Regis Philbin
Jul 8th, 2007, 10:33 PM
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0707/Edwards_to_announce_poverty_tour.html
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 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.