Where did John Edwards grow up, and what did his dad do for a living?

[rucky]

:evilgrin:

[cali]

1. and was his dad really a lowly mill worker?

no. he wasn't. through most of Edward's childhood and on, he was management at the the now famous textile mill. You'd not know that from the way Edwards speaks, but the truth is he had a comfortably middle class upbringing.

[surfermaw]

12. He was first a worker, then a supervison that went on to I think

become a minuteman.. back in the fifties and early sisties, they did time studies to try to get people more effecent , in order to raise production.. That was about the time hospital insurance came to the companies in the south, I do know he worked in Georgia for some time, one of the places was Griffing Georgia,Spalding County.

[pathansen]

19. I heard that his dad was also a Republican

[venable]

20. cali, as tiring as this is becoming to say: you're just wrong

I know exactly how Edwards grew up (won't say how, as this is an anonymous board), but you can do some actual research and discover that his father was first a grunt, then a floor manager, but never got promoted to white collar because he had no college education. that is why Edwards began college (the first in his family, ever) studying textiles.

I don't know the family income, but there is no way in the world that it could accurately be called either comfortable or middle class. His mom had a postal route, on foot, for instance. how many comfortable middle class families have the second job as a postal beat?

they scrimped and saved and still couldn't afford college without financial aid. by every measure of sociological/economic standard they were below middle class.

why do you post things about which you clearly know very little? I mention this because you do it very often. If you don't know, don't post as if you do.

[Clark2008]

25. And, apparently your sources are WRONG

During most of Edwards' life, his father was a mill supervisor and his mother was a postal worker.

I'm sorry you can't seem to accept this.

[Catchawave]

38. Links?

Don't forget to include John's Dad having to borrow money for the hospital when he was born? I think it was $100?

Will you please back up your snotty posts with some serious background :shrug: I'm still waiting for your brazillian posts refering to "snakeoil".

thanks :hi:

[OzarkDem]

32. Good post, thanks for the clarification

I also grew up with a lot of kids whose dad's were blue collar "managers". They weren't well off by any stretch of the imagination.

That's sort of like saying Archie Bunker was in management and lived a comfortable middle class life.

[surfermaw]

36. You got it right, he was from a poor family

[Marie26]

40. Is there a link?

I don't think Edwards had a comfortable middle-class existence, even if his father eventually was promoted to supervisor. That's still a working class job.

[zabet]

2. His dad was a mill worker...

who worked his way up into management. Whether or not
this pay scale was considered upper middle class is
subject to ones perspective. My brother is in management
at a textile mill right now, a superintendent, he lives
fairly well but it is due more to the fact that he and his
wife live frugally, she works, no kids in the home, and other
things they do to save money than it does with how much he
makes.

[Hieronymus]

3. This is part of Edwards' message, that one can work themselves up

to make a comfortable living if unions are encouraged.

[ClassWarrior]

4. I didn't know that. That's really hopeful. The American Dream.

Thanks! :thumbsup:

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

16. K&R

NGU.

[riqster]

5. DK, on the other hand, came from real poverty to the middle class

I'm just saying.

[durrrty libby]

6. And now he would consider Ron Paul as a running mate

I'm just saying.:scared:

[riqster]

7. When he says it himself, I'll worry.

If he DOES it, I'll ditch him.

The mens' backgrounds are quantifiable facts. Their future intentions, until explicitly stated by the candidates themselves, are not.

[Desertrose]

8. No, HE didn't say that......

It was his wife who mentioned only the POSSIBILITY that he would consider it.

Not the same thing at all.

[venable]

21. no 'other hand'...they both came from real poverty nt

[riqster]

23. Edwards' family had to sleep in their car?

Please provide proof of that.

Working class does not mean impoverished.

[venable]

27. no, they didn't. that's not my point.

my point is that people like to come on here talking about Edwards as if he had some sweet suburban childhood, and so the phrase : 'on the other hand' seems like more of that same.

i did not mean to imply that Kucinich and Edwards suffered the same level of poverty.

[riqster]

29. I'm not slashing Edwards

(I'm responding to both of your posts here)

Nor am I saying that Edwards enjoyed some sort of privileged childhood. What I am saying is that he chose his words for their emotional impact, to evoke a particular response, and left out his father's own success story in the process.

It's a selective use of words that play on people's emotions, and it bugs me. "Mill Worker" does not immediately equate to management in people's minds, they see someone sweating it out on the shop floor.

He could have extolled his father's progress from mill worker to management and shown how he learned from his daddy's example and went on to better himself. Accurate and equally inspirational. Wouldn't take all that much time, either, it'd fit in a sound bite.

I'll cheerfully color in the little dot beside his name in the general if he gets the nod, but I will not vote for him in the primary-this sort of slick talk (I know he's a lawyer, but still) gives me the dry gripes.

[venable]

31. you called him a liar, and his story 'bull shit'. that seems like slashing to me.

well, you called him a prevaricator, with his slick words hiding the real truth.

i think you can talk about the real differences between DK and JE's background without calling one a liar.

[riqster]

34. I did not call him a liar.

..which makes your post a lie.

Edwards, as I said, DID NOT LIE. He just chose certain bits of the truth. That's not lying. It IS bullshit. It IS slick. I don't like it, but it is not a lie.

You, on the other hand, lied. "you called him a liar, and his story 'bull shit'. that seems like slashing to me."

