Vision of national health care system in under universal health care. The ability to have national system means that we’ll see outbreaks of illnesses earlier, we’ll have translators available 24/7.

Dependent Care:

What would that look like under the Edwards Presidency?
“I wish I knew the answer. Every employer regardless of size would give seven days paid sick leave a year (regardless of size). That’s the only thing I know at the present time. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan.”

My question:

How will our lives change if your husband becomes president? We’ve heard many positions on issues, including health care, but howwill our world be safer and more prosperous for our children if JohnEdwards is President?

“John’s policies are about the ladder that people used to climb toward the American dream. Many of the rungs are broken. Education, a good wage, people were healthy and hearty. There is not as much mobility between the parts of our society that there used to be. Top 300,000 wage earners in this country earn the same as the bottom 150 million in our country. Want to reinstill that we can move through our work. Universal health care is a big part of that. You have to be healthy to work hard, go to school. People aren’t sitting around worried about their health care, people aren’t worried about their schools because we’ll have schools that are working to educate our children. We have 11,000 HS that are graduating most of their students. We keep failing our teachers and students but we can’t do that any more. This isn’t something that will change in one term. This is a long term plan. John’s plan for college for everyone…means that people who didn’t have a hope for upward mobility for will through education. Reestablish our moral authority in the world-get out of the war in Iraq. Beacon of morality–not as difficult as it seems. We have to change the way people feel about us by being their benefactor. John agrees with Gordon Brown. We need to educate people around the world Middle East, Africa, etc. so they don’t have to rely on madrases for their education. We can provide clean water, sanitation, microlending. John would travel the world and give a new face for America. This won’t change on a dime, but faster than changes in education will be accomplished. We have young people around the world who are trying to decide if they are with us or against us. If we’re providing their education they might feel different. We drove them away. We have the capacity to change their opinion.

I have to say one thing. I know my answers are always too long.

John has started this community action corps (2000 groups across the country). We don’t tell them what to do. We tell them to see what needs to be done in their community and do it. They don’t have to campaign for them, but if they want to they can. They see [through their experience] they have the power to make change.

One thing that sets him apart. He believes we can individually accomplish things. If what John was offering was more of the same I wouldn’t have made the decision to support him to run. It had to be that he can change things through the campaign. He wants to make dynamic changes in this country and the world.

Still waiting.

But Shakey is so sweet. He started to mow the lawn and then came up to make sure it wasn’t too loud for my call. Not sure if was looking for an excuse not to mow or not.

Okay it’s 4:30 and I think she just walked in. Hard to hear on the phone.

With Elizabeth (she insisted we call her Elizabeth):
Hargrave McElroy–teacher and travels with EE
Ryan Montoya–does some technology for the campaign

Jill Asher welcomes Elizabeth.

How did you find out about the post Rebecca put up? You responded so quickly…
She responded first and then sent the campaign a link and said oh by the way you might want to know.

“I know you need to respond to blogs right away. You can’t wait 36 hours. It’s out of date by then.”

Jill: we had to check and confirm it was you.

EE: I do have a static IP. The guy from Whole Foods should have had a dynamic IP.

Q: How do you see yourself in the role as First Lady.
EE: “I have no idea. I have nothing to reference it to. I talk about the things I do now…I don’t have grand ambitions. After school programs, stuff on breast cancer, fairer elections, trying to register women on ironing boards. Trying to get more women with busy/complicated enough lives who don’t have time. Trying to improve the electoral process with more participation and better practices.”

“I will not be sitting in cabinet meetings.”

Health care: “I know you want a should, but it’s hard. Truth of the matter, for profit insurers have been more innovative than govt providers. Looking for new way to provide services. There is a role for the for-profit companies in the process. The competition creates innovation. Single-payer eliminates. If we really do what we need to do w/respect to preventive med, screening and prev cures we’ll be in better place in 15 years in terms of need for coverage.”

