总统候选人约翰-爱德华兹

The candidates: John Edwards
总统候选人约翰-爱德华兹

Man of the left左翼的领军人物

Jul 19th 2007 TAMA AND MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA
From The Economist print edition 选自经济学人印刷版


John Edwards trails in third place. But his policy ideas are shaping the Democratic presidential race. HE STRIDES into an Iowa primary school where more than a hundred people have skipped their lunch to hear him, wearing jeans and flashing a smile that could sell toothpaste.He begins, as always, by mentioning his wife, who was diagnosed with incurable cancer in March. “She's doing great.” But within seconds, John Edwards dives into the details of his health-care scheme. Then on to questions.The subjects range from high medical costs to the influence of Iran. “Here's what I think,” he answers, before launching into a detailed plan to fix the problem. 约翰-爱德华兹的竞选虽然排位第三，但是施政方针已经影响到了民主党的总统竞选。他大步流星地走入衣阿华州的一个初级高中,穿着牛仔裤,露出广告明星一样 的笑容,百十号人顾不上吃饭去听他演讲。象往常一样，他以妻子三月份被诊断出患有恶性癌症开始了他的演讲，“她非常勇敢！”他说。很快，他就把话题转移到 他的医疗保险计划上去了。接着是现场提问。问题的内容从高昂的医疗开支到伊朗问题的影响无所不包，在阐述解决这些问题的计划的时候他总是说：“我认 为……”

Mr Edwards is a man of big plans. No other presidential candidate, of either party, can match the sheer quantity, let alone the ambition, of his policy ideas. He has grand, progressive, goals—to end the war in Iraq (obviously), provide universal health care, address global warming, eliminate poverty in America within 30 years—and detailed blueprints of how to do it all.约翰-爱德华兹显然有雄心壮志。没有任何其他总统候选人的政策方针堪与他全面而丰富的政纲相媲美，任何党派中都没有人比得上他,更提说野心了。 如何结束伊拉克战争，提供广泛的医疗保健，处理全球变暖问题，三十年内消除贫困等等，他都给出了宏伟而循序渐进的目标，并阐述了具体的行动蓝图。

All this is a big change from 2004, when he first ran, unsuccessfully, for the Democratic nomination and then (equally unsuccessfully) as John Kerry's vice-presidential running-mate. Those campaigns were built around his youthful charm, made-for-politics biography (the son of a mill-worker in North Carolina; the first member of his family to go to college) and a rousing stump speech about “two Americas”, one for the rich and one for the rest.和2004年比起来这是一个巨大的转变。当时，他先是以民主党提名候选人身份参与总统竞选，失败后和约翰-克里结成竞选伙伴竞选副总统，也没有 成功。那些竞选活动主要围绕他的年轻有为、专为选举量身定做的个人传记和一篇名为“两个美国”的鼓舞人心的演说——富人的和其他人的美国展开。(在传记中 他被描述为北卡来罗纳州磨房工人的儿子，家族中第一个有机会上大学的成员。)

His life-story loomed large because the dashing former trial lawyer was short of both substance and political experience. He was a one-term senator with a silver tongue and populist touch but an unremarkable legislative record. (He voted against two of George Bush's three tax cuts but for the war in Iraq.) 他之所以把出身半遮半掩主要是因为作为精干的前出庭律师，他缺乏资历和政治经验。他巧舌如簧，支持民粹主义，是个无党派参议员，但在立法机构却并不引人注 目。(他曾对乔治-布什三次减税议案中的两次投反对票，但对伊拉克战争投了赞成票。)

