Tuesday, April 11, 2006 | 11:41 a.m.
LAS VEGAS - Former Sen. John Edwards criticized Republicans for passing "immoral" tax cuts and Democrats for focusing on the political center at a meeting of mine workers Tuesday in Las Vegas.
"We've got enough politicians, what we need are leaders, " Edwards, the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket in 2004, told a crowd of about 500 members of the United Mine Workers of America, which represents 65,000 retired and active coal mine workers in Canada and the U.S.
For the past year, the former North Carolina senator has been crisscrossing the country as an anti-poverty advocate while laying the groundwork for another presidential bid. On the heels of a sweep through Iowa, Edwards met with two union audiences in the Las Vegas area - miners gathered for their annual convention and a labor-led coalition supporting an increase in the state's minimum wage.
He said he has not decided if he will seek the presidency in 2008.
Edwards, 52, criticized President Bush and Republicans in Congress for supporting a budget he said offered tax cuts to the rich and subsidies to oil companies, while cutting money for college loans and health care programs.
"It is immoral. We should be screaming from the rooftops about this," he told the miners meeting at the Riviera casino-hotel. "The country needs to know what this man is doing to this country."
He called on Democrats to back labor reform, ban the practice of hiring permanent replacement for striking workers and make it easier for unions to enlist members.
"It's time for the Democratic Party to go back and embrace the union movement, the organized labor movement," he said, bringing the audience to its feet. "I hear it from Democratic politicians, you know, 'what our party needs to do ... we need occupy the political center, we need to be more appealing to more people.' Well, how about if we show some backbone and guts and actually fight for the people we've always fought for."
Speaking later with reporters, Edwards would not say if he thought he and presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., had attempted to occupy the political center. He said he preferred not to look back and was focusing on the future.
In his speech to the miners, Edwards said a mine accident at the Sago Mine in West Virginia that killed 12 people would not have happened had the Bush administration not cut funding for mine safety.
"This is another in a long line of examples of failed leadership by the president and the White House," he said. "There was warning sign, after warning sign, after warning sign."
Edwards made no reference to the war in Iraq in his speech, though he told reporters later he now believes he was "wrong" when he voted to authorize the president to go to war in Iraq. He said he believed U.S. forces in Iraq should be reduced by 40,000 troops and leaders should bring Iraq's neighbors together to look for diplomatic solution.
"We can't do this for Iraq, they have to do this for themselves. They have to decide they're going to a have representative government. They have to decide they're going to secure their own country," he said.
State Republicans used the opportunity to criticize local Democrats for the former trial lawyer's visit.
"It's telling that Nevada Democrats are hosting a trial lawyer who advocates increasing taxes and bigger government," the party said in a statement. "Sen. Edwards made his vast fortune by taking advantage of some of the most desperate members of society at the expense of small-town doctors, advocating what is now considered junk science in medical malpractice cases."
That was not the impression Edwards left with some his union supporters.
"I believe what he says, he's serious. He's lived the life most of us live," said Ed Begovich, a 54-year-old coal miner from Crucible, Penn.
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