Man of the left
Jul 19th 2007 | TAMA AND MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA
From The Economist print edition
John Edwards trails in third place. But his policy ideas are shaping the Democratic presidential race
HE STRIDES into an Iowa primary school where more than a hundred people have skipped their lunch to hear him, wearing jeans and flashing a smile that could sell toothpaste. He begins, as always, by mentioning his wife, who was diagnosed with incurable cancer in March. ?She's doing great.? But within seconds, John Edwards dives into the details of his health-care scheme. Then on to questions. The subjects range from high medical costs to the influence of Iran. ?Here's what I think,? he answers, before launching into a detailed plan to fix the problem.
Mr Edwards is a man of big plans. No other presidential candidate, of either party, can match the sheer quantity, let alone the ambition, of his policy ideas. He has grand, progressive, goals?to end the war in Iraq (obviously), provide universal health care, address global warming, eliminate poverty in America within 30 years?and detailed blueprints of how to do it all.
All this is a big change from 2004, when he first ran, unsuccessfully, for the Democratic nomination and then (equally unsuccessfully) as John Kerry's vice-presidential running-mate. Those campaigns were built around his youthful charm, made-for-politics biography (the son of a mill-worker in North Carolina; the first member of his family to go to college) and a rousing stump speech about ?two Americas?, one for the rich and one for the rest.
His life-story loomed large because the dashing former trial lawyer was short of both substance and political experience. He was a one-term senator with a silver tongue and populist touch but an unremarkable legislative record. (He voted against two of George Bush's three tax cuts but for the war in Iraq.)
Four years on, his experience of government is still thin. Having left the Senate in 2004 he has spent less time making laws (six years) than Barack Obama, who was a state senator for eight years and has been a senator in Washington for two and a half. But Mr Edwards is no longer a policy neophyte. Instead, he has positioned himself as the voice of his party's left wing. He renounced his support for the Iraq war in 2005 (Mr Obama never supported it, however) and has been a powerful critic since. He has steeped himself in progressive causes, particularly the battle against poverty, founding a centre at the University of North Carolina to study ways to combat deprivation. And he has assiduously built ties with the unions.
The transformation on Iraq is the most dramatic. Mr Edwards wants American soldiers out fast (an immediate reduction of 40,000-50,000, followed by an ?orderly and complete? withdrawal of combat forces within a year). He excoriates Congress and his Democratic rivals for failing to force the president's hand by denying funding for the war. ?Congress has a responsibility to force George Bush to end this war,? he intones in every speech. No serious Democratic candidate is more searing in his condemnation of America's present course. (The war on terror is a ?bumper-sticker, not a plan?, he mocks.)
But far from turning inward to concentrate on domestic problems, he wants to ?re-engage the world with the full weight of [America's] moral leadership?. That demands change at home, notably on global warming, but also commitments abroad. Enough troops should stay near Iraq to ?prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an al-Qaeda safe haven?. He wants a big increase in foreign aid and a ?Marshall Corps? of 10,000 bankers, political scientists and other experts to help failing states. There is a dissonance here. How can Mr Edwards pull out of Iraq while also forestalling the re-emergence of al-Qaeda? But for all his efforts to woo the anti-war wing, he is free of the isolationist flavour of most populist politicians.
Champion of the poor
On economics, too, the Edwards brand of populism is hard to pigeonhole. With roots in the textile mills and strong links to the unions, he is regarded as the most protectionist of the Democratic front-runners?though the margins are narrowing fast as Hillary Clinton stages a retreat from her husband's embrace of free trade.
He offers plenty of standard populist cant: lots of talk about ?fairness?; rants against oil firms for price gouging and drug companies for rocketing health costs; and?this year's favourite villain?anger at mortgage lenders for ripping off poor home-owners. (He calls it the ?wild west of the credit industry, where...abusive and predatory lenders are robbing families blind.?) A recent speech decried an economy that rewarded ?wealth not work?, a tax system that favoured the rich and a government that served only special interests. Yet for all that Mr Edwards is less a redistributionist firebrand than a big-government do-gooder. He is intent on helping the poor more than soaking the rich; his inspiration is Robert Kennedy, not Huey Long.
The Edwards campaign openly evokes RFK's 1968 presidential bid, which combined vocal opposition to an unpopular war with a telegenic focus on alleviating poverty. Mr Edwards launched his candidacy outside a wrecked house in New Orleans's ninth ward. This week he spent three days on an anti-poverty tour, one that finished, not uncoincidentally, in Prestonburg, Kentucky, where Kennedy ended his own poverty tour 40 years ago.
