NEWSWEEK: When did you meet Edwards and how would you describe your relationship? David Bonior: I knew him in the Congress, but we were not close. We didn’t work closely on many things. Then one of my top people, Miles Lackey, became his chief of staff. That was one connection. Then, after the Iowa caucus [in 2004], I went with my wife to New Hampshire to visit and actually look for a candidate. We traveled for three days to town-hall meetings where [Wesley] Clark, [Howard] Dean and Edwards were speaking. My wife and I decided to endorse Edwards. In front of crowds, he was talking about race relations, poverty and workers’ rights. I found that very appealing and honest and difficult to do in New Hampshire. They weren’t issues that polled at the top of the list. I found that inspirational and that’s when I signed on.
How have you seen him evolve as a candidate since then? I haven’t seen someone as a national figure do as much on workers’ rights and poverty in my lifetime. That includes Bobby Kennedy and people in politics in the ’60s. He helped organize people in probably 85 different actions, from hotel workers to university janitors to people who work in buildings and factories. He was out there demonstrating, marching, picketing, writing letters to CEOs, demanding that [workers] have the right to organize and represent themselves. He started a center on poverty and became the director at the University of North Carolina. He traveled the country and was a leader in getting a minimum-wage bill passed in eight states….That means a lot to me.
There are similarities in your backgrounds. You’re both the sons of blue-collar workers, you both played football in college. Do you see him as a kindred spirit? Yeah, I think so. He played at Clemson, I played at Iowa. We both came from working families. My dad was a printer, my grandfather was an auto worker. His dad was a mill worker and his mom was an office worker.
As a longtime congressman, you were used to calling the shots. How have you handled the transition to being a staff person? It’s been great. When I left the Congress, I involved myself in a lot of local campaigns. That involves walking door-to-door and putting up signs. I’ve never managed something at this level, a presidential campaign. That’s a high-level encounter. What prepared me for this, actually, is my experience in my congressional career. I had four people who ran my shop for me for 26 years. All four stayed with me all those years. They taught me, I didn’t teach them. I’m using what I learned from them.
You have longstanding ties to labor. Has that helped cultivate that base of support for Edwards? It’s been helpful. I have these relationships and talk to the presidents of unions around the country and also labor leaders I’ve met in 30 years of public work. I think that’s helped us develop a core of support. But my relationship in getting us support is minuscule compared to what he’s been able to do by actually doing the work. He’s decided that this is an important part of his life. He understands that half the population of the world is living on $2 a day. People need the right to collectively organize. What he’s done has been much more significant in garnering this labor support that he has and that will accrue in the next five or six months.
You helped start the Vietnam Vets congressional caucus in 1977 and you’ve got experience on veterans’ care issues. Given that these issues have been in the news a lot lately, what advice have you been giving Edwards on that front? I’ve actually spent a good part of the morning working on that. And even before all these stories broke [about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Veterans Affairs health-care system], we had some discussions and began laying out some thoughts and ideas that will be in evidence soon. I coauthored a book with two other people about this in 1984 called “The Vietnam Veteran: A History of Neglect.” It basically outlined the lack of respect for the Vietnam vet. That has changed, and one of the reasons is because we fought so hard 20 years ago to change that direction. We helped build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We also went to California and spoke to movie producers about the stereotypes of Vietnam vets. All of those things were in addition to more tangible work. We also did something on Agent Orange. There’s the same problem in Iraq with depleted uranium. That hasn’t yet hit the public consciousness but it will at some point. We did things to raise the GI bill for educational opportunities. We provided a tax credit to employers. Both of those pieces are needed today. So the problems are often very similar. The difference today is there’s a lot more respect for vets coming back, even though you wouldn’t know it from the way the government has treated them. So we’re developing a veterans program that John Edwards will unveil at some point.
You have a long voting record, much longer than John Edwards’s. Are you concerned that that makes you a target for opposition researchers and that Edwards may wind up having to defend your record? That’s a possibility. I understand that, I understood it going into this and obviously we talked about that. That may happen at some point, and we will face that when and if it does.
