John Edwards today is touting the endorsement of Caucus for Priorities, the Iowa branch of a nationwide group, Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, that was launched by Ben & Jerry's ice cream co-founder Ben Cohen and lobbies for slashing the Pentagon budget by 15 percent ($60 billion per year) to allow for more spending in areas like health care, education and renewable energy. Edwards hopes the nod will help convince liberal Iowa caucus voters that he, not Barack Obama, is their best alternative to Hillary Clinton. The group claims more than 10,000 members in Iowa -- more, it notes, than any union in the state other than the American Federation for State, County and Municipal Employees, which last month endorsed Hillary Clinton.
The group's Iowa director, Peggy Huppert, said in an interview today that it decided on Edwards over Obama because it believed that Edwards would be more aggressive about advancing the group's agenda. They "have the same views ... but how they're approaching it is different. Obama has the hope and reconciliation message of bringing people together, which is very legitimate because that is who he is and what he's comfortable with, it's reflection of his personality. Whereas Edwards is more combative," she said. "As push comes to shove and we move closer to the caucuses we're seeing that emerge more clearly, and we felt what we needed for our issue was the harder edge and combative nature of Sen. Edwards."
No comments:
Post a Comment