Edwards in N. Phila. to help fight poverty

Former Sen. John Edwards ended his Democratic presidential campaign nearly four months ago, but he was back on the stump yesterday in the Tioga section of North Philadelphia, urging Americans to join him in the "moral cause" of fighting poverty.

Edwards, the party's vice-presidential nominee in 2004, came to the Thankful Baptist Church to kick off Half in Ten, a new movement to reduce the national poverty rate 50 percent during the next decade.

"What we do for each other says something about who we are, what our character is, what kind of country we are," said Edwards, who will be chairman of the effort. Helping fellow citizens have an opportunity to lift themselves up is part of "our responsibility to each other," he said.

Poverty was a central part of Edwards' populist-tinged message in his campaign for president, which he abandoned Jan. 30 after coming up short in states with early primaries and caucuses. The event yesterday marked the beginning of a new phase in his career; Edwards plans a summer tour to highlight the issue.

"Sen. Edwards is clearly demonstrating that he meant what he is talking about - that it was not just campaign stuff, it was real," Mayor Nutter said.

Half in Ten is a joint project of four national advocacy groups: the Center for American Progress Foundation; ACORN, which organizes activists in low-income communities; the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, or LCCR; and the Coalition on Human Needs.

They aim to advocate federal and state policies to help people get out of poverty, including increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation; expanding earned-income tax credits, offered by the federal government and some states to supplement wages for low-income families; and expanding access to subsidized child care.

Such "simple legislative fixes" can provide immediate help in real people's lives, said Wade Henderson, president of the LCCR. "This is not a Washington, inside-the-Beltway, pointy-headed conversation."

Philadelphia was an apt place to open the campaign because the city has the largest percentage of its population living below the poverty line among the 10 biggest U.S. cities - 25 percent. Federal guidelines define poverty as $20,650 or less in annual income for a family of four.

In addition, organizers said, legislation is pending in Harrisburg to expand state tax credits for the working poor and access to child care, as well as to bump up the state minimum wage - now $7.15 an hour for most workers - and peg it to inflation. Philadelphia also is home to vibrant ACORN grassroots groups in several neighborhoods.

Olivia Dorsey, 82, the president of the Tioga chapter of ACORN, took Edwards on a walking tour of the neighborhood, pointing out vacant lots the organization had persuaded the city to clean up and housing renovations that were under way. "There are neighborhoods everywhere across the country where ordinary people are coming together to make change," Dorsey said.

Edwards said he had had "positive conversations" about poverty policy with all three of the remaining major presidential candidates, including the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. He admitted, "I wish I was one of them," when he mentioned the finalists in the race, drawing sympathetic laughter.

But he was clearly in no mood for politics, telling reporters he would not discuss the battle for the Democratic nomination between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Edwards has endorsed neither candidate.

He also seemed to enjoy being free of the rhetorical constraints of a presidential candidate whose every word is parsed, getting in the spirit of the setting.

"I'll tell you why we're going to win and why we are going to be successful - because we are right and the Lord is with us every step of the way," Edwards said.