Four years on, his experience of government is still thin. Having left the Senate in 2004 he has spent less time making laws (six years) than Barack Obama, who was a state senator for eight years and has been a senator in Washington for two and a half. But Mr Edwards is no longer a policy neophyte. Instead, he has positioned himself as the voice of his party's left wing. He renounced his support for the Iraq war in 2005 (Mr Obama never supported it, however) and has been a powerful critic since. He has steeped himself in progressive causes, particularly the battle against poverty, founding a centre at the University of North Carolina to study ways to combat deprivation. And he has assiduously built ties with the unions.
四年过去了，爱德华兹的从政经验并没有增加多少。自从2004年离开参议院，他已经六年 时间没怎么研究过法律了。巴瑞克?奥巴马则不一样，他做过八年时间的州议员，在华盛顿已经做了两年半的参议员。 不过爱德华兹先生也不再是原来的政治新手了。取而代之的是，他把自己描述为民主党左翼的代言人，并于2005年放弃了支持伊拉克战争的立场（奥巴马自始至 终都没有支持过伊拉克战争），成了自那时以来很有影响力的批评者之一。他沉浸于自己一系列的渐进式理想之中，尤其是消除贫穷问题。他在北卡罗莱纳州州立大 学成立了一个研究中心，期望能找到摆脱赤贫现象的方法。经过在研究中心的不懈努力，他和工会建立了很紧密的关系。

The transformation on Iraq is the most dramatic. Mr Edwards wants American soldiers out fast (an immediate reduction of 40,000-50,000, followed by an “orderly and complete” withdrawal of combat forces within a year). He excoriates Congress and his Democratic rivals for failing to force the president's hand by denying funding for the war. “Congress has a responsibility to force George Bush to end this war,” he intones in every speech. No serious Democratic candidate is more searing in his condemnation of America's present course. (The war on terror is a “bumper-sticker, not a plan”, he mocks.) 他在伊拉克问题上的立场转变是最富有戏剧性的。现在爱德华兹要让美国士兵尽快撤出，首先是一项40，000-50，000人的兵力缩减，紧接着是为期一年 的彻底、有序的撤军。他批评国会和民主党的对手没有否决战争拨款从而无法掉转总统的指挥棒。 “国会有责任迫使乔治-布什结束这场战争。”他在每次演说中都强调。对美国现行方针的谴责，谨慎的民主党候选人中没人比他的发言更火暴了。他把反恐战争比 喻为“弹力胶”，说它根本不是一项有计划的行动。

But far from turning inward to concentrate on domestic problems, he wants to “re-engage the world with the full weight of [America's] moral leadership”. That demands change at home, notably on global warming, but also commitments abroad. Enough troops should stay near Iraq to “prevent a genocide, deter a regional spillover of the civil war, and prevent an al-Qaeda safe haven”. He wants a big increase in foreign aid and a “Marshall Corps” of 10,000 bankers, political scientists and other experts to help failing states. There is a dissonance here. How can Mr Edwards pull out of Iraq while also forestalling the re-emergence of al-Qaeda? But for all his efforts to woo the anti-war wing, he is free of the isolationist flavour of most populist politicians. 他想要“竭尽全力地用美国的道德领导力重建世界”，但是他的对外政策远不如对国内问题处理得透彻。他指的是那些需要每家每户都参与，但同时要国际之间协作 的问题，尤其是全球变暖问题。在伊拉克附近需要有足够的兵力部署，用于“防止种族大屠杀，阻止地区内战蔓延到周边国家，以及防止伊拉克变成基地组织的天 堂。他提议让其他国家增加援助，并成立一个由10000个银行家、政治学者和其他专家组成的“马歇尔联合组织”一起资助崩溃的国家。不过这里有些问题。爱 德华兹先生怎么样才能既从伊拉克抽身出来又可阻止基地组织的复兴呢？他竭力去迎合反战派的口味，所以大部分的民粹主义政治家现在和他站同样立场。

Champion of the poor 穷人的代言人On economics, too, the Edwards brand of populism is hard to pigeonhole. With roots in the textile mills and strong links to the unions, he is regarded as the most protectionist of the Democratic front-runners—though the margins are narrowing fast as Hillary Clinton stages a retreat from her husband's embrace of free trade.在经济上，爱德华兹的大众化招牌同样立场模糊。他被看作民主党里走在前列的最富有贸易保护主义倾向的侯选人，因为他出生于纺织工人家庭，被认 为生来就和那个阶层有着很深的联系。然而自从希拉里?克林顿筹备从他丈夫的自由贸易道路上退却开始，这条边缘道路已经越来越难走。

