Edwards and His Audience

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NASHUA—John Edwards and entourage of Bonny Raitt and Jackson Browne arrived in New Hampshire yesterday and immediately set out on a barnstorming tour of the state. At Webster College here last night a packed auditorium of 350-plus waited an hour for crews to hook up the audio equipment, and then applauded politely when Edwards took the stage after a couple of songs.

Edwards launched into his boyish Huey Long routine—critical of insurance and drug companies, opposing nuclear power, down on coal liquefaction, although pointedly not opposed to developing technology to make coal clean. The audience broke into a cheer when Edwards said torture was un-American and he was against it. He embraced the campaign to stop global warming and spoke knowledgeably of his plans for universal health care, including what amounts to a partial single-payer scheme. He wants combat troops out of Iraq, no permanent bases, but also desires a stable government.

All of this was a little too good to be true, especially if one had witnessed the same man four years ago, timidly promising reform legislation to nudge corporate America into putting more information on product labels. That was not exactly what you’d call populism. It was all Democratic Leadership Counsel stuff—middle class tax relief, soccer moms, and technology innovation. Government regulation is a dirty word to the neoliberals at the DLC associated with the long dead vestiges of the New Deal—something the small clique of decrepit liberals drag out of the closet every four years. Get over it. The DLC doesn’t discuss the poor, which it eagerly and successfully had sought to kick off welfare—part of the Clinton legacy. John Edwards’ turning against the DLC line (he was never an official member, but was widely viewed as a de facto member) represents a radical change—so abrupt it makes some voters a bit nervous, and others outright suspicious. Last night people clearly liked Edwards but wondered if he was not too good to be true. The overall result is an odd disconnect between the man and his audience.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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