Cancer: “if we find the cures for cancer, think about what that will do to the cost of long-term care. We’ll be looking at a whole different picture.”

“If we continue to let ourselves age without investing in developments and research for chronic illness we’ll have a huge problem on our hands.”

“would like to see a proliferation of public health care facilities. Would like to see them in elementary schools. Right now they’re stigmatized….we need to take that away. We would have an aggressive public health care system but still have private providers. “

“Under universal care we’ll still see the bigger providers but we’ll see the smaller companies to go away. It’s not bad to continue to have private companies to drive innovation.?

As we’re waiting…

I had the opportunity to hear Mrs. Edwards speak at BlogHer the summer. She was articulate, open, honest and well-versed on the issues. She was strong and yet felt approachable. Personally, I walked away from the experience wishing she were running. Talk about a candidate I could get behind!

I was lucky enough to have the chance to shake her hand and say hello at the cocktail party that followed her session. She’s tiny and very pretty in real life. She has a warm presence–especially when you consider all she has been through in her life. Obviously she has embraced a positive outlook.

She still has not entered the room. Ah, campaign timelines…

Tracy Russo is on the line. She is the blogging and online outreach for the Edwards campaign.

She said EE insisted on meeting with the SV moms again–scheduled be damned.

Personally, I had to lock myself in my bedroom to make sure that none of my three boys ran through the room as Mrs. Edwards was speaking. Ah the challenges of a mommy blogger.

This and the next few posts will be live-blogged. Please ignore any typos as I try to get this all down quickly.

It’s noisy as we all get on the call.

You can hear the excitement in the room out in San Jose. They are meeting with Mrs. Edwards at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

We have a few minutes until she gets into the room.

24 women in the room there. We are able to live blog. They are able to take pictures. Not allowed to podcast or invite the press.

They will introduce everyone in the room and then the Chicago and DC moms on the line will be introduced. We’re going to get as many questions asked as possible. The campaign has said that there are no questions that are off limit.

A while back I wrote an open letter to the Presidential candidates inviting them to meet with some blogging mammas.

The Edwards campaign is the first to take us up on the offer.

At 4:00 p.m. EST today, Elizabeth Edwards will be meeting with the moms from the Silicon Valley Moms Blog and all the moms from the sister sites (Chicago Moms Blog and DC Metro Moms Blog) have been invited to participate via conference call.

Elizabeth Edwards has a history with the SV Moms. She met with them a year and a half ago while on a book tour, before her husband officially announced he was running. She spent two hours sitting down with them answering all of their questions. I know attempts have been made by the Edwards campaign to find time for the candidate himself to meet with some of us mom bloggers. And as I’ve mentioned before, I have yet to make up my mind, but I have to say the fact that the Edwards campaign is so interested in reaching out to smaller bloggers to talk about their vision for the country says quite a bit about them to me.

I’m going to try and live-blog the call. I may forget to hit publish, but I promise I will once it’s all over.

I’m pretty sure I was the only 37 year old mom in my neighborhood standing in her driveway this morning at 3:10 a.m. with her reading glasses on her head, waving a dish towel and channeling Christina Aguilera through her iPod.

There may have been one other, but I think she’s only 35.

Ain’t no other man
on the planet
knows what you do…

You may not come with millions. You may not need 30 minutes to make a meal.

But, the family has taken a vote and it was unanimous.*

For those of you who haven’t been following along (what? you don’t stop by her five times a day?), it started yesterday with an email from dear old dad.

Then came the grateful response:

Thank you family for all the love and support and guidance and advertising and marketing and, and, and… holy cr@p!!!

The testimony from a friend (see anonymous).

And of course the vote (have you ever tried to get four sisters to agree on anything?).

We have decided it might be time.

So…

My brother is now officially on the auction block.

If you’re interested, we’d be willing to entertain your offers for a date with my brother.

