June 26, 2007
Dear Mr. Edwards,
I like your anti-poverty theme, but I fear that your use of the "two Americas" theme may not be wise.
It is too easy a target for Republicans.
It is not precise. There are many Americans, many gradations in the class structure. There is a middle, where multitudes of Americans think they are. It will be regarded too populist, opens you to effective criticism.
I urge you to go light on that theme. I urge you to consider my earlier suggestion that strengthening families be the centerpiece of your strategy.
Around that you can stress the anti-poverty theme but at the same time help a great many Americans to identify with your aims -- health care, help for working mothers with child care, parental leave, increase in EITC, and so on through a long list.
I want to see you elected, but hope you won't seem so left-wing in order to get the nomination that you ruin your chances of winning the general election.
I am a native of Georgia, a graduate of Mercer University and taught of 40 years at the theological seminary where Martin Luther King graduated and where Walter Rauschenbusch, the father of the social gospel taught. I stand in that idealistic tradition tempered by the political realism of Reinhold Niebuhr.
When idealists enter politics they must become hard-nosed, tough-minded realists and pragmatists. That is what I hope for you.
For more unwanted advice, see my blog for Saturday, November 11, 2006. in the archives at http://johnwilfred.blogspot.com/
Best wishes,
Ken Cauthen
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml
Dear Mr. Edwards,
I like your anti-poverty theme, but I fear that your use of the "two Americas" theme may not be wise.
It is too easy a target for Republicans.
It is not precise. There are many Americans, many gradations in the class structure. There is a middle, where multitudes of Americans think they are. It will be regarded too populist, opens you to effective criticism.
I urge you to go light on that theme. I urge you to consider my earlier suggestion that strengthening families be the centerpiece of your strategy.
Around that you can stress the anti-poverty theme but at the same time help a great many Americans to identify with your aims -- health care, help for working mothers with child care, parental leave, increase in EITC, and so on through a long list.
I want to see you elected, but hope you won't seem so left-wing in order to get the nomination that you ruin your chances of winning the general election.
I am a native of Georgia, a graduate of Mercer University and taught of 40 years at the theological seminary where Martin Luther King graduated and where Walter Rauschenbusch, the father of the social gospel taught. I stand in that idealistic tradition tempered by the political realism of Reinhold Niebuhr.
When idealists enter politics they must become hard-nosed, tough-minded realists and pragmatists. That is what I hope for you.
For more unwanted advice, see my blog for Saturday, November 11, 2006. in the archives at http://johnwilfred.blogspot.com/
Best wishes,
Ken Cauthen
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/index.shtml
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