Sen. John Edwards talking about student loan programs

Sarah and I were riding home the other day and heard Sen. John Edwards speaking at a commencement ceremony.  The date wasn’t clear, and so it could have been in the middle of the last campaign, or it could have been yesterday.  I believe he was in North Carolina though.

The contrast in rhetoric in his speech was so striking compared to what comes from the Republican side of the aisle.  Edwards really called it out when he said that "none of us gets here on our own".  He cited student loan programs as an example of the fact that even the most well-heeled of us tends to intersect with government programs at this point.  Public schools are another example.  As someone who had a huge amount of student loans, and was dismayed to see the Republicans cut the budgets recently, it really spoke to me.

Given the partisan nature of the country, if you traditionally vote Democratic, I suppose you tuned out long ago.  But if you still are paying attention, I recommend you take some time to listen to Edwards’ podcast with his wife at his website.  Edwards and his wife both speak thoughtfully for twenty minutes on energy and foreign policy.  Can you imagine what it would like to have a President who could actually hold his own on such a discussion?  Bush certainly couldn’t, though his father could.  And of course Clinton’s downfall is that he could do this too, but he’d call you at 4am right after he finished a 300 page policy paper to discuss it with you.

I think it would be a huge improvement if all our Presidential canddates were smart enough to be able to yap on a microphone without a teleprompter for twenty minutes.