Edwards Talks Job Creation
COLFAX, IOWA -- Just a few miles down the road from here lies the closed Maytag plant in Newton, IA. And some of the folks who were either directly or indirectly affected by the economic hardships brought on by that closing were in attendance at Colfax-Mingo High School with jobs and trade policy on their mind.
"How do you fill a shut down plant?" one woman asked.
Edwards said it ties in to his ideas for a "green" economy.
"When we green the economy," said Edwards, "we will be able to create a minimum of a million new jobs. Those jobs need to be pushed to the places where jobs have been lost."
Edwards said that a critical component of a green economy is adequate training for young workers.
"I think we should go into high schools to create green academies," he said. "We ought to be partnering with community colleges, unions, local community organizations to make sure we have ongoing training programs to educate and train young people to do the jobs of the new green economy."
Later at the press conference, Edwards was asked to answer criticism about his operation being a "one-state campaign."
He called that assertion "dead wrong" and cited the "tens of thousands of visits and phone calls every week" by his staff in New Hampshire. He added "there is absolutely no question" that he could capitalize on a victory in Iowa.