That's a lie. See the difference now?

[venable]

35. you're awfully free with the word 'liar'

now I'm a liar. how about I read your post as saying that he led people to believe something other than the truth. I didn't lie, I called your post what it is, a trashing of Edwards honesty. call it what you want, but it walks and sounds like a duck, and it even looks like one. you are parsing here, and you know it.

you trashed edwards, no matter how many times you say you didn't, by saying he uses slick talk to create untrue impressions, but avoids actually getting caught in an outright lie. you said what he did was bullshit. shine it up all you want, you trashed him, just like you are trashing me. have I trashed you? not at all. the worst I've said about you, I've said in this post, which is that you are parsing what you said, and you know it.

don't go calling people liars so much, like me, for instance. it's very unappealing.

edited to add that I'm through with this. peace.

[riqster]

37. Peace? Please.

I quoted your own words to you. They were lies. Saying 'peace' does not amke it all better. Nor does running away.

In the future, quote me verbatim as I did you.

[venable]

39. well, then, i replace my prior salutation with bye-bye nt

[beaconess]

24. "MY candidate was poorer than YOUR candidate!"

What an enlightening discussion . . .

:sarcasm:

[riqster]

26. Let me be explicit, then.

Edwards has made a big deal of his climb from humble beginnings. Kooch mentions his own Horatio Alger story from time to time as well.

What bugs me is this: as we dig a little deeper, Edwards' background wasn't all that humble, really. Kooch's has not been shown to be any better than he claims.

The point? Edwards said 'son of a mill worker' and allowed people to form the image of a manual laborer. Later on, some modifiers creep in when people find out that his artful use of language created an image that was not accurate: typical politico-speak, but in the end it's bullshit. No lies were told, but a false image was portrayed.

That is the type of thing that would not stop me from voting for Edwards in the general, but it does stop me from supporting him in the primary.

Does it matter which man was poorer, or who has climbed higher? Of course not. What DOES matter is how honest a candidate is. Edwards' clever use of language in this case is an indicator of a lack of veracity that troubles me.

[venable]

28. why slash Edwards?

because some haters on DU tell you the lie that his daddy was doing just fine? do the research and you will find that they had a very hard-scrabble, working class life, held there by Wallace's lack of education, which is why John was going to go to college, one way or another. He went to study textiles, so he could get the jobs at the mill that were denied his dad.

[Debi]

9. Oh, wait, I know this one....

:bounce:

I do have to say that many of our Presidential candidates came from lower or middle income families - some being the first in their families to go to college - all living a life of service (community volunteers, community service jobs, community activism). Not a lot of silver spoons in this batch of Democratic Presidential candidates. Now, the republicans......:eyes:

[rucky]

10. Yeah, it IS a good aspect of Edwards

but I guess I follow too closely, because I've heard it so many times. Alright, already.

Still, I suppose the Rolling Stones get tired of playing Satisfaction every concert, too - but it's obligatory.

[Debi]

13. Yeah, he knows it too. He jokes about it at events when he's not using it to make a point.

He'll say things like "y'all know where my father worked now don't you?". :P

[surfermaw]

11. Edwards born in South Carolina

Must have been in N.C. when he was in school at North Carolina, for a while John parents worked in a textile mill in Griffin,Spalding County Georgia, a mill called Rushton( not sure of spelling of Rushton) I think it was one of about three textile milles that belogned to Dundee Mills of Georgia. He says he grew up in Bobbins North Carolina, one of his adds is make in the yard of a plant where his father worked, and John also worked there as a young man.

[Debi]

14. I think the OP was joking....

Anyone paying attention since 2001 knows that JE's 'Daddy worked in a mill' :P

[ClassWarrior]

17. Well, if so, it wasn't very funny.

In fact, it seemed vaguely snotty.

NGU.

[asdjrocky]

18. I tend to take people at what they say or do.

I didn't take it as a joke, so I answered the question.

[venable]

22. born in Seneca, SC, raised in Robbins NC nt

[asdjrocky]

15. I hope this helps...

Pretty basic lower middle class to middle class story.


Edwards was born on June 10, 1953 to Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita "Bobbie" Wade in Seneca, South Carolina. The family moved several times during Edwards' childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina, where his father worked as a textile mill floor worker, eventually promoted to supervisor; his mother had a roadside antique finishing business and then worked as a postal letter carrier when his father left his job.<2>

A football star in high school,<3> Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University and transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with high honors earning a bachelor's degree in textile technology in 1974 from North Carolina State University, and later earned his law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) with honors.

While at UNC, he met Elizabeth Anania, who is four years his senior. They married in the summer of 1977 and had four children. Wade, was born in 1979, Cate in 1982, Emma Claire in 1998, and Jack, born in 2000. Their son Wade was killed at sixteen in a car accident when strong winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway in 1996. Edwards and his wife began the Wade Edwards Foundation in their son's memory; the purpose of the nonprofit organization is "to reward, encourage, and inspire young people in the pursuit of excellence." The Foundation funded the Wade Edwards Learning Lab at Wade's high school, Broughton High School in Raleigh, along with scholarship competitions and essay awards. Just weeks before Wade died, he had been honored at the White House by First Lady Hillary Clinton for an essay he wrote on entering the voting booth with his father

[CrispyQ]

30. ...

[asdjrocky]

33. LOL

That's great!


My pick in 08!