Dean vs. Edwards vs. Bush

Interesting Slate article acknowledging Dean frontrunner status while pushing Edwards.

Like Dean and Kerry—and unlike Dick Gephardt and Dennis Kucinich—Edwards emphasizes fiscal realism. On hot-button issues, he differs little from Dean. In Concord, he said he favored the death penalty but opposed its unfair administration; supported the Second Amendment but backed common-sense gun laws; and endorsed domestic partnership rights, but not marriage, for gay couples. On national security, however, he struck a tone very different from Dean's: "I believe in American strength and believe it strongly. And I don't take a back seat to George Bush or anybody else on that issue." While calling the anger of many Democrats at Bush "understandable," Edwards warned that the party must also be "forward-looking, positive, and optimistic."

In Concord, Edwards summarized the clash of worldviews this way:

"President Bush honors and respects only wealth. … He wants to be certain that those who have it keep it. … He comes from a world where wealth is largely inherited, not earned. That is not the world I come from. … The difference between George Bush and John Edwards is, while he honors and respects only wealth, I honor and respect hard work. I honor and respect responsibility. I believe in opportunity. He's about building barriers and closing doors; I'm about exactly the opposite. I want to knock barriers down. I want to open doors."

Edwards seems increasingly committed to this message. Addressing the town hall audience, he wove many of his ideas into it—college scholarships, "tax cuts for the middle class," savings accounts, tax breaks for first-time home buyers, expensing stock options, and a "bill of rights" for workers and shareholders—as well as the recent accounting scandals. Bush "had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do absolutely anything about corporate responsibility," Edwards charged. But more broadly, he argued, Bush has shown a pattern of striving

"to eliminate the taxation on wealth and the income on wealth. … He wants to see the estate tax gone; he wants to see the tax on capital gains gone; he wants to see the tax on dividends gone. … The president wants to shift the tax burden in America from wealth and income on wealth—people who sit at home and get their statements every month from their investments and see how much money they've made—to people like my father. … He wants working people to carry the tax burden.

"Do we believe in an America where the family you're born into controls your destiny? Our ancestors left a place of princes and paupers and masters and servants. This is not our America. What we believe [is that] wherever you live and whoever your family is, and whatever the color of your skin is, if you're willing to work hard, if you're willing to take responsibility, you ought to be able to go as far as your God-given talents and hard work will take you."