With poverty tour, Edwards emphasizes morality over politics

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CNN/Reuters: Mon July 16, 2007
With poverty tour, Edwards emphasizes morality over politics


John Edwards answers questions at Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in New Orlean's Ninth Ward Sunday.

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (Reuters) -- Hurting in opinion polls and haunted by charges of lavish personal spending, Democrat John Edwards took his presidential campaign on Monday to some of the most impoverished parts of the country.

With America's poor the crux of his campaign, the former vice presidential candidate launched an eight-state tour in New Orleans, a city that exposed U.S. poverty to a global audience following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

His focus on poverty challenges his top Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and enables Edwards to present himself as a leader with a cause bigger than his own ambition, analysts said.

"This is not a political strategy. This is a huge moral issue facing America," Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said in New Orleans late on Sunday.

Edwards is third among Democrats in national opinion polls ahead of the November 2008 elections, behind leader Clinton of New York and Obama of Illinois. But he is strong in the crucial early-voting state of Iowa, where he leads many state polls....

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/16/politics.edwards.reut/index.html