Edwards: party needs backbone rather than new message

John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, told an audience in Waterloo today (Friday) that it’s “obvious” he’s thinking about running for president in 2008. “I’ve been listening to, since the election…some of these commentators on television talk about what the Democratic party needs to do, that somehow we need to change our position and change what we’re saying and stand for something different because that’ll make us more appealing to more people,” Edwards says. “I have a very simple formula for what we ought to do. How ’bout if we actually go out there and fight with passion and backbone for what we believe in?” Edwards spoke today at the Iowa Federation of Labor convention in Waterloo. While other prominent Democrats, including Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, suggest their party should rework its message. Edwards casts doubt on that effort. “What the country is hungry for in its leaders is strength and strength comes from conviction. Strength comes from speaking up and fighting for the things that you actually believe in,” Edwards says. “It doesn’t come from shifting and politics and trying to figure out what you’re supposed to say, trying to figure out what’s popular. It comes from fighting for what it is that you believe in and what you stand for and that’s what the country wants from us.” Also today, Edwards has met privately in Waterloo and Cedar Rapids with groups fighting poverty. Edwards will speak at the Iowa Farmers Union convention in Marshalltown tomorrow. Edwards finished a close second in the 2004 Iowa Caucuses, just behind eventual party nominee John Kerry.