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Edwards' emphasis on poverty relief came late

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By Lisa Zagaroli / McClatchy Newspapers

Sunday, Oct 07, 2007 - 02:12:49 am CDT

WASHINGTON — John Edwards likes to say that ridding the nation of poverty is the cause of his life.

But it was only in the last few years that it became a dominant public theme for the Democratic presidential candidate.

During his six years as a U.S. senator, Edwards only occasionally used his Senate platform to discuss the most economically desperate members of society. Instead, he tended to concentrate on the middle class who needed a boost — people with health insurance who didn’t have access to specialty care, farmers who needed market assistance, folks who had jobs, but needed government incentives to save more money.

Story Photo
John Edwards

“He is not known as an anti-poverty warrior — let’s put it that way,” says Scott Spitzer, an assistant professor of political science who studies poverty politics at California State University in Fullerton.

Still, Spitzer says, Edwards’ current passion is a logical extension of his earlier theme of trying to “even the score” for the little guy.

Righting inequality marked his job as a personal injury lawyer, a career that made him rich, and to some extent his Senate tenure as well.

“The way he framed himself initially has much more to do with protecting people against corporate forces, or larger forces like insurance companies and doctors, HMOs and all that,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program of Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill.

“He was attractive to the middle-class voters who felt that larger forces were weakening their ability to sustain a quality of life. Now, that didn’t exclude people in poverty, but it was not the way he framed himself initially.

“But I think as he went along, he began to ratchet up his attention and his focus on poverty, and that came in his first campaign for president” in 2004, Guillory added.

Promising to be a “people’s senator,” Edwards was elected to the Senate from North Carolina in 1998. Despite being a first-term senator in the minority party, Edwards was able to make a mark early on a couple of issues.

He took a lead on the “Patients Bill of Rights,” which was geared toward ensuring that sick people could get the treatment they needed and not have to switch doctors.

He co-sponsored bills on raising the minimum wage and others directed at the medically underserved and economically disadvantaged.

Occasionally, Edwards addressed poverty more directly. In April 1999, during a floor debate on Social Security, he noted that 54 percent of his home state’s elderly would live in poverty without their monthly checks.

In October 2000, he introduced a bill intended to help low-income people get affordable housing.

“Poverty is a crushing, persistent problem in rural America,” Edwards said on the Senate floor.

Such initiatives were limited, but his Senate career was truncated by higher aspirations. Edwards was first mentioned as a vice-presidential candidate when Al Gore was running for president in 2000. A couple years later, Edwards launched his own presidential contest using his celebrated “Two Americas” theme.

His “Two Americas” campaign wasn’t about poverty, though. It was about inequality — about the rich, who got richer, and everybody else, who felt they couldn’t get ahead.

It wasn’t until after his unsuccessful bid for the presidency, and then the vice presidential nomination on John Kerry’s ticket in 2004, that he sharpened his message.

His wife, Elizabeth, talks about the meeting where the decision was made in the last chapter of her book. Advisers were ticking off possible vocations, but Edwards looked restless and uninterested until a friend mentioned poverty.

“It was as if a flame had suddenly been ignited in John,” she wrote in “Saving Graces.” “He became so animated, happy, really. To him, all the other ideas had felt like holding patterns that were not so much efforts to accomplish anything real as decent ways of filling the time until he made the decision to run or not to run for office.”

Following the 2004 election loss, Edwards helped create the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC Chapel Hill, which gave him a platform to further his cause.

Poverty has been a central theme in his current bid for the White House. He officially kicked off his campaign among the destitute in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. He launched a poverty tour to draw attention to America’s most underprivileged pockets, and he proposed a detailed plan for lifting them up.

“This is the cause of my life,” he said at a candidates’ forum this summer. “Ending poverty in America is what my life is about.”


