Abundance of Warmth on a Cold Iowa Night
Could former senator John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama be considering a truce?
For a brief moment Saturday night, that unlikely prospect suddenly appeared possible.
Democratic presidential candidates had gathered in Des Moines for the Brown and Black forum, a panel on minority issues, and during a question-and-answer period, Edwards (N.C.) was given the opportunity to aim a question at any of his rivals.
Rather than hit rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) with a tough challenge, Edwards lobbed something of a softball to Obama: Would the Illinois senator, he asked, join him in pushing to raise the minimum wage to $9.50?
"I think our voices together are more powerful than our voices alone," Edwards said, praising Obama even as he asked the question.
Obama did not hesitate. "The answer is yes," he said, drawing a large round of applause. "And John has done good work on this."
Less than five weeks before the Iowa caucuses, with Obama, Edwards and Clinton locked in a three-way tie in the first voting state, the forum produced surprisingly few fireworks as rivals sought out areas on which they agree. If anything dominated the evening, it was the cold weather: Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) arrived halfway through the event, filling an empty seat that had been waiting for him onstage for an hour, because a storm had delayed his flight in Chicago.
"I apologize," Biden said, adding in a nod to his better-financed rivals, "I don't have a plane."
Before an audience made up largely of minorities, Clinton was forced to address once more her October response to a debate question about giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. After first equivocating, she later came out in support of the notion; now she opposes it.
Clinton has adopted more than one tone on immigration on the campaign trail. In front of some audiences, she has emphasized her desire to toughen enforcement at the borders and crack down on employers who hire illegal workers. But on Saturday night, she struck a softer note, citing the country's "immigrant values" and accusing the Republican candidates of demagoguery on the subject.
Earlier in the day, at a separate forum in Des Moines, Clinton was booed when she refused to pledge to push for immigration reform and help provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in her first 100 days as president.
Also Saturday night, she faced a question about whether her husband's crime bill from the 1990s had increased incarceration rates. She said it had, calling that an "unacceptable increase."
But like Obama and Edwards, Clinton had her own moment of comity with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson when he directed his allotted candidate-to-candidate question toward her.
Did Clinton, Richardson asked, agree that governors -- such as her husband, and himself -- make good presidents?
"Well, Bill, I also think they make good vice presidents," Clinton said.
At another point, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) used his chance to ask another candidate a question to pose one to himself.
-- Anne E. Kornblut
Posted at 10:26 PM ET on Dec 1, 2007
Share This: 
Technorati
| Tag in Del.icio.us | Digg This
Posted by: soonerthought | December 5, 2007 11:05 PM
I'll grant Edwards that it's past due time when our country had a minimum wage that people could actually live on, marginal small business owners (and more importantly, megacorp fast-food-chains) be damned.
That said, he's got a bit of a past credibility problem to overcome--particularly to those of us in the medical profession. Let nobody forget that he made his fame and fortune as a lawyer whose practice bordered on outright fraud, garnering awards of millions of $$$ in lawsuits against OB/GYNs who had the misfortune of delivering babies with cerebral palsy. These awards didn't have (and still don't have) any basis in scientific or medical fact, but boy-oh-boy did they ever pay off for him. Wonder why he does so well doing fundraising among tort lawyers? Hmm....
Posted by: slowgenius2 | December 3, 2007 4:34 PM
Edwards and Obabma probably do have a truce; that is why they have both being attaching Hillary. Hillary may have Richards, Dobb, & Biden who might give her the the percentage like Edwards received 4 years ago. It's difficult to believe the media and TV have done so much negative reporting on Hillary and none on Obama.
Posted by: peterluzg | December 3, 2007 4:27 PM
Ever since America became a real democracy in '63 with the passage of the civil rights amendment, the Radical right has been trying to steal back the country. They thought they had with little Bush in the WH, a phony 'war'and control of the Government and Courts. Close but....then the country found out that the "culture-war "Republicans were completely hypocritical, corrupt, incompetent and dangerously anti-Constitution. The level of distrust and the high level of betrayal felt by members of the right-wing evangelical axis almost guarantees a low level of turnout for the splintered and fractured Republicans. It's the perfect storm and will be the death blow to the cynical, powers hungry Nixonian left-overs.
Obama/Edwards sure sounds good to me compared to almost anything else being offered.
Posted by: thebobbob | December 2, 2007 2:34 PM
dyinglikeflies/framecop, Obama can easily win next year. He leads in averaged head-to-head polls against every republican, performing just as well as Hillary despite his lower name recognition. He can be attacked on his experience, but as a number of columns pointed out, in a "change" year what matters is having *enough* experience, not *the most* experience. Besides, none of the republican candidates save McCain have lots more experience anyway. And I think he's shown his ability to take and throw punches now.
