Making The Poor Visible

It stresses personal and parental responsibility while also addressing economic changes that are promoting inequality. It seeks to deal with the growing isolation of the poor, the need for early intervention in the lives of poor children and the importance of increasing the economic rewards for what is now low-wage work. Mostly out of public view, anti-poverty scholars and activists have used their time in the political wilderness to figure out what actually works.

Obama, for example, praised the comprehensive approach of the Harlem Children's Zone, developed by anti-violence activist Geoffrey Canada. It helps families from the moment a child is born. Obama also pointed to the success of programs aimed at providing new ladders for upward mobility by turning what were once considered dead-end jobs into opportunities for advancement.

Edwards put forward a pro-labor agenda to increase wages and benefits. He would also step up the recruitment of good teachers for poor children and create 1 million housing vouchers to allow "all families -- not just wealthy ones -- the freedom to move to the communities they choose."

As one of the shrewdest students of poverty has said, "the poor are politically invisible," removed as they are "from the living, emotional experience of millions upon millions of middle-class Americans."

Those words were written in 1962 by the late Michael Harrington in "The Other America," the book that helped launch the War on Poverty. In 2007, the poor are less politically invisible than they have been in a long time. That gives a new war on poverty at least a fighting chance. Edwards deserves some credit for that.

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