I spoke with a woman named Penny Arsenault prior to the Edwards’ arrival. She is a secretary at a middle school and was very concerned about NCLB and education in general. She said that she’d gone for a walk and delivered hand written letters to 64 neighbors inviting them to the event. I asked how long she’d been volunteering with the campaign. She told me that she’d done this on her own and that she had only met people from the campaign that night. She spoke about the dire straits the country was in and said that while education was her first priority, the next president had to be someone who could deal with a great many serious problems. She was convinced that John Edwards was that man. She said she didn’t need a campaign to ask her to help out. She wrote the letters as a concerned citizen of this country in order to help make the world a better place for children.
*Penny (on the left in red and white) with John Edwards*
I’m not thrilled with the coverage from the local paper, which had its good points but seemed biased. The reporter gave the crowd count as 100. Well we arrived at 6:52 and it was 100 degrees outside. We went inside and joined the crown in an auditorium without air conditioning. My mother did a count when we got there and she counted over 300. People continued to arrive for the next half hour and no one left. They had to keep adding rows of chairs and I honestly think the final head count was close to 400.
*The first 10th of the room*
Elizabeth opened by thanking people for coming out to hear John and question him on his policies. She spoke of seeing a young man with a video camera at every event early on in the 04 race. She was happy that he seemed so excited about John that he followed him to every event. It turned out that he was a tracker for the RNC but the campaign continued to make sure he had decent seating and was comfortable at each event. She said that by hearing John answer questions over and over again Steve became more and more impressed by John’s vision and consistency. She said she wasn’t sure but from conversations she had a suspicion that he ended up voting for her husband.
*Elizabeth and John*
Senator Edwards commented on the stifling heat and said he was basically just there to answer questions. The first question was on universal health care so he explained his vision, the expected price tag, and where he expected the money to come from.
*John Edwards at a wonky moment*
The next man to pose a question actually went on a bit of a rant. He had just gotten out of the hospital and was still ill. He ranted a bit about politicians in DC who really don’t understand the two Americas that John Edwards discusses. He talked about struggling to live on social security with only a 4% raise. He talked about people without AC in the south and basically told Senator Edwards that he had no idea of the two Americas.
John Edwards didn’t get huffy. He did say that he didn’t live in DC and he was no longer a senator so he wasn’t getting any raises. He said, “You’re making a mistake by lumping me in with people living in Washington. Any time we lump groups of people together we make mistakes by missing out on individual experiences.” He said that he understood that most people are struggling to get by. “Most working people are having a tough time paying their bills.” And then something funny happened.
Someone in the stifling high school cafeteria believed she hadn?t heard enough from John Edwards. So she rose, walked behind the Democratic presidential candidate and tapped him on the back.
Edwards stopped talking. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, had surprised him.
Elizabeth Edwards wanted to expound on her husband?s response to a man?s comment that all politicians are Washington insiders who understand little about the common American.
So she detailed her husband?s life story: son of a mill worker who put himself through college.
When John Edwards has a proposal about helping people pay for college, for instance, he doesn?t glean his idea from the pages of The New York Times, his wife said. It comes from personal experience and something inside him, she said.
“It’s not an abstraction,” Elizabeth Edwards said. He understands real lives.
That’s a very abbreviated version of what took place. In fact Elizabeth talked about John’s father’s career at the mill, losing out on a promotion to a younger man with a college degree, and the mill eventually closing. She told a story about John’s parents that really affected my son, enough to make him write about it. She explained that his positions on college for all, NAFTA, and universal health care all come from life experiences.
“This is about neighbors, and friends, and family,” Elizabeth said.
Someone asked a question about NCLB. John Edwards began by saying, “Kids don’t learn by filling in bubbles on a test.” Huge applause on that line. He said that a southern saying applies to this. “My friend said to me, ‘you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it more often.'” He talked about how NCLB evaluates only one aspect of a child. He spoke of how it actually interferes with teaching and mentioned that Emma Claire’s class spent half of the year getting ready for the state test in North Carolina. “Here’s an idea. How about we let teachers evaluate the students?” Huge applause again. He said it was better to evaluate each child’s individual progress over the year rather than pitting one child against another, one class against another, one school against another. He discussed the ridiculousness of penalizing schools that are already struggling.
A man asked about “Islamic terrorists.” John Edwards talked about getting out of Iraq and utilizing political and diplomatic solutions. He talked about building schools and hospitals as a way to undo some of the damage that has been done not just by this administration but by madrassas that have been operating for decades. He said that we needed to change our approach to the world from being selfish to interacting maturely.
The last question generated the second most interesting part of the evening from my perspective. A woman asked, “Who advises you? Who is your Karl Rove?” His response was immediate, “I don’t have a Karl Rove and I don’t want one.” Then he said that people had a right to understand how he makes his decisions. From his perspective he’s looking for something very different in a Vice President than in Cabinet members. “For a Vice President I want someone who shares my vision. Someone who agrees with me on the universal health coverage, on education, on Iraq, on taxes, the environment, and working people. I want someone who agrees with me. In the event that anything was to happen to me I want the Vice President to carry out the vision that the American people voted f
or.”
