Edwards' Class Warfare Message Tires His Friends, Too

John Edwards' non-stop harangue against "corporate greed" seems to be wearing on his friends, in addition to the public and his fellow Democrats who are competing for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The San Francisco based magazine, Mother Jones, hardly a bastion of corporate America, has suggested that former trial lawyer Edwards is wearing out the message. Here's a headline from a recent Mother Jones edition:

Edwards the Broken Record: Corporations, Corporations, Corporations

The story says Edward's "hatred has come dangerously close to becoming an obsession" ... "the man can literally speak of nothing else."

It continues: "Here's the number of times each candidate used the words "corporations," "corporate," or "companies" (in a recent Iowa speech):

John Edwards: 19
Barack Obama: 5
Bill Richardson: 3
Hillary Clinton: 2
Chris Dodd: 1
Joe Biden: 0"

In one report from Iowa last year, the New York Times said of Edwards:

At each stop, he let out the same battle cry: a populist attack on big oil, big pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies and corporate lobbyists in Washington. These he described as being “powerful insiders” that had “rigged the system” against the ordinary working man, leaving him poorer, degrading the environment and blocking access to affordable health care.

“I’ve been fighting these people all my entire life,” said Mr. Edwards, holding forth at Cronk’s Restaurant in Denison. “I fought them in the courtroom, and I’ve beat them and beat them. We’ve got to stop being mealy-mouthed and careful. We’ve got to get rid of the robber barons. We need to have some guts.”

Edwards' favorite targets are pharmaceutical manufacturers and insurance companies -- two industries that are very prominent in Illinois. Baxter and Abbot are based in Illinois, as are Allstate, State Farm and CNA.

When you consider the jobs created by these five corporations alone, plus the taxes that are paid into the State of Illinois, to local schools and parks and municipalities, plus the money that is circulated in the Illinois economy by employees of these companies, it's hard to understand how and why Edwards would get support from Illinois taxpayers.

But he has. As of December 20, Edwards had received about $650,000 from Illinois contributors and -- no surprise -- more than half of it came from lawyers and most of that amount came from personal injury lawyers. The contributor list is a familiar list: Carr Korein Tillery, Corboy & Demetrio, Clifford Law Offices, Power Rogers & Smith, Cooney & Conway, SimmonsCooper, Kralovec Jambois & Schwartz, and others.

While Edwards takes substantial contributions from his trial lawyer colleagues, he argues against other candidates taking contributions from other interest groups.

How does he rationalize that apparent contradiction? Easy. According to Edwards, as quoted by the AFL-CIO last August, trial lawyers are not trying to influence public policy. Lobbyists are.

We're not sure the capable lobbyists of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (and their leaders) agree that they aren't trying to influence public policy.

Despite having run nationally for Vice President in 2004, Edwards' chances in 2008 have never been considered good, primarily because of who he is and what he does. If he survives until February 5, it's likely that one of the Illinois-connected candidates, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, will send him back to North Carolina.

But all is not lost for John Edwards. Now that Dennis Kucinich is virtually gone, Ralph Nader has indicated that John Edwards is his likely choice.

-- Ed Murnane
Illinois Civil Justice League
January 7, 2008