John Edwards: 'Poverty Is Personal'

[Sapphire Blue]

John Edwards: 'Poverty Is Personal'
By Peter Dreier and John Atlas, AlterNet. Posted May 8, 2006.

The former vice-presidential candidate has resurrected his 'two Americas' platform for a possible bid for the White House in 2008.

(excerpt)

Now Edwards has not only resurrected the rhetoric, but has pinned his hopes for the White House on a strategy of connecting to the nation's grassroots activists. Since January 2005, he has visited 34 states and three foreign countries talking about the two Americas. In key swing states like Ohio, Iowa, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, Edwards has joined Maud Hurd, president of the activist group ACORN, to promote grassroots campaigns to raise the minimum wage. At each stop Edwards said, "I am strongly committed to moving people out of poverty and into the middle class," and "One of most important things we can do is help families earn more money at work."

(snip)

Edwards' riff echoes Bill Clinton's campaign theme that, "Any American willing to work hard and play by the rules should have a chance to get ahead." But Edwards' willingness to work alongside unions and groups like ACORN puts him closer to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. It also connects him to the kind of politics that Bobby Kennedy embraced when he built a campaign coalition that included civil rights groups, labor unions, and the poor, and would have catapulted him to the White House, had he not been killed in 1968.

(snip)

Caring About the Poor

It has always been safe for politicians to care about the poor in America, so long they confine it to the noblesse oblige of the George Bushes and the rich who support volunteers at homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Now here comes Edwards, searching to define the next New Deal in an era of globalization. He supports an increase the national minimum wage, local living wage laws that impose even higher wages on companies that receive government subsidies, strong labor laws that level the playing field between business and unions, and protections for middle class families from the insecurities of corporate downsizing and outsourcing. In his stump speech, Edwards lashes out against the greed of big tobacco, big pharmaceutical companies, big insurance companies, big broadcasters and Big Oil.

He says the US should be embarrassed at being ranked first in poverty. Whether or not Edwards wins his party's nomination, his presence in the campaign will help shift the debate to a stronger focus on social injustice. No doubt he is already hearing from political consultants, editorial writers and many of the Democratic Party's corporate funders who say that resurrecting the moral idealism of Bobby Kennedy is no way to win the White House.

But with a fire in his belly that seems genuine, Edwards hopes to prove that promoting an agenda of prosperity, opportunity and compassion can win the hearts and minds of America's affluent, its beleaguered middle class, and the working poor. If he's correct, the son of a mill worker might become the next president of the United States.

http://www.alternet.org/story/35849 /

Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity: http://law.unc.edu/Centers/details.aspx?ID=425&Q=3

Past Events @ the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity: http://law.unc.edu/Centers/details.aspx?ID=430&Q=3

A Conversation on Poverty & Segregation: http://www.unc.edu/law/povertycenter/audio/barber.mp3

[saltpoint]

1. Such handwringing by John Edwards when all we need is another big

fat tax cut for the wealthy and things will be just fine in America.

:sarcasm:

[acmavm]

2. Oh now this just pisses me off...

<snip>editorial writers and many of the Democratic Party's corporate funders who say that resurrecting the moral idealism of Bobby Kennedy is no way to win the White House.<snip>

Of course they do. It would take money out of their pockets.