"I came from nothing to being able to afford this $400 haircut."

So I went to the Small Change for Big Change rally for John Edwards yesterday in San Jose ($15 donation). A decent size crowd at San Jose State University, maybe several hundred people. About 90-95% white, which is unfortunate but I think not all that unusual at this stage in the political process. Maybe half were students and half were others like myself.

Edwards was good, I thought a little better than on television. He led off with Third World issues, talking about how children are born HIV-positive in Africa because no one will give their mothers $4 worth of medicine. He said he would close Guantanamo the day he arrives in office. He repeated his statement that Congress should've kept sending a funding bill with a deadline to Bush despite the veto (I don't necessarily agree with this, but he just said "a" deadline not the same deadline).

The only environmental issue he talked about was climate change, which he repeated is a crisis. He wants 80% reductions by 2050 (!), have a carbon cap leading to that goal, and 30-40% of the carbon cap would be auction-allocated and the resulting funds used for renewable fuels etc.

He talked about fighting poverty at home (can't remember the specifics) and said people needed to have the same chance to rise up that he had, then giving the quote I headlined this post with.

A pretty good job.