John Edwards Visits Oklahoma City Friday Night

Friend John heads down to hear the speech:

John Edwards was in Oklahoma City last night so Peter and I went to hear him. The venue was crowded but there was no charge so I cannot complain. The speech was in union hall which normally would comfortably seat 200 rather than the ~1000 who showed up to hear the speech.

It was a standard stump speech. Of course he talked about the importance of unions and his support for them. The line that drew the most applause, however, was when he said he would remove all US troops from Iraq within a year of taking office. Also his statements that he would halt torture, follow the Constitution and stand up to large corporate entities on issues such as offshoring US jobs drew strong applause. He also drew plenty of applause when he pointed out that he is the only candidate who has not taken campaign contributions from lobbyists.

His remarks on universal health care were not received quite as enthusiastically, probably because his recounting or the case of the girl who was refused a liver transplant has been repeated too often to have the effect it did initially. Still, there was clearly strong support for his remarks proposing a single payer health care system.

We did not feel quite the level of enthusiasm in the crowd that was present when we heard Obama speak last year. Perhaps it was a difference in organization and the lack of fired-up opening speakers.

In general I would say that Edwards is quite an impressive speaker. Peter and I came away respecting him but still leaning toward Obama. Some polls show Edwards leading in Oklahoma and, if it looks like he has a slight edge over Clinton with Obama in third place I would probably vote for Edwards. I suspect that he came here because Oklahoma is one of the few states where he is leading.

At this point Edwards does not seem to stand much of a chance of winning the nomination and I wonder if he is running for vice president at this point. Richardson is in the same position I think. I guess we will have a better idea about it all on February 6th....