John Edwards for President-Edwards Focuses on Poverty during Visit; Ex-V.P. Hopeful Wants Democrats to Adopt the Issue

Edwards Focuses on Poverty during Visit; Ex-V.P. Hopeful Wants Democrats to Adopt the Issue

Jul 20, 2005 12:08 PM

Steve Schultze
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Jul 20, 2005

What does a former presidential candidate, vice presidential candidate and U.S. senator do once the campaign is over?

If you're John Edwards, the vice presidential half of last fall's Democratic ticket, you start a poverty center at your home state university, then stump the country talking about your signature campaign issue — how to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

He was back in Milwaukee on Wednesday — minus the campaign hoopla. Edwards, a one-term North Carolina senator, spoke privately to participants in programs for former convicts and low-income families at the central city's Holy Cathedral Church of God in Christ and then publicly to local reporters.

After that, he spent an hour with Journal Sentinel editors and reporters. And then he was off to a fund-raiser at a Milwaukee restaurant for the Senate Democratic caucus. He also said he wanted to help recruit strong Democratic candidates for the state Legislature.

In other words, he was making moves consistent with laying early groundwork for a possible future run for the presidency, though he said it was way too early to say whether he might actually run in '08.

Before deciding, he wants to see his wife, Elizabeth, who is recovering from breast cancer, get well, he said.

Also, "I really have a passion about this poverty thing," Edwards said at the newspaper. "I want to try desperately to get something done about that. And then, we'll just have to see."

Campaign buzzwords gone

Edwards gave practiced answers to familiar questions — he's been on the road to more than 20 states over the past few months talking about poverty. But gone were his "two Americas" campaign '04 buzzwords.

In their place: a more thoughtful, if general, take on the topic. He's for boosting the minimum wage, strengthening organized labor and finding creative ways to bridge the "asset disparity" in the United States. He said he's impressed with a British plan for a "baby bonds" program to which government and low-income individuals contribute as a way to create wealth and hope for the poor.

Mostly, though, Edwards said he wanted to raise the profile of poverty as a signature Democratic issue, lamenting that the party has not kept the fire going since Lyndon Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy championed the issue in the '60s.

He predicted congressional gains for Democrats in '06 based on problems President Bush and the Republican Party are struggling with. Edwards said Bush has been hurt by not being truthful with the public about the progress of the war with Iraq, an unpopular Social Security reform plan and the unsuccessful move to prevent disconnection of life support from Terri Schiavo.

Edwards said he'll be back to Wisconsin in the fall, for an anti-poverty rally at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wednesday night, more than 130 people at Sake Tumi, 714 N. Milwaukee St., listened as Edwards exhorted them to support his party and work with him to make poverty a major concern of the general public.

At a meeting with the Journal Sentinel's editorial board earlier Wednesday, Edwards said that he planned to launch a youth campaign in the fall, by visiting college campuses, encouraging students to participate in politics and helping students identify and tackle tough social issues specific to their home areas.