Look beyond the unsubtle imagery, however, and Mr Edwards's anti-poverty plan is an intriguing mix. His goals are bold?to cut America's poverty rate of 12.6% by a third within a decade?but the means are mainstream. His policy arsenal includes expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a kind of negative income tax that tops up the earnings of poorer Americans; giving poor people ?work bonds? to boost their saving; and providing 1m housing vouchers to help poor families move to better neighbourhoods. Policy wonks argue about whether these ideas, particularly housing vouchers, will work, but they could all have come from a centrist Democratic think-tank.
The combination of bold goals and mainstream means is evident in two other Edwards plans: health care and energy reform. And it is why his campaign, regardless of its electoral fortunes, is shaping the Democratic race. Unable to dismiss his proposals as crazy radicalism, the other candidates have to be both bolder and more detailed than they would like.
Consider health. Mr Edwards released his ideas for universal insurance in February, almost two years before election day. He steered clear of the approach favoured by the party's left?a single-payer system, like Canada's or Britain's. Instead his plan has ingredients that were introduced in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate: an overhaul of insurance markets, subsidies to help poorer people pay their premiums, taxes on firms that do not provide health-care coverage for their workers, and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance.
His proposal does nod to the left: a government health scheme, akin to Medicare, would compete with private insurers, potentially opening the door to a single-payer system if everyone chose to join the public scheme. But it does not seem threateningly radical. As a result, it has become the standard against which other Democratic candidates are judged. Mr Obama, who recently released a paler version of the Edwards ideas, was criticised for not requiring people to buy health insurance.
On global warming, too, the Edwards campaign has set the pace. He wants to reduce America's greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% before 2050 with a cap-and-trade system of carbon permits. He also touts reforms of the electricity grid, improvements in energy efficiency and vast investment in renewable energy. Those targets match the toughest bill now in Congress. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama signed on to this bill soon after the Edwards energy plan was released.
These ideas do not come cheap. Universal health care will cost some $90 billion-$120 billion a year; the poverty plan $15 billion-$20 billion; the renewable energy fund another $13 billion (though the auction of carbon permits and elimination of subsidies for oil firms should cover some of that). Add in a rag-bag of other ideas and you easily reach some $150 billion of new spending a year, well over 1% of GDP. That, however, is about what the Iraq war is currently consuming.
Plainly, the new spending will require higher taxes. Mr Edwards has been more willing than his competitors to admit that he will go beyond the Democrat commonplace of rolling back Mr Bush's tax cuts for those making over $200,000. He has hinted at raising the tax rate on capital gains, arguing that it is ?not right? for income from wealth and work to be treated differently. Recently he became the first presidential candidate to endorse Democratic lawmakers' efforts to end the preferential taxation of ?carried interest?, a tax loophole for private-equity firms and hedge funds.
The three Hs
Raising taxes on hedge funds fits the image Mr Edwards is trying for. But it also points to his biggest weaknesses, known as the ?three Hs?. The working-class hero worked for a hedge fund, earning $479,000 as a consultant for Fortress Investment Group last year; he is building a 28,000ft (2,600 square metre) house; and he charged two $400 haircuts to his campaign.
An expensively coiffed mansion-builder is all too easy to ridicule as a champion of the poor. And the haircut gaffe echoes the reputation for preferring style to substance that dogged Mr Edwards in 2004. (Judging by a gaggle of schoolteachers in Iowa, the pretty-boy problem has not gone away. ?Can I lift up his coat?? giggled one as she waited for a photograph.)
By and large, though, Iowa Democrats are buying Mr Edwards's brand of populism. He has campaigned hard there, visiting the state more than 20 times in the past two years. His strategy depends on doing well in the first-off Iowa caucuses, and at present he leads the pack in polls there, though Mrs Clinton is closing in fast. Nationally, Mr Edwards trails far behind Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, both in polls and the race for cash. He raised only $9m between April and June, compared with Mr Obama's $32.5m.
Surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Edwards's brand of populism seems to appeal to Republicans. When pitted against Republican candidates in polls, he scores better than the other Democratic front-runners. But it is the primaries that matter, and there Mr Edwards must hope for one of the others to stumble. If Obamamania fades, or the Clinton machine stalls, an Edwards nomination is just possible. But even if the man himself does not make it, the Democrats' presidential platform will be shaped by Mr Edwards's plans.
