Hopeful stresses poverty

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards told a Las Vegas audience Wednesday he will be taking time off from his campaign next week to tour poverty-stricken places "because I want America to pay attention to this."

In his first public appearance since his campaign this week announced what he called "essentially a poverty tour," Edwards said he will not be doing fundraising or campaigning for three days next week as he travels "to some of the places where people are struggling the worst."

In an interview, the former North Carolina senator and former vice presidential nominee said the upcoming tour is not an effort to jumpstart a campaign some see as flagging. Rather, he said, he wants to use the spotlight that is trained on him as a candidate toward an issue he is concerned with.

The point of the tour, which will start in New Orleans and hit Southern towns, Midwestern cities and rural Appalachia, is "in the middle of a heightened political environment, to bring Americans' attention to the two Americas that still exist, to the extent to which poverty is still rampant in America," he said.

"I don't think it will help me" in the race, he said. "The reason I'm doing it is because this is something I care about."

None of the eight states Edwards will visit on the tour is home to an early presidential nominating contest, but the tour schedule does include a town hall event in New Orleans.

Edwards spoke Wednesday to an audience of about 300 Nevadans at the hall of the local Sheet Metal Workers union, near Carey Avenue and Lamb Boulevard, focusing on economic issues.

He reminded them that he campaigned for the successful effort to amend the state constitution to raise the minimum wage in Nevada, a proposal he is pushing nationally as part of his campaign platform.

As president, Edwards said, he would raise the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour by 2012 and make it rise automatically every year rather than requiring congressional action to increase it. He also said he would require tip earners' base wages to be at least half of the federal minimum.

Edwards' speech was typical of his campaign's focus on a populist pitch to the working class and a particularly aggressive attempt to woo organized labor.

He also made sure to mention Iraq, "so you don't think I'm ignoring it." Edwards was critical of Congress for passing a bill in May to fund the war without a troop withdrawal deadline.

On Wednesday, he said he still thinks "Congress has the power to make the president leave Iraq." He said he hopes members of Congress do next time what he called on them to do last time, which is pass successive timetable bills one after another, even if President Bush continues to veto them.

The current war funding runs out in September. "We need Congress to stand its ground," Edwards said. "They were given a mandate in November 2006, and that was to end this war."

Edwards spoke for 15 minutes and took questions from the audience for about 20. Questioners asked about education and health care; Edwards said he would replace the federal No Child Left Behind act's "blunt and invasive" testing mechanisms with "a much more surgical way of evaluating a child's performance," and he touted his detailed plan for universal health care.

In the interview, Edwards said his message about fighting poverty applies here, but to a lesser extent because of the strength of labor unions in Nevada.

"I think of Las Vegas as a place where poverty certainly exists ... but a lot of the work that's been done by the unions here, the Culinary workers for example, is an example of what's possible if lower-income working people are able to organize, collectively bargain, and lift themselves and their families out of poverty," he said.

Some national political watchers have downgraded Edwards' candidacy since his campaign announced raising about $9 million in the past three months, a far cry from the $32 million raised by Barack Obama and $27 million by Hillary Clinton.

But Edwards said Wednesday he thinks the nominee will be decided in the first four states to hold contests, a group that in 2008 includes Nevada for the first time.

"I think that we have plenty of money" to compete in those states, Edwards said. "I think we're going to have more money than we need. I think there are two other candidates that are going to have more money than they need, too. There's only so much money you can spend in what amounts to four or five early primary states."

After Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida hold contests next January, more than 20 states, including New York and California, have moved their presidential primaries up to Feb. 5.

Audience member Philip Reilley, a Las Vegas stage worker who would not give his age, said he was an Edwards supporter because he saw the former senator as the most electable candidate.

"Unlike Obama and Clinton, he has a better chance of winning the country," Reilley said. "They will only get the Northeast and the West Coast."

Wednesday's visit was Edwards' seventh to Nevada this year. His wife, Elizabeth, also visited Las Vegas late last month.

The campaign announced Wednesday that Elizabeth Edwards will return to Nevada on Sunday, when she officially will open the campaign office in Reno.

The Reno event is scheduled for noon Sunday at the office at 700 Smithridge Drive.