http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1644961,00.htmlAfter three days on the road with John Edwards in some of the poorest places in America, it's not only the depth of human need that hits you, but the layered and interlocking complexity of it — the way a complete lack of health care, for instance, can all by itself consign someone to ignorance and joblessness. But you're also struck by how so many of the people who have been dealt these difficult hands manage to play them with grace and fortitude. That may sound trite to some ears, but it probably wouldn't to anyone who has spent time with James Lowe.
Lowe is 51 years old, a disabled coal miner from the hollows of Eastern Kentucky. He has never been one to get up in front of a crowd. Until last year, he wouldn't have been able to speak to the crowd even if he wanted to. He was born with a severe cleft palate; when he tried to talk he could not make himself understood, so after a while he stopped trying. He was one of 10 children, born to parents too poor to pay for the treatment he needed, and of course there was no insurance. Embarrassed by his condition, Lowe dropped out of school in fifth grade without learning to read or write, and eventually followed his father into the mines — and still couldn't afford treatment. Twenty-three years ago he was partially paralyzed in a mining accident and could no longer perform manual labor. That didn't leave him many options.
Lowe lived a mute and by his own account diminished life for five decades in all before he finally got a break last year. He made it happen by standing in line for 13 hours at the Wise Country Fairgrounds in the mountains of southwestern Virginia, where a nonprofit volunteer group called the Rural Area Medical Health Expedition once a year provides free medical and dental treatment to all comers. For thousands of men and women like Lowe who crowd the health fair every year, it represents the only medical care they ever receive. The dentists couldn't help Lowe on the spot but got him in to see someone who could, and now he has a dental prosthesis that allows him to speak pretty well. And so here he was on Wednesday morning — back at the fairgrounds rung by red-clay cliffs and sitting in front of the national media beside former Senator John Edwards and a group of health advocates, all because he wanted to say thank you to the people who had helped him. "We grew up hard, had nothing," he said, slim as a stick, with thick brown hair combed straight back from a well-worn face that's anchored by a salt-and-pepper goatee. "But what these people done for me made me feel like a whole different person."
Lowe seemed to be tolerating rather than enjoying all the attention, and he looked a bit startled when Edwards, kicking off the third and final day of his eight-state poverty tour, seized on his story and got angry on his behalf. "We have to do something about this! This is not okay!" the candidate said. "How can we allow this to happen, that James had to live 50 years without treatment? Are you listening? This is America's problem. And let me tell you, as long as I am alive and breathing I'm going to do something about it!"
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Whatever else happens to Edwards this year, whatever his candidacy becomes, it matters that he spent three days talking about the problems of people like James Lowe. Maybe Edwards succeeds in linking those problems to the concerns of the middle class and ignites his candidacy. And maybe he doesn't. Either way, he did some good this week and won at least one vote. "It means the world to me that he come down here," said James Lowe. "He's talking about helping working people? He's listening to people like me? To me, that means everything."
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