Poverty and Politics

People don’t want to have to look poverty in the face. Since Senator Edwards personal life scandal broke, poverty took a back seat. Even as the economy and the current economic crisis took center stage in the campaign, and post election work, very little attention has been paid to the poor. There is plenty of talk of Leeman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs and the financial troubles of Big Auto, but no one is talking about our brothers and sisters who sleep in their cars, or even those with a house, who have to choose between paying the electric bill and paying for groceries.

Before I begin, I suppose I should introduce myself to the Faithful Democrats readers, as I believe context and background is important.

I am a white privileged male from Midwestern suburbia. My name is Jonathan Levine, and while I was a comparative religion major in college, I have a major in politics from the school of life. I was raised in a very active Democratic household. My father is a bit of a celebrity in Missouri Political circles. Early in my life I met elected officials and Democratic activists, I hob-knobbed with party higher-ups, and was constantly surrounded by Democrats and Democratic values. I caught the bug, and knew I would always be active in Democratic politics. Not government but politics, campaigns and elections. This was the lifeblood of the party; this was the exciting part of politics, the competition and the energy, the dialogue and the issues. So it should be no surprise that after a combination of graduation and the defeat of John Kerry and the Democrats that I decided that Democratic politics is where I would make my career. Thus started my political career, and after cutting my teeth on a couple of local elections in St. Louis, I made my way to Iowa, where I worked for Senator John Edwards.

I came to work for Senator Edwards because he made poverty a focal point of his campaign, an issue that I have always felt was missing in the public dialogue. Furthermore, it was the way that he connected the issues that are usually in public dialogue, such as healthcare, the current economic crisis, and the labor movement back to the issue of poverty. All of these things are connected; to paraphrase Edwards, there are two Americas, and one is getting much larger than the other. I was captivated by his passion for these issues, and his commitment to bringing them into the national public conversation. He was the first to release a universal healthcare plan (in February of 2007) and he constantly talked about the 47 million Americans without healthcare coverage, and something like 400,000 US military veterans that sleep on grates and under bridges. Concern for these people is at the heart of Democratic practices, and the Judeo-Christian faiths.

It has always been interesting to me, how the job of caring for the poor left the Church, its home for centuries, to become the responsibility of the Federal Government. Furthermore, I find it fascinating that since then the loose conglomeration of Protestant churches in America have moved from caring to the poor to the prosperity gospel. After all it was long after the Depression that Oral Roberts came on the scene, created televangelism, and changed the face of Christianity for the rest of the twentieth century. I am sure that people from different perspectives would see different things, but these days when I look at churches, I see only rich people. However, I suspect that this attitude is less prevalent in the African American churches, which still have a strong tradition of working in communities and helping the poor.

I am not saying that these things are necessary connected, but it’s always been something I found fascinating. People don’t want to have to look poverty in the face. Since Senator Edwards personal life scandal broke, poverty took a back seat. Even as the economy and the current economic crisis took center stage in the campaign and post election work, very little attention has been paid to the poor. There is plenty of talk of Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs and the financial troubles of Big Auto, but no one is talking about our brothers and sisters who sleep in their cars, or even those with a house, who have to choose between paying the electric bill and paying for groceries. Americans don’t like to hear about poverty, they don’t like to talk about the underside of the capitalist structure, and I think that’s sad. I understand the inclination not to, but it is our responsibility to face these problems head on. This was the role the Church played in the centuries before the last. The Church has always and will continue to be a moral compass, but as long as the Church is focused on an anti-civil rights social agenda, and not on improving the well being of the daily life of citizens of this world, I fear that our compass will not point north to G-d the way it should.

And it is precisely at this point where political campaigns make a difference. Not government, but campaigns. They bring to light the issues that are important to Americans, and sometimes, when the candidate is bold enough, and strong enough, they bring forth out of the darkness America’s skeletons, and make them a part of the public discord. That is what I saw in Senator Edwards, the strength to say “enough is enough.” Would the fact that there are 47 million Americans without health insurance been a focal point of the Democratic primary without him? Would we be concerned about creating a new social safety net, if he had not offered the idea of a tax structure that rewards work and not wealth? I am not sure, I hope so, but I am not sure. Politics, and specifically political campaigns get a bad rap, people are easily fatigued with thirty-second attack adds, and political spin. Barack Obama did a lot to change this discourse, to get people involved at a level deeper than as passive viewers of TV commercials, and I hope that engagement and excitement has staying power. I hope to bring this perspective, the importance of political campaigns, not just politics or government but campaigns, to this Web site and to the community at large.

Thank you for reading. I hope to hear from you soon.