"All Politics is Local" is one of those sayings the political press never tires of repeating, but ignores most its implications anyway. Case in point, the plentiful and prominent coverage of Edwards endorsement by Iowa Congressman Bruce Braley, but no one seems to cover actual local officials endorsements. The press did finally take two seconds of notice the Obama endorsement by the Mayor of Des Moines, since that's the city most of the East Coast press stay in while doing there Iowa safari. So it also seemed like a good time to highlight John Edwards' announcement last week of a list of 52 Iowa County-wide elected officials endorsing Edwards.

But, far more important than the list is the "New Partnership" program Edwards proposed along with the release of endorsements. The "New Partnership" pledges five steps to address the failures of the federal government in its relationship to local governments. As I assume many of you know based on your own community, local governments across the country are struggling to fund basic services, cities have barely recovered from the first Bush recession according the National League of Cities, and this is before the next possible Bush recession comes.

I am not going to argue that the struggles of local governments are as critical as Global Warming, Iraq, or Universal Health Care. Then again the local governments' funding problems are orders of magnitude more critical to American's daily lives than Social Security reform, and, of course, receives not even a fraction of attention in media.

Local governments are the day to day face of government for most Americans and provide the services people rely on the most. More than that, the struggles of our local governments are largely a reflection of the struggles of our communities and the disdainful treatment of the locals by the feds reflects the disdain the DC system has for everyone outside of it. So I think the issue and Edwards' response is well worth highlighting.

Interestingly, Edwards 'New Partnership' starts off his pledge to pass Universal Health Care:

Passing Universal Health Care and Relieving the Burden on County Health Departments: Counties in Iowa and across the nation face skyrocketing health care costs, including rising costs for employee health care as well as uncompensated care in county hospitals and public clinics as a result of the 47 million Americans without health insurance. Edwards' plan to require insurance for all Americans will eliminate uncompensated care. His plan will also save money for local governments - including school districts - by bringing down costs and improving quality through steps like better preventive and chronic care, electronic medical records, and encouraging proven treatments.

(Emphasis Added)

It's a point far too often lost in debate, but double digit health care inflation is killing local governments, as it is US businesses. Local governments are also the ones often left holding the bag when the 47 million uninsured Americans are forced to get emergency care.

There's some other vital stuff in the Edwards pledge too, particularly:

Full Funding for Special Education: For decades, Washington has failed to meet its promise to pay 40 percent of the cost of special education. It fails to provide even half that amount, placing an enormous burden on school districts and property taxpayers to make up the difference. As president, Edwards will introduce a budget that puts the federal government on track to meet its full and fair share of special education funding.

Funding for Special Education, or the lack thereof, is one of those perennial snubs Washington gives to communities across the country that has both real and symbolic importance. I hope the Democratic congress will actually move on this issue before the next election, but it'll take a President committed to it to get to full funding and to stay there.

Edwards also includes his plan to revitalize rural economies, new proposals to lower local government procurement costs, and pledges basically more and better transportation spending. All these are very good points, some of them, such as Universal Health Care, obviously weren't proposed just to make things better for city and county governments. But, looking at them from that perspective is great way to both highlight the proposals' importance and help connect these issues to people's communities and lives.

As a bit of unsolicited advice, I hope support for local governments is something Edwards continues to hightlight. It's a great under-the-radar way to differentiate himself from his rivals, provide a substantive outsider message and these unsexy issues issues have real traction for people, as anyone who watched the Massachusetts Governor's race could verify. In fact, there are a number of other Edwards proposals that could already be added to the New Partnership program such as his great Cities Rising program, highlighted here yesterday. The federal government's responsibilities to our communities have been disregarded in the borrow and spend Bush era, just like just about every other federal responsibility, and candidates could do much worse to keep that frame in mind whenever they talk about issues.

Part of the MyDD campaign volunteer blogger series- AJ

[editor's note, by MassEyesandEars] Cleaned up typographical errors