[John Edwards] Brings crusade on poverty to Seattle

from The Seattle Post Intelligencer

By CHRISTINE FREY

Poverty is a great moral issue facing the country, and Americans have an obligation to address it, John Edwards, the former senator and vice presidential candidate, said Tuesday in Seattle.

He urged Americans to launch a grass-roots movement to tackle the issue and suggested that the government raise the minimum wage.

It is wrong that 37 million Americans live in poverty, Edwards said: "I think we, all of us, have a moral responsibility to do something about it."

Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina and the 2004 running mate of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, is now the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina.

He has been traveling around the country speaking about poverty -- what he called his "life's work now" -- and appeared in downtown Seattle at a luncheon held by the Gonzaga University School of Law for about 100 people.

The issue of poverty in the United States was highlighted after Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards traveled to Louisiana after the hurricane and met New Orleans residents who had been displaced by the flooding.

He told the Seattle audience about the people he encountered -- a man whose wife drowned after he could no longer hold on to her hand; another who lost his home and job.

In his travels, Edwards has met with poor in 35 states, many of them single mothers, he said. The stereotype that people who are poor are lazy or don't help themselves isn't true, he said; he saw many who are doing all they can for their children.

"They need help," he said. "They need somebody to stand up and fight for them."

The national minimum wage, currently at $5.15 an hour, is "a disgrace," he said and should be raised.

He also called for ending economic and racial segregation in American neighborhoods, potentially by giving housing vouchers to low-income families so they could move into better neighborhoods.

"We have a fundamental question that we should be asking ourselves as a nation, and that question is: Do we really believe that all of us have equal worth? Do we? Because I do," he said.

Edwards, the son of a millworker, was the first in his family to attend college. He pursued a career as a lawyer and later served in the U.S. Senate.

The United States also must address poverty globally, he said, recalling a recent trip to slums in India where what he saw -- children going to school where there was sewage in the streets -- caused him to have trouble sleeping at night.

There is a void in the country's moral leadership in the world, he said, and the United States is absent from major international issues, such as what he called the genocide in Sudan.

"The world knows that we're willing to use our muscle," he said. "They see that every single day. Here's what they want to know from us: Are we actually willing to lead on the huge moral issues that face the world? That's the leadership America should be providing."

Edwards spoke for about 30 minutes, and then took questions from the audience.

In a news conference after his appearance, Edwards said he would ensure that his wife, Elizabeth, is well before considering a presidential bid in 2008. She was diagnosed with breast cancer after the 2004 election.

In the meantime, tackling the poverty issue is his "passion."

"I'll just see down the road where that leads."