He offers plenty of standard populist cant: lots of talk about “fairness”; rants against oil firms for price gouging and drug companies for rocketing health costs; and—this year's favourite villain—anger at mortgage lenders for ripping off poor home-owners. (He calls it the “wild west of the credit industry, where...abusive and predatory lenders are robbing families blind.”) A recent speech decried an economy that rewarded “wealth not work”, a tax system that favoured the rich and a government that served only special interests. Yet for all that Mr Edwards is less a redistributionist firebrand than a big-government do-gooder. He is intent on helping the poor more than soaking the rich; his inspiration is Robert Kennedy, not Huey Long. 他给出了大量时髦的取悦民粹主义的漂亮话：无数次地谈到“公平”，激情洋溢发表演讲痛斥石油公司价格讹诈、斥责制药公司导致医疗保健费用飞速上升，以及今 年毫无疑问的大坏蛋——那些无情地吞噬掉贫困家庭的借贷公司。最近的一场演讲他批评美国经济体系奖励那些不劳而获者，抨击迎合富有阶层的税收体系，指责政 府仅服务于特殊利益团体。然而，尽管如此，我们与其称爱德华兹先生是财富分配论的煽动者，倒不如说他是全能政府主义不切实际的改良者。他更倾向于帮助穷人 而非劫富济贫，激励他的人是罗伯特?肯尼迪而非Huey Long。(美国路易斯安纳州参议员，上世纪二三十年代提倡“财富分配论”。)

The Edwards campaign openly evokes RFK's 1968 presidential bid, which combined vocal opposition to an unpopular war with a telegenic focus on alleviating poverty. Mr Edwards launched his candidacy outside a wrecked house in New Orleans's ninth ward. This week he spent three days on an anti-poverty tour, one that finished, not uncoincidentally, in Prestonburg, Kentucky, where Kennedy ended his own poverty tour 40 years ago.爱德华兹的竞选活动公开引用了罗伯特?肯尼迪1968年的竞选纲领。那个纲领已经把直率地反对不受欢迎的战争与最吸引电视观众的消除贫困联系在一 起。爱德华兹先生从新奥尔良州第九选区一处破旧的房子边上开始了他的竞选历程。本周，他在消除贫困游行上花了3天时间。其中的一次，并非无意地，他在肯塔 基州的普莱斯敦伯格结束了他的活动。40年前肯尼迪也是在那里结束消除贫困游行的。

Look beyond the unsubtle imagery, however, and Mr Edwards's anti-poverty plan is an intriguing mix. His goals are bold—to cut America's poverty rate of 12.6% by a third within a decade—but the means are mainstream. His policy arsenal includes expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, a kind of negative income tax that tops up the earnings of poorer Americans; giving poor people “work bonds” to boost their saving; and providing 1m housing vouchers to help poor families move to better neighbourhoods. Policy wonks argue about whether these ideas, particularly housing vouchers, will work, but they could all have come from a centrist Democratic think-tank. 透过爱德华兹先生的不明晰的描述来堪，他的反贫困计划却是有搀杂的混杂体。他的计划远大，在十年内把美国12.6%的贫困率降低三分之一，财政是主要手 段。他的十八般兵器中含有如下内容：首先是所得收入赋税优惠，这是一项负项税，用来提高贫困家庭的整体收入；其次是为穷人提供“工作债券”以提高他们的储 蓄水平；然后是为贫困家庭提供一百万份的购房优惠保障单用以帮助他们移居到较好的环境中。死抠政策条文的人会质疑说，这些想法尤其是购房优惠保障券未必能 起到良好的作用。不过即使真的有这样的人，他们也只会是那些民主党的中立智囊团。

The combination of bold goals and mainstream means is evident in two other Edwards plans: health care and energy reform. And it is why his campaign, regardless of its electoral fortunes, is shaping the Democratic race. Unable to dismiss his proposals as crazy radicalism, the other candidates have to be both bolder and more detailed than they would like.在爱德华兹的其他两个计划医疗保险和能源改革中，同样是远目标和通行手段的组合。抛开选举的机遇不谈，这正是他的竞选重塑了民主党竞选步调的原 因。由于爱德华兹德的提案不会因为疯狂的激进主义而出局，其他的候选人就不得不给出比爱德华兹的设想更大胆、详细的计划。

