Iowa voters take Democrats to task over jobs

[brentspeak]

Source: Reuters

By Andrea Hopkins Thu Nov 8, 12:56 PM ET

NEWTON, Iowa (Reuters) - (snip)

While the Iraq war is often cited as the most pressing issue confronting candidates for the November 2008 presidential election, pocketbook concerns dominate in this central Iowa town of around 15,000, hit hard by the closure of a Maytag washing machine factory that had been there for a century, with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

(snip)

While Clinton leads national polls by a wide margin over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and third-place Edwards, the race is tighter in Iowa, where Edwards hopes his populist appeal will win over the state's largely middle-class electorate.

"John Edwards is the first person to come out with a solid plan to fix unfair trade agreements, but there is still a lot of room for his position to improve," Ploeser said. "I'm still waiting it out before deciding my vote."

(snip)

"These trade agreements have lost us millions of jobs and we had trade policy that is not beneficial to working, middle-class Americans ... It only benefited big multinational corporations," Edwards said in an interview on Monday.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071108/pl_nm/usa_politics_trade_dc

[OzarkDem]

1. Its the economy, stupid

Voters are tired of the Iraq war, don't want another one with Iran and won't object if you impeach Cheney. They just want the economy to improve and have good paying jobs.

[onethatcares]

3. and today I finally heard talk of a 'recession' by some geek on tv

like the guys I work with don't already know the economy sucks. We are in the housing industry, construction to be exact. Things are bad here in west coast Floriduh. You go to an orange box store in the morning for supplies and there is no waiting, same thing at the blue box store. Sheesh, gas is at 3.10/gal and jobs aren't there.

[Kolesar]

2. Off shoring was the "surprise" key issue in 2006

Democrats ran many ads excoriating "NAFTA or anything that sounds like it".

[OHdem10]

4. You do not expect Democrats to try to save jobs.

They trip over each other trying to get their vote in
on Trade Deals. Continue to outsource, and send jobs
out of the country.

When the crunch comes not one darn thing has changed.
They will choose their corporate Masters over Working
Class.

[Renew Deal]

5. When is the Peru treaty coming up for a vote?

Before the election I hope.