Edwards makes issue of poverty personal

"It's an issue of long-term dimensions that the country has to get serious about today," he said. "I thought it was important to bring it before a crowd of largely affluent students (Pomona College) because this is a cause that has to engage the next generation as well as mine."

That is precisely what he had done in microcosm earlier, commanding the rapt attention of yet another large Edwards crowd that didn't mind being challenged. And he had them right off the bat, borrowing a line from a the not-too-distant past -- "one person can make a difference, and every one of us should try."

It was, with slightly different wording, a staple for Robert Kennedy in 1968, advancing the idea of individual empowerment in contrast to top-down government programs that has influenced the country ever since, including leaders as diverse as Bill Clinton and Jack Kemp.

Elaborating, Edwards said the most important cause of continuing poverty, especially given the fact that well over three-fourths of the officially poor work full time, is "the silence of those who could do something about it."

Drawing on personal as well as public experience, Edwards said the "common thread" in poverty is isolation. It can be the physical isolation from the healthier economy of a tiny town or urban ghetto; it can be the personal isolation that is a function of despair. These descriptions, however, have become part of what Edwards calls "excuses" for inaction.

The one that really bothers him, he said, is the focus of politicians in recent years on the plight of children. The "hidden meaning" of this focus, he said, has been that it's somehow alright for their parents to be poor, as if that weren't the reason that the children are. This is how potentially good presidents communicate, by challenging instead of pandering.

Listening to him in what could be the final week of his campaign reminded me of a stormy Saturday in Solon, Iowa, the first weekend of the new year, when Edwards introduced this theme, and even used parts of it to challenge Democrats at a party dinner that night in Cedar Rapids. It was already a decent metaphor for a campaign that was coming alive, and it was somehow fitting that during that dinner he found out that the Des Moines Register was about to endorse him.

With the myopia that all campaigns inevitably display, it is too much to ask Edwards to understand that John Kerry emerged at roughly the same time for the same basic reason -- a decision to address questions that get talked about around the kitchen table, to avoid the shopworn attack politics that had infected the supposed front-runners, Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean, and to show that he could listen as well as speak.

The fact that this does not come naturally to Kerry does not detract one bit from his ability to connect with voters. During their good-natured debate last week, the point was most clear when Kerry spoke directly about why he has proposed a more comprehensive (and therefore more expensive) set of health care ideas than Edwards has. The reason, he said, is that if the government takes over the cost of catastrophic coverage, the ripple effect will lower everyone's premiums by an average of $1,000 -- both a direct stimulus to the consumer economy and an opportunity to expand health coverage even further.

On occasion in the last few weeks, Kerry has succumbed to the temptations of front-runnership, as well as to bronchitis. At the debate however, the point was not that Edwards failed to make the case against him but that Kerry showed the connecting spark that propelled him forward two months ago. It was Edwards this time who was a bit too intent on making his debating points good-naturedly and not intent enough on showing the leadership attributes (we call them presidential) he had here the day before.

Almost on the eve of primaries in 10 states where 100 million people live (and where about one-third of the Bush-era job losses have occurred), Kerry has earned his status, and it is always enhanced when he displays his Iowa and New Hampshire skills.

Edwards has at least earned the country's respect for presenting a different choice cogently without an attack argument against Kerry. He knows Ohio, Georgia, and probably Maryland are essential to continued credibility, but he has also earned the opportunity to let this play out.

But what neither man has earned is the right to dismiss the argument from pols and voters alike that if "electability" truly matters, these guys at some point should be running with, not against, each other.

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.