Personally, I Hope He Ignores This

UPDATED

What is it with politicians and their sex lives that makes them any of my business or yours?

RALEIGH, N.C. – Two weeks before their national convention, some Democrats are calling for former Sen. John Edwards to publicly address National Enquirer stories that he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby.

Mr. Edwards, as the 2004 vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate who won delegates this year, ordinarily would be locked in as a convention speaker.

"He absolutely does have to [resolve it]. If it's not true, he has to issue a stronger denial," said Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran Mr. Edwards' 1998 Senate race.

Mr. Edwards' decision not to take questions about the allegations has allowed doubts to linger and political bloggers to speculate.

If you haven't heard the story, the National Enquirer, which is to journalism what a four leaf clover is to hard work, has been following the tales of one Rielle Hunter who allegedly delivered a baby that John Edwards conceived.

Last December, an Edwards' campaign staffer, Andrew Young, who is also married and has children, came forward and admitted to being the father.

You'd think it would have ended right then and there, but it merely lay dormant.

Much of the interest in this story, clearly designed to throw a wrench in the Democratic coronation of Barack Obama as a candidate (and drop Edwards off the short list for VP, which no one took seriously anyway), has been generated by Fox News, the National Enquirer run by the improbably named Dave Pecker, and the usual gang of dust-dry vaginas and Jello-soft penises on the right wing (e.g. Michelle Malkin and FreeRepublic.com).

The rationale? Well, I don't know the extent of toe-nail clipping that has gone on over on the far right, but I imagine there's the whole Clintonian "If it matters at your house, it matters in the White House" nonsense, but since Edwards' is no longer running, that ought to be a non-starter.

An unique excuse is Edwards' marriage to a terminal cancer victim, Elizabeth, thus neatly dovetailing their gloating over her apparently imminent death while torturing her for the last few months she might have left to her.

Edwards' is a private citizen and therefore entitled to a bit more consideration and compassion than these numbnut assholes have chosen to give. Indeed, these self-same "pundits" (more like ersatz samizdats) raked Edwards over the coal for uncloaking his public persona in the face of his wife's illness, to some extent forcing him back into private life.

Let's assume for a moment the story is true, and Edwards is the father: If I was a terminal cancer patient, on chemo and radiation and exhausted and nauseous, I would probably give my blessings to my wife to go out and take care of her needs. The Edwards deserve at least as much privacy in their decisions as some shlub blogger in New York City.

Indeed, was it not Malkin herself who got her cheerleader panties in a twist when some faux-conservative blogger, Jesus' General, published her home address as well as a map of the neighborhood, citing privacy and safety concerns?

Now let's assume it's not true. Which it sure seems to be the case. Then Edwards deserves to be let alone and the two people who actually admit to the child, also private citizens, ought to be let alone. That Edwards hasn't complained loudly and long about their instigation of a horribly ugly episode in American politics is a testament to his loyalty and his belief that privacy is a right at the Constitution.

I agree with Edwards.

UPDATE: Then again, I could just be as naive an idiot as any Obomber.

Do It, John!

Well, this ought to be interesting...I'm beginning to think Edwards reads this blog and actually recognizes intelligence when he sees it...

Athletic Support

h/t Karyn Mannix for graphic

The post I wrote yesterday, pleading with John Edwards to get out of the Democratic primary and force voters to truly choose between the likely nominee in November between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, ruffled some feathers. That was not my intent, altho I should have seen it coming.

I make no apologies for my stance, nor do I retract it. I firmly believe what I said.

But...

A curious dynamic occured in the comment thread, and it's interesting to take note of it. There was a visceral reaction to what I posted, almost as if people took my anger, directed at Edwards, personally. That raised a question in my head: do we take elections a bit too seriously for the wrong reasons and not seriously enough for the right ones?

Let me give you an example: I, for one, could give a rat's ass if Hillary wins, or Barack wins, or even if John wins. I'll support them in the general election, just like I supported Kerry, Gore, Clinton, and so on, all the way back to Humphrey in 1968. I guess this allows me to not be influenced by passion: knowing that the candidate that wins the nomination will get my support anyway, I can sit back and dispassionately look at their positions, the current political climate, and whatever exogenous factors might crop up in any individual campaign, and choose whom I believe is the best candidate to lead us not just in the election cycle, but in the position, should that candidate win.

