As he wrapped up his three-day poverty tour through the South yesterday, Louisville, Ky.’s Courier-Journal reports that presidential candidate John Edwards (D) told a crowd in Prestonsburg, “We’re going to raise the national minimum wage so people working for the minimum can actually provide for a family.”
That’s all well and good for a Democratic candidate who’s trying to position himself as THE liberal in a crowded field of liberal candidates. But again, it begs the question: Why then would John Edwards campaign with the liberal activist organization ACORN, which in 1995 sued California to be exempt from the minimum-wage law, arguing, “the more that Acorn must pay each individual outreach worker … the fewer outreach workers it will be able to hire.” (John Fund, The Wall Street Journal.)
A lot of small-business owners would make the same argument. Then again, Edwards isn’t out campaigning on behalf of America’s entrepreneurial class, is he?