I’m watching the John Edwards webcast in which he’s taking questions about the State of the Union address, and I’m liking it a lot. [The following is a choppy account. Sorry.]

He begins by saying that the State of the Union and the media coverage of it was all about theater. We have to get past that, he says. Nor can we can’t look to the president to solve our problems. We the people have to do it. Bottom up.

He immediately talks about our moral obligation as a country. First on the list: Dafur.

Every American should have health care, he says. Universal health care. Period. (Go, JE!) We should build on the existing system, he says, but everyone ought to have it.

It is clear that in this opening statement, he’s speaking from the heart. And the “production values” promote this: It’s him in front of an exposed brick wall, answering questions read by a young woman at a bare table and a Mac.

Congress ought not fund the escalation, he says. “We cannot send 20,000 more men and women into this crossfire.” We shouldn’t treat this as a political question, he says, but as matter of doing the right, moral thing.

The fact that the Sunnis have been locked out of the government is the most powerful foundation of the violence there, he says. The McCain doctrine is that we stabilize conditions and create a better environment for the existing government — Shiite domninated — to bring the Sunnis in. But, says Edwards, the Shiites will only do it if there are consequences. We ought to be leaving Iraq and engaging diplomatically with all parties in the area, even those we’re antagonistic with.

Q: Would you increase funding to fight AIDS globally?

Bush has identified the issue, but is engaging only incrementally with it, Edwards says. The Democratic party has to decide if it’s going to be bold or take baby steps. “We’re going to have an entire new generation of children with AIDS because their mother can’t afford $4 medicine. And we’re the richest country in the world?” Edwards would lead an international effort to eradicate AIDS entirely.

Q: The image of America has suffered substantially under this president. What would you do?

“Our next president needs to travel the world and do what great American presidents have done: To speak not just to leaders but to the peoples of the world.” The message should be that we don’t tolerate diversity, we embrace diversity: different backgrounds, different faiths. And the world needs to see us happening outside our own selfish interests. They see genocide in Sudan and the US standing silently by. “You don’t get to choose when you’re the leader. The world needs to see what our better angels, what the American character is.”

Q: Outsourcing? Globalism?

China is about to become the largest English-speaking country on the planet. They graduate 10x the engineers we do. We need to encourage our kids to study science, math and technology.

Q: What do we do about poverty?

I’ve been running the Poverty Center at UNC Chapel Hill, Edwards says. “I’m not the world’s greatest expert,” but these are the simple things we can do: Raise the minimum wage. Increase the earned income tax credit. Organize workers into unions. Help people save. Help people go to college: “College for everyone.” Our housing policy currently is a disgrace, clustering poor people together, he says. Create a million housing vouchers to create mobility across the economic and racial barriers. We need a million stepping stone jobs. But, it’s not all about the government. If you’re able to work, you ought to be working. Parents need to be responsible for their children.

We can debate what are the right ideas, but we can’t debate doing nothing. Doing nothing is not ok. It says something about our character, Edwards says

[I was very impressed by his substance and style. He has a real-ness, sincerity and a steadiness that would do this country good, and will, by the way, stand him in good stead in comparison to the other Democratic candidates.]

[Tags: politics john_edwards campaign sotu]

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