John Edwards for President-Madeleine Stowe

John Edwards wants to make it right for us

By Madeleine Stowe

It was sleeting and snowing when I got to Des Moines. The airport had shut down and my plane was one of the few to barely squeak through. I was laughing that I'd got there at all.

In the morning, Jean Smart (a great actress and Edwards supporter) and I were in the John Edwards for President headquarters with volunteers who were making phone calls to voters when the Steelworkers marched in ready to roll.

Some of them had driven seven hundred miles from Michigan just to come and campaign for John Edwards. That's seven hundred miles in some of the nastiest weather you can imagine. I didn't have to ask why they were doing this. The reason was on their faces and they inspired us. These men and women wanted a voice in our political process. Everyone in that room could feel their urgency, the pride they felt in being here. And their faith and belief that John Edwards would help their voices to be heard.

Two of the steelworkers were women, Debbie and Terri. They told me a lot of things and their tale has been told before by others. How their hometowns were unrecognizable from ten years ago. How the past two years their industry was changing at a 'phenomenal speed'. Jobs were being shipped overseas. Debbie was concerned about losing her house and Terri was grateful she still had her apartment and that her son was managing to hold down a job while he went to college.

"I don't know what George Bush thinks," says Terri, "but maybe he should spend some time down on Michigan Avenue and Lansing where people are homeless from job loss." The women say they live under constant threat and anxiety. They talk about NAFTA and the devastation it brought their friends and family. How their neighbors have despaired. About how much universal health care means. How they just want to belong to the middle class of America.

Debbie and Terri saw John Edwards walk the Goodyear picket line. They did their homework, read about him and decided to come down to Des Moines and work for the campaign so they could change the direction of their lives.

"He wants to make it right for us,' says Terri.

And this is what I sense, too. John Edwards wants to make it right for us. John Edwards has come out first, fastest, hardest with some of the toughest policies we've ever seen. First out with universal health care. First out with an environmental plan, one which set the bar for the other candidates. First out with an education plan.

And he's kept on going. Senator Edwards has set the course of this campaign. The other top tier candidates have been left scratching their heads, wondering how to best his policies, and they haven't been able to do it. While the others waited, John has led. He's done it with urgency, as if he feels the clock ticking and he can't waste a single second.

But there's something else at work, here, too. While the more traditional candidates ask us to vote for them so they can go to work in the DC establishment to bring "change", John asks us to vote for him so that we can all work together to change the Washington DC establishment. He wants DC to be beholden to us.

It's a huge difference, Terri and Debbie feel it too. "The only changes that will happen is if we do them ourselves", says Debbie.

Terri adds, "We don't need someone who'll tell us what we want to hear. I don't want someone who's gonna decide what'll happen to me. I want to decide." She says she believes Senator Edwards because he's lived what she's going through.

I told her about his idea of a Citizen Congress. How Edwards has a plan to have over one million Americans convene every two years to discuss policy and have a strong voice in our governmental system. It's a way of sending a strong message to DC that this country is watching and that our politicians need to be accountable to their constituency rather than to their corporate lobbyists.

It's a huge start. There's nothing like the persuasion of the voter.

I was raised in a household where healthcare was essential to our family's survival. My father had a debilitating illness that left him wheelchair bound. He had no short term memory. He needed to be cared for the way one cares for an newborn. I was six when he was struck down, my sister was four, my brother two. I remember the day my mother looked at the checkbook and said, "We have a hundred dollars, but I think we can make it through the month."

My father had social security and veterans benefits. He had healthcare. Because of this, our family was able to stay together instead of being scattered to God knows where. My mother was able to care for my dad 24/7. We each had a good public school education. I'm grateful to this day.

I want for the day when Terri and Debbie know they'll be okay. I never want a single person in this country to have to wonder if they'll get the health care they need or if their job is going to be shipped overseas. No one should live in dread.

Things don't have to be like this. Terri and Debbie and the rest of us who support John Edwards know it. For anyone else who isn't as certain...read Senator Edwards' eighty page policy booklet. And while you're reading it, know he's the only candidate who's brave enough to lay it all out there so you can hold his plan in your own two hands.

Then let's get this man elected. John Edwards has our back.