[John Edwards] ...visits Maine to highlight problems of poverty

From the Lexington Dispatch
The Associated Press

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards met with people living in poverty during a visit to Maine on Tuesday to draw attention to the plight of the poor and to raise money for Democrats.

In his first stop in Maine since last year's presidential campaign, Edwards called poverty the "great moral issue in America today." Edwards was the Democratic nominee for vice president in John Kerry's run for president last year.

Edwards now leads the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated from the law school in 1977. In his role, he has traveled to more than 20 states meeting with poor people and looking at programs that help the poor with the aim of learning how best to address the problem.

"I'm doing everything I can to bring this issue back to the American people," Edwards said.

Edwards also has been leading rallies in various states in favor of raising the minimum wage in those states. The federal minimum wage level is now $5.15 an hour, but the rate in Maine is $6.35 an hour.

Edwards also attended fund-raisers to benefit Maine House Democrats at the home of Victoria Murphy, the former chairwoman of the Maine Democratic Party, and at the offices of Bernstein Shur Sawyer and Nelson law firm.

Edwards has said it's too early to think about running for president in 2008, citing his current work and the health of his wife, who recently completed treatment for breast cancer.

But he is still making speeches to Democratic groups in key primary states and cultivating grass-roots support through his One America Committee Web site.

For now, he said, his campaign is about poverty, not the presidency.

"There's no way for me to know where that's going to lead. It's unpredictable," he said.