The Reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy?

Could John Edwards be the reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy?

I don't actually believe in reincarnation (not many Baptists do). Plus the math doesn't work: John Edwards was a few days shy of being 15 years old when Robert Kennedy was assassinated. But Kennedy succeeded in 1968 in convincing America that a man can be rich and still care about the poor. And he did it partly with a campaign trip that took him through the heart of Appalachia.

Edwards will spend three days on a poverty tour not unlike Kennedy's trip. The "Road to One America Tour" will leave New Orleans Monday morning and travel 1800 miles through some of America's poorest cities and rural counties. And Edwards plans to end his journey where Kennedy did 40 years ago, in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.

The Edwards tour starts tomorrow night in New Orleans, in the Lower Ninth Ward. Hurricane Katrina left that area of the city particularly devastated and recovery efforts have not been very successful there.

Edwards will also stop in

• Marks, Mississippi, where Martin Luther King Jr. began his 1968 Poor People's March to Washington.
  
• Helena and West Helena, Arkansas
  
• Memphis, Tennessee
  
• Cleveland, Ohio
  
• Youngstown, Ohio
  
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  
• Wise, Virginia
  
• And Whitesburg, Kentucky

The tour will end Wednesday with a visit a health care clinic in Wise, Va., and meeting in Whitesburg where Edwards will talk with area youth about economic opportunity, and finally a speech at the Floyd County, Kentucky, Courthouse where Robert Kennedy spoke.

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"It's time to be patriotic about something
other than the war in Iraq." - John Edwards