Who knew?

I heard Senator John Edwards on NPR's News & Notes tonight. During the last presidential primaries, I was so infatuated with Howard Dean that I didn't give Edwards much thought. So tonight, I was surprised. Quite.

Granted, I was impressed by his mano-a-mano debate with Dick "where's he at now?" Cheney, his composure and confidence in the face of The Man. I started to like him more than I liked John Kerry. I started to think that the anti-Dean camp had picked the wrong guy. Edwards was young, attractive, affable, and spoke a lot about deepening class divisions. He could've been a winner, no?

But I digress. So Edwards was chatting it up with Ed Gordon on News & Notes tonight. And the entire conversation, all 20 minutes of it, was about Edwards' passion for bringing class and poverty issues to public awareness. He was talking about how the differences in average worth between black folks ($6,000) and white folks ($80,000) is unjust and needs to be addressed. He was speculating that the American people, "if asked by their leaders," would agree to have more of their tax dollars give poor Americans a hand up. He was speculating that this could be a unifying issue for all Americans, something to stand up and demand together.

He was speakin' the truth. Really.

Now, of course he's a politician and he's using the Katrina disaster to make his points more salient and timely. I just hope he doesn't quit talking about greater class parity once the spotlight created by the hurricane goes out. I kind of hope he runs for president again. I'd pay more attention to him this time around.