Free Republic

Black activists Cornel West and Tavis Smiley are planning a 15-city "Poverty Tour" to bring attention to the needy and to what they say are the failings of President Barack Obama. West, a Princeton University professor, and Smiley, host of a PBS talk show, expect to begin the bus trip Aug. 5 at a Native American reservation in Wisconsin. With visits to soup kitchens, housing projects, farms, families and low-wage workers, they say they hope to create momentum for large-scale job creation programs and put poverty on the 2012 election agenda. SNIP Although their tour does not have a specific...

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards included Helena-West Helena in his recent eight-state tour focusing on poverty issues. But local leaders feel somewhat slighted. Mayor James Valley says Edwards' brief visit was disappointing. Valley says he had wanted to hear more about what Edwards envisioned for east Arkansas, and he had hoped to pitch to the former senator from North Carolina reasons why there should be more development in the state's struggling Delta region. The Reverend Julious McGruder of the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church said he was glad to have the chance to see a presidential candidate, but said he...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

Why does the elegant senator from North Carolina continue his run for the presidency? Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott reports: POOR John Edwards. He follows Barack Obama on the podium at a conference of mostly anti-war Democrats and it's like watching air whistle out of a balloon. Obama, a charismatic candidate for change in the mould of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, has just worked the crowd brilliantly. Then Edwards walks in, a little later than scheduled at the Take Back America conference, thanks to an impromptu grab-and-grip show from Obama. Cameras are being pocketed again and seats resumed for...