the One America we all believe in.

This is a powerful speech. The war on terror re-framing didn't take off. I wonder if this will. You would think that the nation is ripe for an anti-establishment campaign; can a former Senator pull it off?