Saving Edwards' legacy.

Byline: The Register-Guard

"It's hard to speak out for change when you feel like your voice is not being heard."

- John Edwards, announcing his withdrawal from the 2008 presidential campaign

John Edwards' message may not have moved enough Democratic voters in the early primaries, but the central focus of his campaign - economic justice - deserves a prominent place in the Democratic platform as the race for the White House moves forward.

The eventual nominee - Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama - should take to heart Edwards' insistence that the Democratic Party return its focus to the cause of working people and those who live in poverty in America.

"For decades, we stopped focusing on those struggles," Edwards said in his withdrawal speech in New Orleans. "They didn't register in political polls, they didn't get us votes and so we stopped talking about it."

Thousands of the people Democrats lost track of live in Lane County, where 30 percent of households have incomes less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level ($17,600 for a family of three). A full-time worker supporting a family of three would need to earn more than $8.46 per hour to rise above the poverty level. Oregon's 2008 hourly minimum wage is $7.95.

Of the county's estimated 338,000 residents, 14.4 percent are poor, and thousands more are an illness or injury away from poverty. Forty-three thousand Lane County residents receive food stamps, with an average monthly benefit of $82.43. Nearly four schoolchildren in 10 (37 percent) are eligible for free and reduced-price lunches.

Edwards became the first leading presidential candidate in years to make economic justice the centerpiece of his campaign, giving a voice to the most vulnerable in American society: children, disabled citizens, veterans and the elderly.

"We don't turn away from a neighbor in their time of need," Edwards said in New Orleans. "Because every one of us knows that what - but for the grace of God, there goes us."

It's hard to say why Edwards' message didn't resonate with voters. Angry populism often galvanizes an electorate fed up with the status quo. All the ingredients seemed to be there for broad-based support: Americans are increasingly worried about how they'll pay for health care, college tuition and retirement.

Meanwhile, the assets of the uber-wealthy business elite President Bush jokingly called the "haves and have-mores" keep multiplying even as working Americans wonder why their buying power doesn't seem to budge. Sprinkle in the collapse of the housing market and a steady stream of billion-dollar corporate scandals and it would seem Edwards had a can't-miss message.

But for a number of reasons, voters didn't climb aboard the Edwards bandwagon. Americans remain leery of anything that smacks of class warfare, largely because of a persistent optimism that hard work, good ideas and a couple of breaks still are all it takes to achieve comfortable success.

It's a durable, if increasingly threatened, component of the American dream. The 2008 Democratic presidential nominee must continue Edwards' focus on reducing those threats and making that dream a reality for more Americans.