Democratic Candidates Review

Ok, I felt like I wasn’t giving our potential presidential candidates a fair shake, and was using my limited NPR listening (15 minutes in the shower in the morning) to judge their stand on Gulf Coast rebuilding. So I did some research on the big three Democrats’ positions, using their websites:

Barack Obama’s Blueprint for Change

I did a search of Obama’s “Plan for America.” Here are the results of some key search terms:

• Katrina : 0
• Gulf or Coast : 1
  • “Reform the Political Appointee Process: FEMA Director Michael Brown was not qualified to head the agency, and the result was a disaster for the people of the Gulf Coast. But in an Obama administration, every official will have to rise to the standard of proven excellence in the agency’s mission.”
• New Orleans : 0
• Corps of Engineers : 0
• FEMA : 1
  • see above
• Levee : 1
  • “The cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and states of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on. … If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we’d see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.”

Apparently Obama’s Plan for America doesn’t include any serious attention to the Gulf Coast in terms of rebuilding or protection in the future.

John Edwards’ The Plan to Build One America

Same search terms as for Obama:

• Katrina : 1
  • “John’s commitment to helping those in need, whether they are Hurricane Katrina survivors or standing with workers fighting for a union in a North Carolina meat processing plant, demonstrates the strength of his character.”
• Gulf or Coast : 0
• New Orleans : 0
• Corps of Engineers : 0
• FEMA : 0
• Levee: 0

Edwards does have a “Remembering Katrina’s Victims” Letter in which he states: “For the moment, in their hours of desperation, I ask that you continue to keep Hurricane Katrina’s many victims foremost in your thoughts, remember their plight, and offer what you can to help and comfort them.” Great. A real solution. Rebuilding by thoughts. Awesome.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton doesn’t have a comprehensive PDF document of her plans, so it was a bit more difficult to do a search. There is nothing on her Issues page that even comes close to mentioning Guld Coast recovery.

She does, however, have an entire page dedicated to a “Presidential Gulf Coast Recovery Agenda.” It’s a ten-point plan that begins:

“Hillary Clinton announced an agenda that she would pursue as president to cut through the red tape, deliver the promised federal assistance, and get services running and infrastructure built in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast. Hillary believes that it is unacceptable that 20 months after the storms, New Orleans is still coping with vulnerable levees, closed hospitals, dilapidated schools, rising crime, halting economic development, and a shocking lack of affordable housing. Hillary also believes that the people of New Orleans and the region – with real federal commitment and meaningful federal aid – can overcome these challenges.”

She goes on with ten bullet points of a plan that includes things like taking the Federal Rebuilding Director out of Homeland Security and make them report directly to the President, attracting workers to the region with a Gulf Coast Corps, building a reliable protection system, fighting crime, building schools in New Orleans specifically, and revamping the federal disaster response infrastructure.

Anyway, she is the only major Democratic candidate that actually proposes a plan, even if it is buried on her website and not one of her major “Issues.”

I’m not going to look at the Republicans, as they had a chance to do something and they blew it.