The Road to One America Tour starts next week. John Edwards will shine a light on poverty next week by taking three days off from his regular campaign schedule (and three days off from the important task of fundraising) to tour poverty-stricken areas in the United States and examine possible solutions.
You can help. Click here to find out ways to participate in this important event. If you live near to one of the event stops, consider documenting it as a citizen journalist. The Edwards campaign is encouraging bloggers to attend, and some of our Edwards Evening News reporters will be there. Flip with me for more on this and other news.
Edwards will be meeting with people struggling with poverty and will be using online tools to help share their stories with the nation. The campaign will be posting blog entries and sending emails featuring stories from the road, so readers who can't join Edwards on the tour can still be a part of it. The campaign will also be highlighting the voices of people who attend stops on the tour – encouraging bloggers to attend stops and posting stories and multimedia content on the John Edwards website created by people from each stop on the tour.
Be the media you've been waiting for! Join the Road to One America Tour!
Here's a recent example of excellent citizen journalism from OneCarolinaGirl to inspire you. This is from the opening of the new Edwards campaign office in South Carolina.
It's time for citizens to BE the media. Good work, OneCarolinaGirl!
We interrupt this EENR for some snark from the fake news department.
From the Daily Prophet:
Harry Potter Lies
You Know Who Has Not Returned
Harry Potter, the boy who has the hypocrisy to claim that You Know Who has returned, in spite of the fact that his critics say Potter himself recently got a $400 haircut, was caught red-handed training other students to become members of Dumbledore's Army. Potter claims they must be ready to fight when He Who Must Not Be Named returns. An anonymous source from the Ministry of Magic was quoted as saying "who's You Know Who?"
Sound familiar?
I guess you could say I enjoyed the snark about the media in the new Harry Potter film, which I saw today. If only the wizarding world had Media Matters.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program of Edwards News.
Media Matters' Jamison Foser once again came to the rescue of common sense yesterday with a column examining the fact that the ridiculous smear stories that come up in the media, at least the ones that are kept around for months, are always directed at progressives. Using the examples of Al Gore supposedly saying he invented the Internet, John Edwards's haircut, and John Kerry's allege elitism, Foser paints a picture of what the media might be like if the same treatment were given to Republicans.
These examples all have a few things in common:
- All are, to some degree, inaccurate, unfair, or of minimal significance.
- All were (and still are) endlessly repeated by media at every available opportunity, often as though the anecdotes are deeply illustrative of some personal or political failing.
- All of the targets in question were progressives.
That last one is important. Conservative candidates just haven't seen the media endlessly repeat their (real or perceived; significant or not) missteps the way they have been repeated about progressives.
For example, Edwards' haircuts (and the size of his house, and his wealth in general) are constantly invoked in news reports about his economic policies. And always as a negative -- his wealth is portrayed as inconsistent with his policies (hypocritical, even) or undermining his message. When have you seen an article about Edwards that casually notes that the fact that he supports policies that are inconsistent with his narrow personal financial interests gives him greater credibility to talk about poverty? Or that it gives him a decided advantage over wealthy conservatives like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson who favor tax policies that would line their own pockets at the expense of those less fortunate? You probably have never seen such an article, though those assertions would be at least as valid as the portrayal of hypocrisy.
If the leading Republican candidates were held to the same standard, every news report that mentions Romney or McCain or Thompson or Giuliani wanting to make the Bush tax cuts permanent would include a sentence like this: "Romney's support of tax policies that overwhelmingly benefit the superrich -- like Mitt Romney -- may remind middle class Americans that he is not one of them."
In the new Harry Potter film, the media eventually comes to its senses. We can only hope that life follows art. It would be nice if the "official" media would come to its senses in time for Edwards's Road to One America tour next week. There have been some recent signs of that, especially in local papers in places Edwards is scheduled to visit. Let's take a look at some of them.
The Clarion Ledger, in Mississippi, has a nice article today about Edwards's upcoming visit on the Road to One America Tour.
Sen. Robert Jackson, a Democrat from Marks, said Edwards will learn about the area's self-help programs such as First Delta Federal Credit Union. The program helps first-time home buyers obtain credit.
Affordable housing projects, educational services and youth leadership development also will be discussed, Jackson said.
"We're appreciative that a presidential candidate would come to a rural town in Mississippi to see what we're doing and if it can be replicated in other parts of the country," Jackson said. "That speaks volumes about the leadership that he would provide in the years to come."
The Vindicator, in Youngstown, Ohio, also writes about Edwards's upcoming visit.
YOUNGSTOWN — When presidential hopeful John Edwards visits here Tuesday, he'll first talk with women at the Beatitude House working to turn around their lives and then meet with local business leaders working to turn around the region's economy.
Edwards' visit is part of a 12-city "Road to One America" tour that begins Monday in New Orleans. The goal of the trip is to raise awareness of poverty with one option being to strengthen cities through economic improvements.
"We are so excited and really thrilled" that he's coming here with a commitment to fight poverty, said Teresa Boyce, Beatitude House's development director.
Edwards will talk with families that live at the house on Lora Avenue, she said.
"He'll learn about their obstacles and how this program helps them," Boyce said.
Beatitude House provides housing, education, counseling and support services to homeless women, primarily those with children, to help them obtain economic stability.
Edwards talked about the upcoming tour at the recent NAACP presidential forum.
In other news, Edwards won the straw poll of the Progressive Caucus at the meeting of the California Democratic Party Executive Board.
At the end of the meeting an informal, show-of-hands straw poll was taken on presidential preferences of those in attendance. John Edwards was the clear choice of the getting 47 votes. Next was Al Gore, who is not a declared candidate with 27, followed by Dennis Kucinich (17), Barack Obama and Bill Richardson with 12 each, Hillary Clinton (2), and Joe Biden (1). Six were undecided, and neither Chris Dodd nor Mike Gravel received any votes.
As the meeting came to a close an announcement was made that Elizabeth Edwards will be addressing the General Session tomorrow morning.
And in Iowa, Edwards continued to speak out strongly against the Iraq war.
"I think the president is in complete denial about what’s happening in Iraq, and he’s made mistake after mistake, and he’s got to be forced to change course," he said. "I think the Congress has the power to do it, and they should use their power."
In related news, yesterday, the SEIU specified that to win its endorsement, candidates must participate in their "Walk a Day in My Shoes" program and have a health care plan by August 1st. Edwards, of course, has done both.
And that's the Edwards Evening News for Saturday, July 14, 2007.