Of course, this was before the whole debacle involving him shtupping a campaign staffer (while his wife battled cancer), possibly fathering a child in the process, and then lying about all of it as the National Enquirer literally chased him around to break the story.
But I digress. One of the reasons that I liked Edwards was that he was trying to shed a light on the fact that there are a whole lot of extremely poor people in the United States who could really use some help--and a fair share of those poverty-stricken people in need call Southern Arizona home.
That leads us to this week's cover feature, by Tim Hull, which examines Southern Arizona's colonias. These unregulated, largely rural settlements are home to some of our area's poorest residents. The story offers an eye-opening look at some of our neighbors--people many of us never see or think about.
I truly hope that amid all of the turmoil in the economy, the Middle East, etc., President Barack Obama (gosh, it's nice to write those words) remembers Edwards' message about helping this country's poor. As Tim Hull shows this week, there are no easy solutions to poverty--but considering that food and gas prices are only expected to increase in the long-term, we have to do something.