Consider health. Mr Edwards released his ideas for universal insurance in February, almost two years before election day. He steered clear of the approach favoured by the party's left—a single-payer system, like Canada's or Britain's. Instead his plan has ingredients that were introduced in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, now a Republican presidential candidate: an overhaul of insurance markets, subsidies to help poorer people pay their premiums, taxes on firms that do not provide health-care coverage for their workers, and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance.说到健康保险，爱德华滋先生早在今年二月份就发表了他的普遍投保计划，那时离选举日还有整整两年之久。爱德华滋的行动正越来越清晰地 驶近民主党左翼阵营的目标，即象加拿大或者英国一样，建立全国统一支付系(单一付款人制度系统)。他混杂的计划现在被马萨诸塞州共和党候选人迈特?罗米尼 偷梁换柱，取而代之的是：重新检查保险市场，对贫困人口发放津贴用于支付保险费用，对不全员提供医疗保险的企业征收额外赋税，以及规定所有人都必须购买医 疗保险。

His proposal does nod to the left: a government health scheme, akin to Medicare, would compete with private insurers, potentially opening the door to a single-payer system if everyone chose to join the public scheme. But it does not seem threateningly radical. As a result, it has become the standard against which other Democratic candidates are judged. Mr Obama, who recently released a paler version of the Edwards ideas, was criticised for not requiring people to buy health insurance. 爱德华滋的纲领的确是在向左翼示好。一个政府主导的健康卫生计划很类似于政府医疗保险，将与个人医疗保险不相上下，一旦所有人都选择加入公共卫生计划，这 等于无形中为统一支付系统(单一付款人制度系统)打开了一条通路。但是这不能被看成具有威胁性的激进行为。从目前的结果来看，爱德华滋的观点已经成为了检 验其他民主党候选人的一项标准。奥巴马先生最近发表了一项弱化了的爱德华滋计划版本，马上被批评为不要求民众购买医疗保险。

On global warming, too, the Edwards campaign has set the pace. He wants to reduce America's greenhouse-gas emissions by 80% before 2050 with a cap-and-trade system of carbon permits. He also touts reforms of the electricity grid, improvements in energy efficiency and vast investment in renewable energy. Those targets match the toughest bill now in Congress. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama signed on to this bill soon after the Edwards energy plan was released.在全球变暖问题上，爱德华滋的竞选纲领同样表明了立场。他计划通过碳排放量交易封顶制在2050年以前降低美国的温室气体排放量 80%。他同时鼓吹改革现有的电力网，提高能源利用率并大力投资可再生能源。所有这些计划的花费可与现在国会最大的开支相提并论(译者注：指伊拉克战争的 花费)。但是在爱德华滋提出他的能源计划后不久，希拉里和奥巴马就都承诺了这样的计划。

These ideas do not come cheap. Universal health care will cost some $90 billion-$120 billion a year; the poverty plan $15 billion-$20 billion; the renewable energy fund another $13 billion (though the auction of carbon permits and elimination of subsidies for oil firms should cover some of that). Add in a rag-bag of other ideas and you easily reach some $150 billion of new spending a year, well over 1% of GDP. That, however, is about what the Iraq war is currently consuming.这些计划确实花费不菲。全员医疗保险计划一年要花掉900-1200亿美元，助贫计划是150-200亿美元，可再生能源投资还需要 130亿美元 (即使碳排放限制和削减石油公司津贴能抵消其中一部分)。再算上一揽子计划中的其他部分，你很容易得出一年的新开支会达到1500亿美元，这已经比国民生 产总值的1%还多。然而，1500亿美元也不过是伊拉克战争打到现在的大致花费而已。