What was Edwards’s view when you talked about this? I was very serious with him about it and mentioned to him that you can’t be in political life for 30 years and not carry some political baggage. And I laid out what I thought were some of the problems for him, which I’m not going to go into right now. But he wanted me to do this, so I decided to do it.
You have quite a liberal voting record and on paper seem more liberal than how Edwards is positioning himself. Does that create problems for him? I don’t think that’s true and I think actually I disagree. I think we’re very compatible in terms of where we are philosophically. Some may see that on reproductive rights, while I might be in the middle on that, some would say he’s more progressive. But in 95 percent of things, we’re very compatible and agree, and especially on the core issues.
Let’s talk about reproductive rights. You’re an opponent of abortion. Could that help woo conservative Democrats? The truth of my abortion position is that when I was in Congress, I was disowned by the right-to-life people and disowned by the pro-choice people. I was kind of in the middle on that issue, so my position on that is not advantageous to him politically at all.
What is your position on abortion? I’m opposed to abortions, generally speaking, but I believe they’re necessary to save the life of the mother. It should be a choice for women, but the very last choice. I believe in stem-cell research, but for instance, I don’t believe in partial-birth abortion. I believe in parental consent. It’s sort of a gray area. My voting record I think was scored by these groups [both pro-choice and pro-life] somewhere in the 50s, so that tells you where I was lodged.
You’ve been critical of Israel in the past. Could that harm Edwards among Jewish voters and evangelicals? He is a very, very strong supporter of Israel and the right to exist and secure, safe borders, and I share that belief with him. I had some differences with the Israeli government at different times of my career and I expressed it. I’m not here to advise him on foreign policy. I’m here to manage and run the campaign, and to work on economic and social justice in ways that are compatible with what his history has been.
After Republicans took over Congress in 1994, you were one of the first to take on Newt Gingrich and to question his ethics and past business dealings. Are you hoping Gingrich gets the GOP nod? (Laughs.) No, I wouldn’t wish that on the GOP.
You were seen as something of a pit bull in Congress. Do you think there’s a place for that sort of hardball politics in the Edwards campaign? At some point, you have to stand up to the bully-ness and outrageousness of the far right, and of Gingrich or Grover Norquist [of Americans for Tax Reform] or some of the folks in the media, the Ann Coulters of the world. People have to stand up and let them know that they can’t do this without some understanding of the ramifications for them. You can’t be spewing, in some instances, hate, and expect that people aren’t going to react to it. So when [Coulter] started to engage in that kind of activity against the gay community and John Edwards [by calling Edwards a “faggot” at a conservative event], we went on the offensive and were very successful in doing so.
I’ve read that an Internet fund-raising campaign in the wake of Coulter’s comments has raised more than $300,000 so far. I cannot dispute that.
You were gerrymandered out of your congressional seat in 2002 and then lost to Jennifer Granholm in the Democratic primary for governor in Michigan. Is this your bid for redemption? No. After I left Congress and that race, I stayed involved. I’ve always been a political activist. I started when I was 6 years old, for heaven’s sake. But this has nothing to do with that. My wife and I talk about politics often, and we really, I really, wanted to be involved in this presidential race, and I wanted to be involved with someone I really cared about. I will be honest with you. I have not felt that way for virtually all of my political life. I never found somebody on the ticket that I could be passionate for. When I was a young person, it was Hubert Humphrey who came closest to that for me, not Bobby Kennedy. And so I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting, and finally, I saw [Edwards] in New Hampshire and started listening and following him. So I went to John Edwards and told him: “I want to give you a year of my life. I will do it for nothing. I can’t think of anything more important than getting you elected.” I told him that early in the fall, last September or something. I said, “I’ll give you a year.” What I was thinking was, I’ll come on the campaign and work from late summer until the following November. Then he asked me last November [to be campaign manager if he decided to run]. After I pointed out the drawbacks, he kept asking, and I agreed to do it.