Despite the suggestion on the earlier post that we might be able to let him go sight-unseen, we felt we’d get a much better price if you could see the quality of the goods (not those goods–ewww he’s my brother).

Here are the stats:

• Lives in Houston, TX
• Has a PhD in something science related–it’s too complicated for me to understand
• He’s a young 40
• Owns his own home–and it doesn’t have wheels
• He’s gainfully employed–it was a nail-biter there for a while
• Remembers birthdays (he sent me flowers this year!!)
• Has been on the vomit comet
• He has four fabulously gorgeous sisters
• He doesn’t live near any of them
• Not a butter face

• Skilled in the way of the ninjas

• Not claustrophobic
  
• Has incredible muscle control

Oh, and he’s willing to make an ass of himself for fun.

The bidding will open at a long weekend of babysitting for his three “spirited” nephews.

*Dad was going to object but we just stuffed a chocolate chip cookie in his mouth.
**Serious inquiries only please.

It wasn’t really out of the ordinary, but it was just good.

I was able to follow Emily’s incredible opportunity with the Clinton Global Initiave. Read back a few posts as she live-blogged her day.

I was greeted by this email from my dad.

Yeah, there was work to do–too much in fact–but I was able to have one-on-one time with my eldest tonight as we shopped for clothes.

The moon is full.

And, it’s probably the last warm night of the year.

I should be in bed, but I had to enjoy some time this evening outside.

Some days it’s just the little things.

From the same guy who brought us this, I submit the email my brother received today (and which we as his sisters were carbon copied).

Hi there Son,

I was in the grocery store line yesterday looking over the magazines for gossip, and there in that inimitable publication “The National Enquirer” was the news that Rachel Ray is getting divorced–is she a great prospect, or WHAT!!

Her husband–soon to be ex–is asking for the modest sum of $500 million for settlement, so you can detect that she can easily absorb the cost of a wedding. So CALL HER UP, and ASK HER OUT–I suspect it’s been some time since she dated a rocket scientist*, so she should be receptive, even enthusiastic.

An aside, in case you don’t know about Rachel, she is a young (?30-35) woman who has at least one (perhaps two) TV cooking shows, has written books on Italian cooking, travels the world doing feature shows on cooking in different countries and is very attractive, personable, and engaging. Her only possible weakness is that I have never seen her demonstrate compelling cookie cooking skills, an imperative–nay, mandatory–cooking strength. (This is not important since we can all help her with the cookies if she becomes part of the family–Hee-Hee.)

After all, sons-in-law are terrific, but really all they do is work and get fed and grumble that it’s time to go. What we need in the Hurst family is a prospective daughter-in-law immersed in a long (but formal) engagement to keep her alert as to how best to please her aging prospective father-in-law. The occasional dutiful hug and kiss is fine, but we’re talking ITALIAN COOKING here, and LOTSA dough for pasta AND travel expenses.

In addition to your status as a rocket scientist, I think you could also truly capture her interest if you told her your spaghetti sauce is better than hers–and then if neither of you are impressed after the first few dates you could at least get some wonderful recipes… While I have not consulted everyone, I am certain the remainder of the family joins me in this recommendation with the same unbridled enthusiasm.

Lotsa love, your old Dad

So then I asked dear old Dad if I could post his letter on my blog and here was his response:

Amie, glad you liked it, I think we all have to join to keep steady gentle pressure on such a timid family member. Of course you can post it on your blog, and I don’t care about the whether you use my name or not–however, perhaps you should use your brother’s name AND Email, since with such a blog as you manage he might turn up a whole HOST of prospects–all of us know that NOTHING gets the attention of Moms more than a stray single male… Lotsa love, Dad

I’m thinking he might want my brother to settle down. Any funny, cool, athletic, nice, women in the greater Houston, TX area want a date with a handsome 40 year-old NASA scientist??

And apparently, my dad would also prefer it if you were a good cook.

*in the spirit of semi-disclosure, my dear brother is involved in space medicine.