Seneca, SC is the town in which he was born and raised as a young man. The crowd was overflowing out of the gym in which he spoke, Edwards was preceded by ex congress critter Ben Jones, more famous as "Cooter" from the Dukes of Hazard TV show, Madeline Stowe, black minister and old Edwards friend Reverend Blasingame (another Seneca son) with a church now in Sumter SC, and Dr Ralph Stanley, and his bluegrass band... he sang a few songs and strapped on his banjo and smoked.
I sat centered in a whole group of John's old neighbors as a kid and was regaled at how much of a straight arrow he was then and remains today.
Funny, but that is what Ben Jones started with by describing how up in New Hampshire a few weeks ago when he told a rally of New England Yankees that Edwards didn't outgrow his roots, he had to explain that he meant that Edwards had not forgotten the working class mill people from which he arose.
and those mill people and their children came out in force for their favorite son a few hours ago. The look of the crowd was both black and white, lots of matrons yet still an eclectic crowd sprinkled with youth and men with faces who looked like they could pass through the pains of hell and shrug it off. They looked just like the textile mill people with whom I have worked for the past four decades. The crowd applauded Edwards constantly through his speech when talking about how his homegrown values were the center of his fight for the rest of us to ensure healthcare for all of us and get the government to provide a hand up not a handout.
On a note about the primary on Saturday in SC I have been working the Edwards phone banks and was quite surprised that in talking to over 100 people over the last several days that most Democrats were going to vote for Edwards.....because they felt what he was saying about America was correct as were his proposed solutions, only five or six of the people I talked to were going to vote for Obama, and two for Clinton.
While this was not any type of survey worth any newspaper ink, it seemed that for Greenville with a large white population, most of the Democrats were choosing Edwards over Clinton. But I must caution that I have no sample of areas with substantial percentages of black democrats.
Nevertheless, I would bet that Edwards beats Clinton on Saturday, and that seems to dovetail with the professional pollsters as they report his increasing poll numbers.
In sum, Edwards' message is beginning to resonate and pick up steam at precisely the time when his opponents are seeing a softening in their support, and I think that in large part it is because average folk are realizing the media narrative doesn’t seem to jive with what they are seeing in their own lives, so they are taking matters into their own hands.
BTW; The rally finished with Ralph Stanley asking people to hold onto the hands of those people next to them and he led the entire group of 800-900 in "Amazing Grace" as he held onto Edwards hand.... looking aroung, there were a lot of teary eyes in that crowd as the song finished.