Great piece by Alan Wade (who has met Edwards) on the American Prospect site. Good read and thoughtful take on why Edwards has the soul we need.
"Is a lawyer like John Edwards the Democrat best able to argue for -- and win on -- issues of equality? Absolutely."
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http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2004/02/wade-a-02-09.html>
. . . when Edwards speaks of "two Americas" -- the one for whom there are no economic problems and the other for whom there are almost nothing but -- and when he talks, as he has often lately, about the 35 million poor Americans who mostly don't vote and whom politicians are therefore free to forget, I don't hear the voice of (William Jennings) Bryan so much as I hear the voice of Edwards' son Wade.
. . . I hear this voice every time I hear Edwards tell the two Americas, every time he talks about the forgotten poor. And I heard it in a commencement speech he gave at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke last May. The speech was an exhortation to fight racial intolerance: "You -- and we -- have an obligation to make this community, our state, our great nation, and even this world more embracing. You -- and we -- have an obligation to stand against the forces of intolerance that deny opportunity to others. … Where there is hatred, there is your battleground. Where there is injustice, there is your battleground. Where there is misery, there is your battleground."
. . . So the most important questions I ask about the candidates are: Who really believes, down to his bones, in the stuff Democrats are supposed to believe in? And who will fight like a badger to advance these beliefs? The answer I keep coming up with is John Edwards.
. . . Mainly, though, I'm for Edwards because I think he is his son's father. I think his desire to make this a fairer nation is as deep a passion as I have seen in a public official since I can remember.