Al Wynn and John Edwards

By Ezra

I'll have a lot more to say about Edwards related issues later in the week, but Stoller is playing fast and loose here:

I once asked his communications director who his allies in the House are regarding povery, and she said 'Al Wynn', who is one of the key right-wing Democrats pushing through the Bankruptcy Bill, the Energy Bill, and the COPE Act, and who stole an election from a real progressive, Donna Edwards.  It was a thoughtless, stupid comment, but it was a comment borne of a genuine illiberal instinct, a desire to suck up to existing power centers.

I was sitting at the table when Matt asked Kim Rubey who Edwards' allies were.  Al Wynn was, indeed, mentioned.  And Al Wynn does, indeed, suck.  But Stoller is excising or forgetting the rest of that conversation.  He pressed on the Wynn issue, arguing the guy's corrupt, corporatist instincts, and Rubey ceded the point.  But Wynn wasn't advising them on bankruptcy, she explained (indeed, Elizabeth Warren is advising them on bankruptcy, and does Matt really have a problem with her?).  Instead, he's deeply committed to asset-building strategies as an anti-poverty strategy, and that's what their consultations focus on.

Now, you don't have to like Al Wynn.  I don't.  But consulting with him on asset-building is, we're supposed to believe, "a desire to suck up to existing power centers?"  Wynn doesn't chair a committee, doesn't come from an important primary state, isn't a particularly legendary fundraiser, and doesn't hold outsized sway amongst any voting constituency.  If that's the campaign's idea of a power center, progressives should abandon them on grounds of rank incompetence. 

By mentioning Wynn, Rubey struck one of Stoller's exposed nerves.  That's fine -- it happens.  And Stoller may not want campaigns consulting with Wynn, even where Wynn's right, even where he's helpful. That's a defendable position.  But the mention of Wynn had a context and a purpose beyond signaling that the Edwards camp seeks support from "illiberal" power centers.  Wynn isn't a power center, save in that he repelled Donna Edwards' primary challenge, and thus represents establishment politics to Matt.  To the Edwards campaign, he was a useful ally on a particular anti-poverty policy.  And, to be sure, the merits of that choice are up for debate.  But the campaign's thinking should reported in full.

Meanwhile, Stoller's demand for Edwards to pick a fight belies the fact that every time Edwards stands up for organized labor or walks a picket line or joins the Hotel Workers Rising campaign or attacks Wal-Mart or lambastes Donna Shalala, he's taking on the titans of the corporate world and the current structure of American capitalism.  In what sense is that not "picking a fight?"  And what's our definition of "progressive" or "populist" if such acts don't qualify?

Update: I think Matt's right about one thing.  I insinuated too much intentionality here, saying Matt "deliberately excised" that bit from the conversation.  He argues that he doesn't remember it, and I have no reason to question that. The Edwards folks, with their demonstrated commitment to Labor and poverty, deserve a bit of good faith regarding their anti-poverty efforts, and Matt shouldn't have substituted such malicious intent for their reasoning, whether he remembered it or not.  That said, I owe Matt the same leeway.   A big piece of Christmas coal for me.