I just finished filling out a survey from the Democratic National Committee. Apparently, my voice is important to deciding the campaign strategy for the general election? Well, that's debatable, but what I want to write about was the one of the questions that had to do with ranking the importance of election issues. 14 were listed: Education, environment, health care, civil rights/liberties, immigration, social security, ethics in government, reproductive rights, homeland security, stem cell research, Iraq, taxes, energy policy, and jobs/economy.
Where was Poverty?
I know that it is a complex issue that spans education, healthcare, jobs/economy, civil rights and immigration. But really, I think it deserves it's own category seeing as how over 35 million Americans are food insecure and 1.1 billion people live in extreme poverty around the world. Doesn't it deserve a _mention_ in a Democratic party survey? I mean, if the Dems aren't even going to bring it up amongst themselves, who is going to talk about poverty? Clinton was very quick to jump on the bandwagon earlier in the primary, claiming poverty was "central" to her campaign after Edwards said it was central to his. But if it doesn't have to do with the healthcare part of it, I don't hear it being discussed. More and more people are getting on food stamps and hunger riots are breaking out globally. I hear and see plenty of coverage on this from NPR, the NY Times, the Chicago Trib, and the Economist, but nothing from our candidates. Obama a great record on poverty-fighting legislation like Farm Bill subsidy reform and the Global Poverty Act. But even he isn't bringing those up. We really have to talk about these things out in the open if we are going to change them. Words matter...change... So, let's speak some words about poverty again and change some lives for the better!
I've got to find Howard Dean's address somewhere here on this survey....
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