Edwards' Daytona visit lifts spirits
By VIRGINIA SMITH
Staff Writer
Last update: October 18, 2004
DAYTONA BEACH -- Dannette Henry remembers the mood at Greater Friendship Baptist Church four years ago, in the surreal and confusing days following the last presidential election.
N-J/Nigel Cook
Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards attends church services along with Daytona Beach Mayor Yvonne Scarlett-Golden, left, at the Greater Friendship Baptist Church in Daytona Beach on Sunday morning.
"It was . . . a great disappointment," said Henry, who described a sort of collective depression among church members. "You had many people who felt down."
On Sunday morning, four years seemed eons ago.
When Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards addressed Greater Friendship during its normal Sunday worship service, his famed optimism could hardly keep up with his audience's.
The North Carolina senator urged everyone to get to the polls today -- the first day of early voting in Volusia County -- to "make sure democracy works here in Florida this time," and drew resounding applause.
Edwards touched on the Iraq war only briefly, vowing that he and presidential nominee John Kerry would "clean up this mess." He focused, mainly, on domestic issues: prescription drugs, health care, closing disparities in education, improving unemployment rates, and securing a better deal, in general, for lower and middle-income households.
He promised relief to families who divide their bills into two piles, "pay now, and pay later," and said that during the Clinton Administration, "unemployment among African-Americans was in the single digits," while it has since shot back up, and is now considerably higher than for white Americans.
But what Edwards stressed most was the vote itself. He warned that "there are those who would keep us from the polls," and urged early voting as a safety measure. "I can't emphasize enough how important this is," Edwards said, and thanked pastor L. Ronald Durham for his work to promote early voting.
Edwards stayed for Durham's sermon, along with Daytona Beach Mayor Yvonne Scarlett-Golden, City Commissioner Dwayne Taylor and state Sen. Mandy Dawson, D-Fort Lauderdale.
Durham called Edwards' message "very powerful," and used it as a springboard for his own, intricate meditation on the American dream -- the spiritual essence of which is contained, Durham said, in the Declaration of Independence.
With oratory that could trounce Daniel Webster after a preliminary round with the devil, Durham expounded on Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, the biblical literacy of the Founding Fathers, and the God-given dignity of the individual.
"That dream has been battered by injustice, bruised by greed, and soiled by one man's arrogance," he said, but "it is still our dream."
Durham addressed Edwards directly, saying there would be "rough days ahead," along with setbacks and fatigue. He thanked him for giving "hope in a time of despair." He reminded everyone that "one vote can reverse the tide."
Absentee ballots are ready, Durham said before the organ played again, and told church members where to get one that afternoon. There would be a free lunch in it for them, he added.
As church members filed out onto George W. Engram Boulevard, they gave Edwards high marks. "He knew his stuff," said Daytona Beach resident Leticia House. "He seemed real genuine," not scripted, she said.
The early-voting message had penetrated long before Edwards, said Henry, who said she planned to vote as soon as physically possible.
In previous presidential elections, "we have always pushed voting voting voting," said the Daytona Beach resident, who is active in Democratic campaigns as well as the church. "This year a little bit more so."
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