Plainly, the new spending will require higher taxes. Mr Edwards has been more willing than his competitors to admit that he will go beyond the Democrat commonplace of rolling back Mr Bush's tax cuts for those making over $200,000. He has hinted at raising the tax rate on capital gains, arguing that it is “not right” for income from wealth and work to be treated differently. Recently he became the first presidential candidate to endorse Democratic lawmakers' efforts to end the preferential taxation of “carried interest”, a tax loophole for private-equity firms and hedge funds. 说白了，这些花费还是需要更高的赋税来支撑。比起其他的竞选对手，爱德华滋的不同之处在于在减税问题上更加坦率。民主党的共识认为应该把布什总统针对收入 超过200000的个人的减税行动取消，爱德华滋认为这还不够。他已经暗示会提升资本收益税，并说，辛苦工作所得与财产收益在税收体系中区别对待，这不公 平。近期，在所有总统候选人中他第一个认同了民主党的立法提案，该提案旨在取消对所谓附带权益的特惠税制，这项制度对私人股权公司和投机基金来讲是一项税 收漏洞。

The three Hs 三个hRaising taxes on hedge funds fits the image Mr Edwards is trying for. But it also points to his biggest weaknesses, known as the “three Hs”. The working-class hero worked for a hedge fund, earning $479,000 as a consultant for Fortress Investment Group last year; he is building a 28,000ft (2,600 square metre) house; and he charged two $400 haircuts to his campaign. 对投机基金提高税收和爱德华滋的谋求不谋而合。但投机基金同时也是他的最大弱点。这位中产阶级的英雄去年担任Fortress Investment Group机构的顾问，年收入为479000美元。他现在正在修建他28000平方英尺(2600平方米)的豪宅，此外，他将两笔400美元/次的理发费 算到竞选的帐上。

An expensively coiffed mansion-builder is all too easy to ridicule as a champion of the poor. And the haircut gaffe echoes the reputation for preferring style to substance that dogged Mr Edwards in 2004. (Judging by a gaggle of schoolteachers in Iowa, the pretty-boy problem has not gone away. “Can I lift up his coat?” giggled one as she waited for a photograph.) 一个戴高级律师发套的修建豪宅的人要做穷人的领军人物，这太具有讽刺意味了。有关理发的丑闻恰恰是他2004年获得重形式轻实质的评价的写照。(衣阿华州 一群唧唧喳喳的中学教师评价他是个小帅哥，其中一个女教师在等待合影时唧喳说，“我想把他的外套脱下来！”他还是没摆脱掉小帅哥的形象)

By and large, though, Iowa Democrats are buying Mr Edwards's brand of populism. He has campaigned hard there, visiting the state more than 20 times in the past two years. His strategy depends on doing well in the first-off Iowa caucuses, and at present he leads the pack in polls there, though Mrs Clinton is closing in fast. Nationally, Mr Edwards trails far behind Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama, both in polls and the race for cash. He raised only $9m between April and June, compared with Mr Obama's $32.5m.尽管如此，衣阿华州的民主党人大致上还是买爱德华滋的帐的。他在那儿争夺选票争得很努力，过去的2年中，他到那里的次数超过了20次。他的 策略取决于在即将来临的衣阿华州党内初选中能否表现出色。目前爱德华滋在衣阿华州的民意调查中依然领先，不过希拉里正快速拉近差距。全国范围内来讲，不管 是民意调查还是募集捐款，爱德华滋的步骤明显落后于希拉里和奥巴马。从四月份到七月份，他只募集到了900万的竞选资金，但是奥巴马募集到了3250万。

Surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Edwards's brand of populism seems to appeal to Republicans. When pitted against Republican candidates in polls, he scores better than the other Democratic front-runners. But it is the primaries that matter, and there Mr Edwards must hope for one of the others to stumble. If Obamamania fades, or the Clinton machine stalls, an Edwards nomination is just possible. But even if the man himself does not make it, the Democrats' presidential platform will be shaped by Mr Edwards's plans.令人惊讶的或许是，爱德华滋的大众化标签看起来对共和党人反而有吸引力。当民意测验调查谁能和共和党候选人匹敌时，他的得分要好于其他的民主 党领先者。但是首要的问题是，爱德华滋必须期望其他民主党候选人有人阴沟里翻船。除非奥巴马身上的光环褪色，或者克林顿竞选机器当机，爱德华滋才有可能获 得民主党的候选人提名。不过，就算没人自己把自己绊倒，民主党人的总统竞选纲领还是会被爱德华滋的计划所重塑。