Obama Promised Edwards he Would go on a ‘Poverty Tour’ as a Nominee to Secure Endorsement

May 16, 2008

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Before dropping out of the presidential race, John Edwards secured a private commitment from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that they’d undertake a poverty tour during the general election as the Democratic nominee, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks. Talking Points Memo writes that:

The vows to undertake a poverty tour — which were confirmed to me by three former top advisers to Edwards — went considerably farther than what has been publicly known until now about what the two Dems promised Edwards they’d do on poverty. During his drop-out speech last January, Edwards only said that the two Dems had “both pledged” to “make ending poverty central to their campaign.”

An actual poverty tour, by contrast, would be a specific, protracted undertaking, possibly with Edwards himself, a possibility that came up in the private talks. Such a tour could be a major media event.

Now that Obama is on his way to becoming the nominee, the private promise is particularly relevant, because it raises the question of whether Obama will honor the commitment Edwards advisers say he (and Hillary) made.

This could require Obama to make a commitment of several days during a hard-fought general election, because Edwards specifically secured a commitment that it be a few days long, one top adviser said.

“Edwards was trying to think of ways to specifically hold them accountable,” said another former top Edwards adviser. “It’s easy for a Democrat to say, `Sure, I’ll make poverty central to my campaign.’ A poverty tour was something he felt would be really powerful with the spotlight of the general election, and it was a tangible, real thing he could ask them to commit to.”

Hopefully Senator Barack Obama gives the issue the attention it deserves, seeing as though the Republicans don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to putting an end to poverty, hell they are more or less a contributor to at least some degree.

Sen. Obama could make the argument he’s stronger on crime by going after root causes, where the Republicans only want to treat the symptoms and support ideas that have already been shown to have no impact on violent crime, while slowly but surely swelling our prisons population count to excess, eating up even more public funding yet showing no real improvement in the process of prisoner reform through the current structure of incarceration.