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Ernie Johnson wrote on October 7, 2007 12:23 pm:
" Did Edwards decide to fight for the poverty-stricken before or after he took one-third of a $6 million award before taxes to a seven-year-old girl who needs life-long medical care after getting her hair caught in a hot tub drain, or took $25 million as vice president of a Wall Street hedge fund, or started getting $1200 haircuts? John Edwards is the ultimate example of a liberal double standard warrior. "
The Breck Girl exposed wrote on October 7, 2007 5:43 pm:
" Glad that a reporter is FINALLY telling the truth about The Breck Girl. They say the true leaders lead by example. So here's a few examples of Edwards' leading on the poverty issue. He's just built a $6 million, 10,000-square-foot home in Chapel Hill, NC while those he tries to champion live in ramshackle homes and worse. Now no one's saying he can't have a nice home for his family, but a leader in the war on poverty would try to downplay his own wealth just a little, don't you think? We all know about the $1200 haircuts he gets, or at least those he used to get before his hypocrisy was exposed. How many people in poverty get a $12 haircut, much less a $1200 one? Way to lead by example there, Breck Girl! And someone's going to have to explain to me how you relate to those in poverty when you take a $20 million salary as president of a Wall Street hedge fund? Come to think of it, what is an uber-liberal wackjob whose stated goal is to punish people who work hard to earn a good living doing working for a capitalist hedge fund? The idea that John Edwards fights for those in poverty is laughable. He's the poster child for disingenuousness. "
Neal wrote on October 7, 2007 8:41 pm:
" He got rich fighting inequity and now he would like to get powerful, so he is using the same strategy (fighting inequity). Maybe it is just a tactic and not a belief. "
Janet wrote on October 7, 2007 8:52 pm:
" In response to Breck girl exposed. Why is that anyone who has money is automatically "disingenuous" when they champion the cause of poverty? I mean if he was a poor person championing the cause of the poor, he would be accused of envying those who did well, and of "class warfare". So he gets $1200 hair cuts ( I heard it was a $200 hair cut, it seems the price goes up with every telling of the story). That just means those who cut his hair made a nice chunk of change for their efforts. This is nothing but an attempt to discredit anyone who points out the extreme gap between the wealthy, and those who do the actual work in this country. Some people just cannot understand why someone with money not acting as greedy and stingy as most people with money do. It seems to make their heads explode to think that anyone rich, would feel for the poor. Would it be better if he was like the Gingrich's, the Bushes, the Cheneys, and the Scaife familys? Always trying to see how they can screw the middle class out of a few more dollars? I say good for Edwards. "
Literate wrote on October 7, 2007 9:44 pm:
" Has anyone here read the book review in this edition of LJS about the Hyde Park aristocrat? Why did FDR become the champion of the common man? "
whatever wrote on October 8, 2007 7:02 am:
" What is even less ingenuine is Bush and his Limbaugh quoting neocon traitor allies. I'd say Edwards is a bit more of a concern to the established "power elite" than is played out. The media, his fellow Democrats and the Republicans have been hammering this dude for months. You don't go after someone like Edwards has been gone after unless there is a real perception that you are a threat to the "status quo" of the "power elite". That's the way politics is played in this country. A casual observer should be able to pick up on this. "
Timmy wrote on October 8, 2007 8:17 am:
" The historical reference to FDR is important and, in many ways, apt. Although, it should be said, in the case of Edwards the analogy to FDR has its limits. While it's true that, like Edwards, FDR was a very wealthy individual who sought to help those who were struggling economically, unlike Edwards FDR was an established elite from a wealthy and powerful family. Edwards, on the other hand, as the son of a mill worker has firsthand knowledge of what it means to work and struggle. Unlike many people who are born into the working class and make it good who then deny the reality of their own lives, for all of his success as an attorney Edwards has not forgotten those roots. Expensive haircuts can be denounced as vanity, but anybody willing to acknowledge the reality of contemporary American politics can easily see that they instead reflect a sad political reality that appearance in campaigns has become, in many ways, more important than substance. The attacks directed toward Edwards in this blog bear that out. For all of the easy criticism of such matters as his house and haircuts, those who attack Edwards do not seem to address the larger, substantive issues he is raising. Working people have been losing ground in the U.S. since 1973, and the class divide in the United States is becoming increasingly pronounced as we slide into a nation of haves and have-nots. Not only is that reality making life very difficult for many families, it's not a healthy situation for our republic. If critics contend that only those who lack wealth can speak up for working people and the poor they are, in effect, saying that NOBODY can speak for working people and the poor, since every major presidential candidate is far more wealthy than the average working American. Instead of taking cheap ad hominem attacks on Edwards, perhaps it makes more sense to deal with the substance of the issues and, whatever we may think of him, at least be thankful that Edwards is endeavoring to speak up for those who are seldom acknowledged in today's political climate. I just bought Springsteen's new CD. Because he now lives in a huge house in an exclusive area of Jersey am I to believe he can no longer recall what it means to struggle like his family did growing up, and that his words, then, no longer have meaning? Nonsense. Like Edwards, Springsteen measures the ideals of America against its present realities, and finds that we can and should be doing better. "
stignob wrote on October 8, 2007 8:26 am:
" Oh, yes the left's utopia of riddinig us of poverty, whatever happen to the "great society"? Maybe the latest raise in minimum wage will do the trick. All show and no substance is the gimmick and it still works apparantly or they tell you one thing and they do the other is the MO. "
GOD I love Edwards wrote on October 8, 2007 10:03 am:
" He's really tops! "
Nan wrote on October 8, 2007 10:19 am:
" If you ever actually LISTENED to what John Edwards has to say you would know that he actually has a PLAN to back up his statements. He is not someone who just says whatever he can to get elected. His universal health care plan is VERY genuine and VERY inclusive. If voters would actually listen to the candidates instead of naysayers on a blog, they might actually make informed decisions instead of "following the leader". PS - I'm a Republican. "
Karl wrote on October 8, 2007 12:27 pm:
" Yay for personal attacks and juvenile name-calling! So, let me get this straight... It seems the conservatives, who historically are for an open market and making our own wages don't think someone should be rich for doing what they do? Did someone in here use the owrd hypocrite, because it really does fit - just not where they wanted it. "
I'm no cynic wrote on October 8, 2007 12:33 pm:
" "Cause of my life" What drivel! He was invited to a forum of 300 Tribal leaders in late August in CA but opted not to attend as he was afraid he would upset some union leaders who had some problems with one the Tribes. What was so wrong with hearing of the things leaders wanted for their children and grandchildren. Disengenuous at best! As a Democrat I will say no more! "
Marky Mark wrote on October 9, 2007 11:18 am:
" The "Great Society" is firmly in place, Stiggie. Without some of the great social programs we would be just another country.. Part of this "Great Society" was Medicare which you probably refer to as socialized medicine. As someone who spent many years in the health insurance, I can attest to you, without Medicare, an 80 year old would be paying in the neighborhood of $2,000 per month or more for a major medical plan with a $1,000 deductible. How many of them could afford private coverate without Medicare? "

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