I think John Edwards is a good sincere man. People have been unfair to him about his fight against poverty.The $400 hair cut and his large house. Does he have to be poor to be an advocate of the poor. He knows what it’s like to be poor. Should he live in a shack and live like a poor person to help eradicate poverty. He certainly isn’t doing it just to get the vote of the poor. Compaired to other groups they are a small voting block. That’s why you don’t hear any of the other canditates talk about the poor especially the republicnans. I would like to ask the people critizing Mr. Edwards how much have you done to help poor people?

Ho ho - very funny dig, Geoff!

And while it’s true that stats indicate median annual household income rose about $350, numbers also show full-time workers’ wages fell > 1%, more people (particularly children) are uninsured and 36.5 million still live below the poverty line ($20,600/year for a family of four — and how about a shout out to those lucky non-poverty families living on $20,601 a year!)

Do you really want to be making fun of this?

more people (particularly children) are uninsured

You apparently haven’t been keeping up with our posts on health insurance. Funny you should mention children - I just read yesterday (in the Kaiser report) that 3/4 of uninsured children are already eligible for coverage under current programs.

Do you really want to be making fun of this?

Was I making fun of John Edwards and his policy suggestions, or the poor? I know who I intended to make fun of.

I knew bringing up uninsured children was potentially waving a red flag…at least I didn’t talk about the “45 million uninsured”

And I definitely don’t want to get too heavy about this, but…..the implication of making fun of Al Gore is that global warming isn’t really a problem, and I thought your point was a funny one. But the way you set up the joke, making fun of Edwards on his issue similarly implies that you think poor people don’t really exist (or that the plight of the poor is overblown?) To me it came across as callous (in a way that I don’t believe reflects who you really are). Whether global warming is real seems debatable, but I’m sure we can drive to Newark or Denver right now and see lots of irrefutably poor people.

No, what we think is that government programs of the style Edwards advocates makes more poverty, not less. One need only note the change since the 1996 welfare reform effort, which contrary to all the Edwards style whining at the time, was followed by less poverty, not more.