Posted by: jtmorgan61 | December 2, 2007 2:07 PM
It is possible that Senator Clinton is the best candidate. However, even though many may like the policies that Senator Clinton proposes, they should also consider her record, just as Senator Clinton insists.
.
The last Clinton Administration, when faced with the fact that protection rackets where torturing people with poison and radiation, chose to avoid its responsibilities to incarcerate the criminals and to protect the citizenry.
.
Instead, they made a deal with the criminal gang stalker protection rackets to leave them alone and to consequently abandon the citizenry.
.
Do we want a President who sells out the citizenry for votes?
.
Do we want a President who sends a "crime does pay" message to society?
.
Would you vote for a President who signed nonaggression deals with the KKK or the Nazi party? Gangs that torture with poison and radiation are much like the KKK and Nazi Party.
.
We do not need a sellout President. We need a principled leader President.
.
If you are one of the few who do not know what the above refers to, do a web search for "gang stalking" to see the tip of the dirtberg. Please do it before you decide to reply to my post. Here let me make it easy for you: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22gang+stalking%22.
.
Posted by: avraamjack | December 2, 2007 12:48 PM
Reading the online editions of WaPo and the NYTimes this morning it's pretty clear they've decided that a win by Obama in Iowa is much more interesting to them. The fact that he could never win the general election at this stage of his career against almost any of the Republicans running seems not to matter in anybody's calculations. So, after eight years of theft of the Treasury by Bush, we want another four years of the same, huh? The winner of this election will be real estate brokers in Canada.
Posted by: dyinglikeflies | December 2, 2007 12:04 PM
Oh LOL!
WaPo, Now maybe you will understand why I am hesitant to feed these Bottom feeders any more Ideas.
They cannot even get the drift, just play on the sentiments!
Clueless, absolutely CLUELESS!
Obasama and Pretty Boy?
EVEN if, Minimum wage was $10/Hr. With the Un-Documented Job Market Competition, the LEGAL worker would cost the Employer $13/Hr, and the poor Legal Worker taking Home $7.50, is JUST THAT!
Then you STUPID JackA$$es of the JackA$$ Party, the US loses out on at least 150 Billion Dollars a YEAR Employment Taxes becuase of the STUPID System!
Mitt Romney-Get a 1980 America BACK!
Remember 1980? Remember when life was FUN?
Posted by: rat-the | December 2, 2007 12:29 AM
framecop,
I live in Salt Lake City, Utah- arguably the whitest place on earth, (and i am not talking about the awesome ski slopes) and Obama has so much support here he is opening a field office.
I don't know if a democrat prez candidate has EVER won utah, but if anyone could, it's Obama.
People really really like him.
Posted by: julieds | December 2, 2007 12:28 AM
It will be Edwards/Obama 2008, or else there will be a Republican President in 2009.
Barack Obama has zero chance of winning a General Election in 2008, and even Anne Kornblut knows it.
Posted by: framecop | December 1, 2007 11:53 PM
"Edwards lobbed something of a softball to Obama: Would the Illinois senator, he asked, join him in pushing to raise the minimum wage to $9.50? . . . Obama did not hesitate. "The answer is yes," he said, drawing a large round of applause. "And John has done good work on this."
This is a "softball"? It gets a leading candidate on the record for something vitally needed in this Nickel and Dimed, Wal-Mart economy. It also helps the voters (and more than a few political reporters and pundits) finally see the substance of Edwards' campaign.
Only John Edwards has lived the life he sings about-raised in poverty, educated in public schools, knowing in the ways of corporate power-his position papers and speeches are inspired and informed by real experience, not embroidered resumes.
Posted by: hidaily | December 1, 2007 11:49 PM
Would the Post's management please tell Hillary to let Anne sit at the popular kids' table again so she can stop passing nasty notes and start acting like a journalist. This does not reflect well on the newspaper. Thank you.
Perhaps Mr Shear ought to take this beat while Anne gets her act together. His talents are wasted over in the GOP weeds.
Posted by: zukermand | December 1, 2007 11:48 PM
I grant that they could be in a truce until post-Iowa, but, in this instance, Edwards probably just decided that it would be politically foolish to attack Barack Obama at a forum for minority issues.
Posted by: Snaploud | December 1, 2007 11:25 PM
Des moines Register, new poll. Obama leads.
He also is leading among women. this guy has the big mo right now.
Gobama!
Posted by: vwcat | December 1, 2007 10:56 PM
Hurray! Go Obama (3% ahead of Hillary in Iowa) and Edwards....Future President and VP!
Fired Up! Ready to Go!
Posted by: gobanana910 | December 1, 2007 10:46 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
Biden, the non-millionaire candidate who doesn't "have a plane," does, however, have a plan. A plan for Iraq, our economy, and the future of this country. Biden is the best candidate. www.JoeBiden.com