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Edwards invoked RFK as he ends poverty tour

PRESTONSBURG, Ky., Former Senator John Edwards wrapped up his three-day poverty tour Wednesday in this village deep in Appalachia, and suggested that the “two Americas” theme of his Democratic presidential campaign was an appeal for help not just for the poor, but also for all working Americans bypassed by the nation’s prosperity.

The location was strategic. The last presidential hopeful to visit this town was Robert F. Kennedy, at the end of a 200-mile antipoverty tour of eastern Kentucky nearly 40 years ago, just one month before he formally announced his candidacy. Mr. Edwards, though saying he did not deserve to be compared to Kennedy, whom he described as his political hero, nonetheless sought to link his campaign’s central theme, the elimination of poverty, to work that Kennedy championed.

Read entire article at NYT