An important partisan for labor

While early on it was clear he stood virtually no chance of being elected President, John Edwards made working people the center of his campaign.

During his farewell speech yesterday, Edwards railed against the Democratic Party and an America, maybe the most comically and contradictorily Christian in all the world, that has forgotten about economic justice issues:

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For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles. They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it. I don't know how it started. I don't know when our party began to turn away from the cause of working people, from the fathers who were working three jobs literally just to pay the rent, mothers sending their kids to bed wrapped up in their clothes and in coats because they couldn't afford to pay for heat.

Naturally there's talk of Edwards using his political influence to gain a high position in the next Administration, probably as attorney general. This past Saturday, Robert Novak wrote the Obama campaign may have dangled this possibility before Edwards already. If Edwards aligns himself with Obama, the senator from Illinois should cement labor's support. As Novak argues:

Installation at the Justice Department of multimillionaire trial lawyer Edwards would please not only the union leaders supporting him for president but organized labor in general. The unions relish the prospect of an unequivocal labor partisan as the nation's top legal officer.

This would be an important win for organized labor, and by extension all working people, as the nation's unions have withered from Republican assault (PATCO anyone) and the country's loss of its manufacturing base.

If the Democratic nominee wins the presidency, let's hope we'll find Edwards fighting for working people within it, either as the country's attorney general or as its labor secretary.