John Edwards for President: ARCHIVAL MIRROR-Bloomberg: Edwards Begins Presidential Bid Amid Katrina's Scars

Bloomberg: Edwards Begins Presidential Bid Amid Katrina's Scars

Dec 28, 2006 8:15 AM

Nicholas Johnston
Bloomberg
Dec 28, 2006

John Edwards, whose presidential campaign two years ago emphasized the growing divide between America's rich and poor, came to a hurricane-ravaged neighborhood of New Orleans to announce he is running again.

Edwards, 53, said he chose New Orleans as a backdrop to demonstrate that ``Americans can make a huge difference'' in helping those who need it most. Edwards stood in front of a home flooded in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina where repairs are just now nearing completion.

``New Orleans, in so many ways, shows the two Americas that I have talked about in the past,'' Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina, said. ``It also exemplifies something I've learned since the last election: It's great to see a problem and understand; it's more important to take action and do something about it.''

Edwards is the highest-profile candidate to officially enter the presidential campaign. His opponents for the nomination are likely to include Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, who haven't announced their intentions.

Edwards sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, coming in second in the Iowa caucuses and fourth in the New Hampshire primary. He eventually withdrew from the race and was picked for the second spot on the ticket by the party's presidential nominee, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

A Divided Nation

Since President George W. Bush's re-election, Edwards has continued to speak out on the nation's income divide and became head of the University of North Carolina's Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity.

``It's wrong we have 37 million Americans living in poverty,'' Edwards said in a June 22 speech in Washington. ``Poverty is the great moral issue of our time, and we all have an obligation to do something about it.''

Edwards came to New Orleans to draw attention to what he said is the government's continued failure to help poorer residents recover from Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005, killing more than 1,400 and flooding large areas of New Orleans.

Orelia Tyler's home, where she has lived for 18 years, was under more then eight feet of water after the storm broke levees that protected her New Orleans neighborhood from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

Landscaping Work

Edwards was standing in Tyler's backyard this morning when he officially began his campaign. Yesterday, he had helped a volunteer group complete landscaping work in the yard.

``I hope he's doing it to get me back into my house and not for the publicity,'' Tyler, 55, told reporters yesterday while standing in front of a trailer in her front yard where she has been living since March. ``I think he really wants from his heart to help us get back.''

New Orleans is ``a perfectly natural place'' for Edwards to announce his candidacy, said Duke University political science Professor David Rohde. ``His previous campaign, and a lot of activity since then, has tried to identify him with people who are less well off.''

Later today Edwards will be in Iowa, site of the nation's first presidential caucus, to speak to a town hall meeting. Tomorrow he will be in New Hampshire, site of the nation's first primary, and then travel to Nevada and South Carolina, which hold early contests for the Democratic nomination.

Extensive Travel

Edwards has traveled extensively since the 2004 election, visiting 39 states and raising more then $8.5 million for Democratic candidates in this year's congressional elections.

In a recent survey of 400 Iowa Democrats who are likely to attend the state's presidential caucuses in January 2008, Edwards polled 22 percent, tied for first with Obama. Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack came in second with 12 percent and Clinton was third with 10 percent.

The survey, conducted Dec. 18-20 by polling firm Research 2000, has a margin of error of five percentage points.

A concurrent Research 2000 poll of 400 New Hampshire Democrats found Clinton and Obama in a virtual tie with 22 percent and 21 percent respectively. Edwards was third with 16 percent.

Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said Edwards is one of the few candidates who can challenge the star power of Obama and Clinton. With media attention focused on the supposed front-runners, Edwards can sit back and watch for ``somebody slipping on a banana peel.''

``He's had a national campaign under his belt, which means that he is not about to make silly mistakes, and he has a certain degree of name recognition, and a pretty fat Rolodex,'' Hess said. ``He's still very much a player.''

Former Attorney

Edwards, a former personal injury attorney, served one term as a senator from North Carolina. He declined to run for re- election at the end of his six-year term to make his earlier bid for the presidency.

In his speech to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004, he reiterated his common campaign theme of two Americas: ``one for people who have lived the American dream and don't have a worry and another for most Americans who work hard and still struggle to make ends meet.''

In New Orleans today, he said any increase in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq would be a ``mistake.'' He has called such a policy the ``McCain Doctrine,'' in reference to Arizona Senator John McCain, who has called for more forces in Iraq and is likely to be a Republican presidential candidate.

Iraq Mistake

Edwards admitted that his vote authorizing the war as a senator in 2002 was a ``mistake'' and that the U.S. should immediately withdraw 50,000 troops from the country.

``We need to make it clear that we intend to leave Iraq and turn over the responsibility of Iraq to the Iraqi people,'' he said.

On domestic issues, Edwards called for health insurance for ever American, steps to curb global warming and promote energy independence and, to pay for his proposals, a rollback of tax cuts and a possible windfall profit tax on oil companies.

``We have investments that need to be made,'' he said. ``We're going to have to invest if we're going to transform America.''