Edwards to announce poverty tour

www.politico.com ^ | July 8, 2007 | Mike Allen

[personalaccts]

Edwards to announce poverty tour

Can JRE pull off a JFK, or an RFK (asks Politico chief political writer Mike Allen, who is sharing guestblogging duties while Ben is on vacation)? John Edwards plans to announce Monday that he’ll take a break from fund-raising and campaigning in early-voting states next week for a three-day, eight-state, 12-city “Road to One America” tour aimed at calling attention to poverty in the deep South, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Rust Belt. The campaign points out that none of the states he’ll visit has an early 2008 primary, and says Edwards won’t be doing rallies.

Instead, TV viewers will see Edwards in coal country, Edwards in a factory, Edwards on a farm, Edwards in a struggling neighborhood, Edwards in a school, Edwards in a health care clinic. “It’s an effort to show the rest of the country how 37 million Americans live their lives in poverty every single day,” an Edwards aide said. “It’s not only their workplaces -- it’s their homes and the places they get health care.”

The photogenic swing is reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s repeated coal-country campaigning before the West Virginia primary of 1960. His overwhelming victory ended Catholicism as an issue in the campaign and brought national attention to Appalachian poverty. Twenty-eight years later, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis donned a hard hat and overalls for an hour-long tour of a West Virginia coal mine.

“By telling their stories to the rest of the nation, the tour will attempt to shed light on the new faces of poverty in America,” the Edwards campaign says in an announcement document. The former U.S. senator from North Carolina has a plan for “ending poverty in America within a generation” that includes an increase in the minimum wage, investments in rural community colleges, creation of 1 million short-term “stepping stone” jobs, and a program to encourage responsible fatherhood and fight teen pregnancy.

Edwards has been putting a new emphasis on his message of economic fairness as a way to make himself more than the anti-war candidate. He also wants to mop up union endorsements and get more traction among lower-income, working voters without a college education. But he’s so wealthy that he has struggled to mold a populist image.

Stop-by-stop information (along with a snide aside and an explanation of the RFK reference) after the jump.

Edwards will start next Sunday, July 15, with a walking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The three-day tour will officially begin the next day in New Orleans with a town hall in conjunction with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” where he’ll kick off the day’s theme of “Rewarding Work and Ending Poverty in America.” Then he’ll head to Canton, Miss.; Marks, Miss.; Marianna, Ark.; and Memphis, Tenn., where he’ll give the first of two speeches.

On Tuesday, July 16, he’ll take his theme of “Strengthening Neighborhoods and Cities Rising” to Cleveland; Youngstown, Ohio, where he’ll give the second speech; and Pittsburgh.

The finale will be Wednesday, July, 18, with a theme of “Restoring Hope to Rural America.” He’ll stop in isolated southwest Virginia, then will end in Whitesburg, Ky., and Prestonsburg, Ky. That's the same Prestonsburg that was the final public stop by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 on HIS iconic poverty tour.

P.S. In Maureen Dowd’s essential Sunday account of an interview with Edwards about his tastes in books, music, TV and actors (“Phantom At The Opera: He likes his culture with a drawl”), print she quotes the former senator as saying: “Elizabeth thinks the two rules you always use in politics are: Don’t dance. And don’t wear hats.” Ms. Dowd adds: “Especially not if you’ve got such a fabulous haircut to show off.” And we might add: Tough to stick to in coal country.

UPDATE: In response to a comment below from reader SRB, who challenged the use of "overwhelming," here are the 1960 West Virginia primary results: 60.8 percent for Kennedy, to 39.2 percent for Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota. See the whole chart here.

The general election, probably what SRB was thinking of, was one of the closest in history -- 49.7 percent for Kennedy to 49.5 percent for one Richard Milhous Nixon of California.

[nativist]

It’s an effort to show the rest of the country how 37 million Americans live their lives in poverty every single day,” an Edwards aide said. “It’s not only their workplaces -- it’s their homes and the places they get health care.”

To be honest thats not too bad. 12% of the U.S. population lives in or around what we consider poverty. Not Sudan poverty or even Mexican poverty but American style poverty. In a nation this big you will always have some poor. These numbers mean 88% of Americans or roughly 263 million are either rich or middle class.

[Badeye]

Yep.

The youtube video of Edwards preening killed him politically forever.

[Between the Lines]

I think most Americans would be surprised by the amount of rural poverty in this country. But I don’t think having Silky Pony deliver the message is going to help matters.

Although most Americans are concerned about poverty, they carry the misperception that poverty is much more pervasive than in actuality. Participant’s average estimate of the percentage of people in the United States living in poverty was 30 percent when federal statistics estimate the current poverty level to be about 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Two out of every three adults (66 percent) believe the percentage of people living in poverty today is higher than it was 25 years ago. In reality, the current national poverty rate (13 percent) fits in the past 40 year’s range of 12-15 percent.

From: Survey: Evangelicals Not Too Worried About Poverty; Atheists Even Less Concerned

[sonic109]

He’ll get away with it . The bulk of Americans are so stupid, so brain dead that it will work for him . These Dems are shameless in their ways but they know they can get away with any lie any wacko idea because the public eats it up. Don’t you think he knows what a joke a poverty tour is for him ? The Liberals/Dems laugh all the way to congress and maybe beyond in 08. They know half the country believes Oprah and TV and The MSM , no matter how insane the message is .

[Between the Lines]

The photogenic swing is reminiscent of John F. Kennedy’s repeated coal-country campaigning before the West Virginia primary of 1960. His overwhelming victory ended Catholicism as an issue in the campaign and brought national attention to Appalachian poverty. Twenty-eight years later, Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis donned a hard hat and overalls for an hour-long tour of a West Virginia coal mine.

JFK in '60, Dukakis in '88 and now Edwards in '07 all campaigning in same coal mine country of WV about poverty in America. When will these people wake up and see that the Dems are heavy on rhetoric and short on policy.

[samtheman]

There was a study last year that claimed to find that welfare recipients in the USA have a higher standard of living than the Norwegian working middle-class.

[lowbridge]

Knowing what we
now know, shouldn't we
insist that those who
cannot afford the
kind of life we
enjoy, have a wage
raise, long before our
selves?

[Son House]

Lack of Opportunity Due to High Tax Rates Tour.

[AirBorn]

I heard that Edwards , after much thinking & reflectingm decided the CURE for POVERTY is: Giving People PAY CHECKS for the Work They Work in!!

BRILLIANT! What a way to Go Edwards! you smuck...

Maybe Edwards can give 0% interst Start-Up Business Loans for un-employed people who want to start up . Hair-Salons!--

With hair cuts going for 800$ a cut! we'd have New millionaires popping up all over America!

(They should maybe TAX Hair-Cuts with the same formula they do with GASOLINE!- but then only then Prime & Proper in America would suffer unfairly!)

[AirBorn]

Thanks again Monk for the Rush Hair-Link to that Song! ALWAYS Brightens my day not merely listening to these songs myself- but also KNOWING That out there-there are Libbies FUMING! over :

@the past/present Paradoies that Rush has done with them- and ,

@...Fuming over the ATTENTION These hypocrites are getting cause of Rush (MSM Support-Free from interference)Focusing & Centering the on the Libbies Lies/hypocracies in a Funny, Catchy way that the Libbies can't really fight back or Camplain over over!