“With Cabinet members, I’m not like Bush. I don’t want to be surrounded by yes people. I want the smartest most qualified people for those positions. I want strong, independent minded people who are capable of leading and not afraid to stand up and say they disagree.”
While I was taking pictures my son got up and wandered away. I found him about 2/3rds of the way through the event up toward the front. When I went to send him back to his grandparents he said, “No. I want to be able to see him. I like what he’s saying and I want to see him say it.”
*Speaking of strong, independent minded people who are capable of disagreeing*
Even though the handlers were trying to rush John Edwards from the room, he did stay to shake hands, sign autographs, and listen to people. He was incredibly generous with his time. soberboy went up to him 3 different times. Once to shake hands, the next for an autograph, and the final for a picture.
*Not rushing out of the room*
My mother actually preferred the interview on Face the Nation this morning because Edwards didn’t get into policy specifics much last night and she got a better sense of the details today. But she was thrilled that they had water at the event and said she didn’t think other campaigns would be as thoughtful. She thinks of them as friendly and kind because she was personally called and they thought of her comfort in the brutally hot auditorium. That personal touch makes a difference.
My father spoke of Edwards’ sincerity and how obvious it is from everything he says and how he approaches people and issues. He was frustrated by the event. He liked that Edwards wasn’t afraid to have an almost entirely open meeting. But then my father complained that you can’t really control things once it’s opened up. He wished people were more focused in their questions and more on topic. He said he thought the suggestions a few months back that John Edwards was tired and going through the motions were clearly untrue.
While my mother wished for more details and my father wished for more focus, I thought John Edwards hit the right notes. It was well over 100 degrees in the room and I don’t think many people wanted serious wonk at 8:00 on a Saturday night in that heat. And while the man who had a bit of a rant was unfocused, I thought it said a lot about the campaign. The man mentioned he’d never been to a political event before. He said he’d voted for Bush last time, “and it was the biggest mistake of my life.” I thought about other campaigns where that man might have shared himself and thought that only John Edwards and Barak Obama were likely to inspire that kind of sharing. I certainly couldn’t imagine him being allowed to rant at a Republican event or feeling welcome to with many of the other Democrats. My son wrote his own take on the evening.
*About John Edwards
By Sean*
Have many of you people at DailyKos wanted to know about John Edwards? Well, I went to see him and his wife, Elizabeth in New Hampshire. What did he say? He said he would stop the war in Iraq, help the jobs that were closed, help the poor people, and many other things to help make the United States a better place.
John has traveled all around New Hampshire soon other states around the country making speeches. Elizabeth said that John’s mother owned a small shop near a highway. John’s father worked in a mill. But then John’s father had heart problems, but even worse, he lost his health insurance. So John’s mother had to leave her shop and get a job that had health insurance. He needed health insurance so he could go to a doctor and get his heart fixed.
John Edwards is a Democrat running for the President of the United States. I got his autograph and a picture taken with him! I am voting for him, even though I can’t vote. I hope you’ll vote for him too!
Cross Posted at Daily Kos and Below Boston
pretty thorough report for those of us who didn’t make it to the event.
We’re going to try to get up to see all of the candidates, even the Republicans. That’s one of the advantages of living in Massachusetts. I was leaning toward Edwards so it was easy to start with him. I want to be able to give a sense of the feeling in the room as well as the statements from the candidates.
I love seeing multi-generation political involvement like that.
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I also agree this was the key quote:
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I just plugged your report, along with AmberPaw’s from Merrimack, on the John Edwards blog. If you should decide to join your son as an active supporter, that’s the place to find out more. Currently there are many chapters of OneCorps, the campaign’s volunteer organization, in MA. There are about ten field offices in NH working on the primary campaign there, and the easiest way to get in the loop is to contact the nearest one of them directly.
for your comments and for posting a link to the diary at the Edwards’ site. I’m a supporter and am still working on my parents.
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I will still take my son to see the other candidates so that he can see how everyone approaches an issue differently. He has strong opinions already, particularly about the war, and I’d like him to hear some of the Republicans defend it. It’s important to me that he listens to all views and doesn’t swallow everything he’s told. I want him to be able to deconstruct arguments and to weigh his priorities. He really appreciated hearing why John Edwards has chosen his positions, I don’t think he’ll hear much of that from the other candidates.
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Thanks again for the link at the Edwards’ site.
no big pix (slow to lead!) above the fold!
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otherwise, thank you for the diary!
you can still edit your diary and either move that pic to below the fold, or greatly minimize it’s size. it really is messing with the front page loading.
