Please Don't Forget Edwards

[Timber Loftis]

... because I'm still hoping he makes a showing. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]
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February 24, 2004
Edwards Says Nafta Is Important, but in Need of Change
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

enator John Edwards said yesterday that his proposal to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact he has repeatedly blamed for economic distress, would not significantly cut the flow of jobs abroad.

And even as he criticized the trade agreement, Mr. Edwards described it as "important" to economic prosperity. He said he wanted to promote global trade but that trade pacts should include measures to slow the loss of jobs to other countries.

"I believe that Nafta should exist," Mr. Edwards told editors and reporters of The New York Times at a meeting yesterday in New York, as he sought endorsements heading into next Tuesday's primary. "I think Nafta is important — it is an important part of our global economy, an important part of our trade relations."

"It's important to be straight with people about the jobs issue — about trade and jobs," said Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina. "The kind of trade policy I'm talking about — not an extreme trade policy, but the kind of trade policy I'm talking about — is not going to save all those jobs. And I think people deserve to know that."

Mr. Edwards discussed trade policy in a wide-ranging interview in which he also said that he opposed the decision by the mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of California state law.

Mr. Edwards said that the decision on same-sex marriage should be left to the states but that it was unacceptable for an elected official to encourage civil disobedience.

"Civil disobedience in some cases is clearly the right thing to do," Mr. Edwards said, but added, "In this case you've got an elected governmental official, and I think because of that it's different."

Mr. Edwards continued, "We have a mayor who is doing something different than the State of California has done, and as I understand it — I haven't followed this as closely as I probably should have; make sure I'm on the right train of thought — as I understand it, what his rationale is, what the State of California is doing is unconstitutional."

"Challenging the California position is something he's absolutely entitled to do," he said. "But just issuing licenses? Nah."

Mr. Edwards said it was important for a leader to bring the nation along on divisive cultural issues, and he said he would be particularly well-suited to do so because of where he was from.

"To have someone who is from the rural South, a place that is very culturally conservative, out there advocating in common-sense language for what's right and what's responsible and what's moral, along these waterfronts," he said, "has enormous potential to unite this country."

Mr. Edwards made his remarks before flying to Georgia as he campaigned for the 10 primaries and caucuses that will take place next Tuesday.

His remarks on Nafta appeared more nuanced than what he has said while campaigning in economically distressed regions, like areas of South Carolina and Wisconsin and upstate New York. He has frequently criticized his main opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, for voting for Nafta in 1993 and has said he would have voted against it had he been in the Senate at the time.

Mr. Edwards said yesterday that he favored the inclusion of standards on labor and the environment in trade pacts. Such standards, he said, would slow American job losses by prohibiting child labor or lax environmental standards.

Mr. Kerry has said he supports reviewing Nafta, and has contended there is little difference in the views of the two men on the subject.

Mr. Edwards said yesterday that even the kind of protections that he advocated would not produce a dramatic change in the flow of jobs from the country, which he has blamed on Nafta.

"What we want to do is have a trade policy that's fair and allows free trade to continue, but slows the loss of these jobs," he said. "It won't stop it. Slows it."

Mr. Edwards described his views on trade as "a tick away" from those of the Democratic Leadership Council, a moderate group that has been a champion of free trade, and of former President Bill Clinton, who signed Nafta in 1993.

"I've had a personal response to Nafta," he said. "I have seen what happened in my own hometown where the mill where my father worked closed. I have spent many hours meeting with people who lost their jobs 30, 35 years ago. It's part of who I am. I carry it around with me."

One of the states that votes next Tuesday is California, where, aides to both Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry say, the campaigns have been trying to avoid the fight between Mayor Newsom and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over San Francisco's decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Mr. Kerry, asked about the dispute while campaigning Monday, said he thought it was a state issue but declined to offer an opinion on what the mayor was doing.

"I haven't made a judgment on that," he said. "I don't know. I really haven't kept up on what he is doing or not doing."

Asked his position on gay marriage, Mr. Edwards said: "No to gay marriage — not yet, anyway." He said there were a number of things that the government could do for gay couples, short of marriage, like providing partnership rights and adoption rights.

Earlier in the day, at a campaign appearance, Mr. Edwards responded tentatively when asked if he supported the White House's policy to deal with unrest in Haiti by trying to broker a power-sharing arrangement with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his opponents.

"I think that for the time being, that is the best approach," he said.

[skywalker]

I'm not forgetting him. But by the time the primaries are near finished, Kerry will already be annointed, if he hasn't by now.

Mark