John Edward's Poverty Tour
The Politico:
Edwards to announce poverty tour
For a guy that doesn't know what a rich man is, how in the hell is he going to be able to know what a poor man is? Eh?
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.
Edwards makes me sick. Not as sick as Hillary does but sick just the same. The Double Standard is all so telling and obvious but the dumb and dumber flock to him like a cockroach to a bug-zapper.
Edwards pays $400 for a haircut, his house has more square footage than most Central American Counties, his "carbon footprint" is larger than the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, his last 3 jobs were medical malpractice attorney (ambulance chaser), U.S Senator and hedge fund manager, he owns at least one of those Two Americas, and he gets the "college rate" of $55K to speak about poverty.
Does anyone see the Double Standard here, besides me?
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.”
What if, Edwards, the man that knows not what a rich man is, gets in the faces of the down trodden and tells them that they CAN rise above their circumstances, JUST LIKE HE DID and that the poor need NOT depend upon government to get them (the poor) out of their personal quagmires? How about Edwards tells them to pull themselves up by their OWN bootstraps, apply themselves and bulldoze their way to the top...like Edwards did? How about that? Wouldn't THAT be a novel idea? Wouldn't THAT be a worthy and noble cause?
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.
And Dukakis LOST big time and it sent his wife into the "clinic" for a spell due to utter humiliation when Ronaldus Maximus TROUNCED the Double Standard Dukakis machine in a landslide this country has only seen two of...both of them due to RWR!!
“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.
Or, how about if Edwards, if he REALLY cares about the poor, and he believes that everyone BUT his kind (the rich Leftinistra) should give up what they have and give to them what don't have, freely gives HIS OWN DAMN MONEY to the poor and down trodden? Wouldn't THAT mean something? Actions speak louder than words, Oh Mr I Don't Know What A Rich Man "IS"!! Moron.
Edwards has been putting a new emphasis on his message of economic fairness as a way to make himself more than the anti-war candidate. He also wants to mop up union endorsements and get more traction among lower-income, working voters without a college education. But he’s so wealthy that he has struggled to mold a populist image.
Economic fairness...that's one of those buzz words, right? That's one of those "sound good" terms, right? But, what the hell does it mean? NOTHING! That's what it means. He wants BIG LABOR UNION DOLLARS (will he give it to the poor?) to win an election by catering (pandering) to those with seemingly little hope because they rely on Big Brother and Big Brother has NO intentions of helping. Big Brother relies on the poor to keep control of the poor. That's how socialism takes root.
Stop-by-stop information (along with a snide aside and an explanation of the RFK reference) after the jump.
Edwards will start next Sunday, July 15, with a walking tour of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. The three-day tour will officially begin the next day in New Orleans with a town hall in conjunction with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” where he’ll kick off the day’s theme of “Rewarding Work and Ending Poverty in America.” Then he’ll head to Canton, Miss.; Marks, Miss.; Marianna, Ark.; and Memphis, Tenn., where he’ll give the first of two speeches.
Ending poverty. Engels and Marx promised that Utopian impossibility. So. Edwards is a socialist as well. These trolls out themselves on a regular basis.
On Tuesday, July 16, he’ll take his theme of “Strengthening Neighborhoods and Cities Rising” to Cleveland; Youngstown, Ohio, where he’ll give the second speech; and Pittsburgh.
The finale will be Wednesday, July, 18, with a theme of “Restoring Hope to Rural America.” He’ll stop in isolated southwest Virginia, then will end in Whitesburg, Ky., and Prestonsburg, Ky. That's the same Prestonsburg that was the final public stop by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 on HIS iconic poverty tour.
P.S. In Maureen Dowd’s essential Sunday account of an interview with Edwards about his tastes in books, music, TV and actors (“Phantom At The Opera: He likes his culture with a drawl”), print she quotes the former senator as saying: “Elizabeth thinks the two rules you always use in politics are: Don’t dance. And don’t wear hats.” Ms. Dowd adds: “Especially not if you’ve got such a fabulous haircut to show off.” And we might add: Tough to stick to in coal country.
UPDATE: In response to a comment below from reader SRB, who challenged the use of "overwhelming," here are the 1960 West Virginia primary results: 60.8 percent for Kennedy, to 39.2 percent for Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota. See the whole chart here.
The general election, probably what SRB was thinking of, was one of the closest in history -- 49.7 percent for Kennedy to 49.5 percent for one Richard Milhous Nixon of California.
Pathetic. Truly and indeed pathetic. They should be ashamed of themselves. JFK has to be rolling his eyes and looking to Truman and Dewey and saying,"What happened?"
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