Is the Issue Poverty or John Edwards?

2 years ago

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Mary C. Curtis

National Correspondent

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John Edwards and the issue of poverty in the United States. Poverty and John Edwards. In this case, the message became the messenger. Poverty lost.

People became suspicious of the millionaire lawyer with the smile and the haircut, wearing perfectly faded jeans in a devastated New Orleans. Though the country's focus should have been the post-Katrina homeless, the irony of the guy with the big house helping those without one was too rich. No one questioned the sincerity of the other millionaire politicians dreaming of the White House.

When the fall came – and his fall was spectacular – the story at last had an ending.

The John Edwards immolation also ended much mention of the poor. In a political campaign, you can't go wrong fighting for the hard-working middle class. The poor? Not so much.

Now John Edwards – one-time Democratic presidential hopeful – is speaking. (His cameo in his wife's Oprah Winfrey appearance hardly counts.)

In an interview in Thursday's Washington Post, he sticks to policy and leaves the gossipy stuff alone. He actually holds out the hope of some sort of political comeback. Possible, but doubtful. While Nevada Sen. John Ensign's confession of an extramarital affair might seem to make the "nobody's perfect" defense more plausible, Edwards' case has entanglements of its own.

But mostly, Edwards talks about health-care reform and his signature issue – poverty. He takes some credit for pushing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton toward more progressive stands during the campaign. Personally, he has a ways to go; he is still not ready to say that staying in the race for so long was an outrageously bad idea.

Personal initiatives in the areas of education and mortgage relief are no more. A think tank – the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – remains.

And in the meantime, a recession promises to add to Census Bureau numbers that counted 12.5 percent of Americans, or 37.3 million people, living in poverty in 2007.

It's not about John Edwards at all.

Filed Under: John Edwards, Woman Up

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