It's another poverty tour for this advocate, who wishes all would-be presidents would take one

As a teenager, Dee Davis (right) saw Robert Kennedy visit his hometown of Hazard, Ky. Thirty years later, he drove another liberal senator, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, around the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield to see miners suffering from coal dust. Tomorrow, he will be part of the final day of former Sen. John Edwards' anti-poverty tour, to Wise, Va., and Whitesburg and Prestonsburg, Ky. He says today in an essay on National Public Radio:

"I wish they were all coming. These things matter. It is not about party; it's about eyeballs. And there are sights that need seeing. When no one shows up to witness the obliteration of mountaintops — vast hillsides being shoved into creek beds — then desperate mining practices flourish. When the rest of the country never sees the broken families and children cut adrift from addiction, then a pharmaceutical company can get off with a fine and a pat on the rump for years of dumping pain drugs like OxyContin into these rural communities." (For a report on the case, see The Rural Blog archive for June 20.)

"People will tell you government doesn't work. But I've seen it work. It starts with somebody showing up and making an effort. I have also seen it fail. Mostly that happens when no one's paying attention." (Read more) Davis, a filmmaker by trade, is president of the Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg and a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post reports on the tour's first day: "The 37 million Americans in families that make less than $20,000 a year, the federal definition of poverty, are not the kind of group that can push Edwards to victory. Poor people vote at lower percentages than their wealthier counterparts, by definition don't have much money to give to candidates and aren't an organized political constituency like the elderly."

"He undoubtedly knows it's an issue without a real constituency that votes," Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist and co-founder of the Third Way think tank, told the Post. "It's brave and bold, or brave and foolhardy." But Edwards said in New Orleans, "I think the country cares" about the poor. His wife, Elizabeth Edwards, said the tour will "put a face on the working poor," beyond statistics. (Read more)