April 18, 2008 John Edwards speaks about poverty in Cambridge Play video

(Alison King, NECN: Cambridge, Mass.) - John Edwards was in Cambridge speaking at the Millennium Campus Conference, a three-day event sponsored by MIT's Global Poverty Initiative.

Script:

John Edwards: "35-million people in America went hungry last year."

It's been almost three months since John Edwards dropped out of the Democratic presidential race - and while he's kept a low profile, spending most of his time reconnecting with family, he has continued to advocate on behalf of his signature issue: poverty, not just in America, but in the world.

Edwards: "What America needs to be doing is to demonstrate that as a nation, we understand our link with the rest of humanity and our responsibility to humanity."

Speaking to the Millennium Campus Conference at MIT, Edwards said the next president of the United States must be a visionary who will make issues of poverty, global warming and third world development a priority. But Edwards stopped short of saying who he thought that next president should be.

When it comes to the presidential race, John Edwards is holding most of his thoughts pretty close to the vest - but he does open up on the role of the superdelegate.

King: "Do you feel they should be voting their conscience or with the will of the people?"

Edwards: "That's for them to decide, I think. My view is that it's perfectly reasonable for them to take into account what's happening with the vote in their state or the

King: "Do you have a problem with the race going into the convention?"

Edwards: "I think, for the good of America, for the good of the party, the sooner we can have a resolution the better."

Edwards says he's pleased to have gotten a commitment from both Oama and Clinton to press for policies that would alleviate poverty.