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I didn’t check back until just now and didn’t pick up the hint earlier. I should have edited it and not left it for Charley to do.
thx again for the interesting diary.
to the Front Page. Thank you very much.
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My son continues to campaign for John Edwards. At 9:00 this morning he yapped his swimming instructor’s ear off. “Did you know that John Edward’s mother had to close her business so she could get a job with health insurance just so his Dad could go to the doctor? Isn’t that terrible? And that’s why he wants everyone to have health insurance, so they can go to the doctor when they’re sick.” The response, “That’s great. How about switching to freestyle, 4 laps.”
Strange that a middle school secretary would work so hard on the behalf of someone who voted for No Child Left Behind while in the Senate.
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When asked about it, Edwards reverts to a pattern I’ve seen from him very often. He doesn’t say how he’d do something, he says what he wants done. Edwards has great goals, but I’ve yet to see anything that convinces me that he has a firm idea of how to get there.
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Edwards was my second choice for quite sometime, but with his mealy-mouthed shifting on education, and his habit of sending out his wife to launch attacks on his rivals, he’s dropping in my estimation.
Listen, I know you are a teacher…I know you care passionately about education. How about YOU draft a position paper on education, post it here, and also post it on the open blogs of each Candidate for President, and report on their responses?
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I have totally NO idea why you are calling Edwards “mealy-mouthed” – I loved what he had to say.
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What I realized, though, is that I have no idea at all what you are looking for in an education policy – and by what set of factors, standards, proposals you are judging candidates.
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And as I know you are hard working, have a data set I do not have, well, educate us all. What do you have to lose?
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As a teacher, you LIKE educating people, right?
Come on Deborah, now I have to develop a competing platform to criticize that of a man running for president? I thought other people ran for president so I wouldn’t have to. Should I prepare an economic analysis of why the flat tax doesn’t work in order to say that Gravel’s idea on that is way off base?
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I will direct you to one post on the fallacies of standardized testing and how I would write one, from March.
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But it’s not just about criticizing a platform, it’s the fact that given his answer, I’m not sure Edwards has an education platform. The whole idea of being mealy-mouthed is saying things that everyone loves to hear. Edwards offers up the equivalent to “we should fight terrorism” or “crime is bad”. Of the seventeen people running for president, who would say that “kids actually do learn by filling in bubbles in a test”? Pablum.
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Look at his answer in more detail as reported in thread:
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My top two questions on education are this:
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Though Edwards is long on the folksy sayings, he does not answer either question. Given that he voted for it, I have to assume that Edwards would renew it, as he does not address the question. Frankly, his line about NCLB evaluating only one aspect of the child makes it sound as if he wants to expand the law to evaluate more aspects. Maybe he doesn’t, but there’s no way to tell from his answer.
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And this is an Edwards event in front of a friendly crowd on a softball question. Contrast this with the following answer from another candidate, offered in the heat of debate:
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He stated, among other things, that when a school is struggling, you do not take away the funds, you help the school. That is very similar to what you had just said!
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I admit I did not report the part about how his daughter, who attends public school, spent six out of mine months being “taught to the test” and how he felt about that.
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But, anyway, thanks for your answer. It helps me interpret your comments.
I was going by the report in this thread. He may have said a lot more that didn’t make it in — this was a ground on-the-ground report, not a chronicle.
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However, as someone who genuinely likes Edwards (as I told you at the debate watch party), I am finding myself more and more asking “what are you going to do about it?” I don’t like many of the villains Edwards doesn’t like, but I want to know what he has in mind for replacing them. That’s where he’s falling short for me.
There are some white papers on his own website, also…but I would say I took notes and got about 30%, maybe, of what was said. I do not expect expanded policy discussions on a bus-stop tour, but rather indicating and broad statements.
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Where detail should be is in white papers. Tim Murray had extensive white papers on his campaign website [such as the one on transportation] which I downloaded and read. Deval never put forth that level of detail during his campaign, frankly.
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I have not checked out Richardson’s website – if you do a post about it with the URL, I think I and others would visit it. So I do not know if he is “long on white papers”.
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To make change will take vision, passion AND concrete ground plans – all three because it will take vision and passion to mobilize the energy for change more than good detailed plans.
than that. I didn’t transcribe the event because I was taking pictures, watching my son, paying attention, and scribbling what I could. So please don’t take my diary as a policy statement on his part. I don’t mind doing a transcript as best I can at other events if that is what people prefer.
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As for his NCLB vote, he wasn’t asked to explain his vote. He was asked what he would do about NCLB. And he had a much longer answer than what I put in the diary. I tried just to give the topic of the question and a bit of his response in each case.
but NCLB is more complex than good v. bad and we can blame more folks than right v. left.
the education policy statement on the website. Then comment. It has some pretty specific ideas. Perhaps that would be a better basis to debate his ideas than someone trying to put up a transcript in their own words…valiant as that is :).