In this instance, I chose Hillary. When someone takes a shot at her, I will respond, but try to stay on point and make my response short and factual.

Now, I contrast that with the passions I feel about the issues: I can write tomes about Africa (I meant to today, but this Edwards thing sidetracked my thinking), or baseball and steroids, or poverty.

It just seems to me on those items there IS just one right and many wrong answers. Those will stir up the blood for me.

I get that Edwards speaks to these issues. So do Obama and Clinton, altho you'd never know it to hear Blogtopia (© Skippy the Bush Kangaroo) speak about them.

And I get that a lot of people have pinned hopes on Edwards, viewing him as the only anti-corporatist candidate left, now that Kucinich is gone. Personally, I think that's a mistake, but I won't defend that position here.

It's this emotional connection. That's intriguing to me.

Passionate politicians are a rarity. Nowadays, because of the function of the money needed to campaign, a candidate shows his or her passion at her peril. Think about it: when a candidate expresses himself in admiration of something, take Obama's comments about Reagan, then he's immediately smacked down by his opposition.

Clinton emoted her exhaustion and frustration, and the Edwards camp immediately jumped ugly about "strength to lead".

In short, the political process is one that emotion has to, by necessity, take a backseat to the mechanics of campaigning and policy. The rare politician who can inspire AND manage a campaign is a treasure.

Bill Clinton had this ability to balance. He called it "compartmentalizing." He could "feel your pain," and address a detailed comprehensive policy in the next breath.

Clinton's balance was slightly skewed to the wonk.

Obama too has this ability, albeit in a slightly different balance: his inspirations are stronger than his wonk fu. The problem I have with Obama is I can look past the inspirations to the exhalations, and find him about equal with Clinton in terms of stances, and she is miles ahead of him in terms of policy.

Edwards lacks a balance, completely. He is, in my view, all sizzle, no steak. To extend this metaphor, people hear the sizzle, smell the aroma and are attracted to it because they hunger for that steak. People talk about how his stimulus package was first to be unwrapped, before Clinton and Obama had theirs wrapped up, but even Edwards package was smaller than Bush's, as Joe Klein, of all people, points out.

So I'm having trouble wrapping my cynical, old brain about this whole emotional context that people bring to the defense of their candidate of choice.

Maybe I've seen too many wars. Maybe I'm just an easy target for venting frustration that Edwards ideas didn't take root and bear fruit with the electorate. Maybe I'm wrong for not feeling passion about any of the candidates running. Maybe my old friend Caroline Kennedy is right to point out that people need to be inspired in order to get involved.

And maybe I'm right. I don't know that I am, but it feels like it. In my view, any candidate who ends up the nominee is going to face a firestorm that makes the (Bill) Clinton elections look like a walk in the park, and any Democratic President is going to find it extremely hard, if not impossible, to enact any effective reform in the first term (barring a major shift in Senate seats, something that's not as likely as a Democratic presidency).

So any emotional attachments we make to a candidate are going to be, and this is the mildest scenario, sorely tested. I suspect we're going to be thoroughly disillusioned and people who are "inspired" by this candidate or that one are going to have a rude awakening. This is why I think it's important that, this time in particular, we get it right and not get sidetracked by a sideshow put on by someone for their ego's sake.

The Politics of Obstruction

It's in my mind that we've been seeing, for the past 16 years, a new theme in American Presidential politics: The politics of obstruction.

I say this after viewing the detailed results of the South Carolina Democratic primary yesterday. Barack Obama swamped the Clinton campaign, 54% to 27%, with John Edwards running an even more distant third in his home state (18%).

The details are in the Devil, to twist a phrase: Clinton didn't even capture a plurality of the white vote, Edwards edging her out by four percent there, and yet Clinton stomped the yard with him.

Normally, you'd think, well, Edwards just sang his swan song and is being tugged off the stage. I mean, 18% in your own backyard is a little like, I don't know, a President pulling approval ratings in the 30s. Ballgame over, time to pack the bags.

But not John Edwards!

And that got me to thinking about insurgent campaigns, like Ross Perot's, or Ralph Nader's. We can now add John Edwards to the list of people whose ego has written checks their bankbooks can't cash. And you have to ask yourself, why?

Is it vanity? Ego? An overinflated sense of self-worth?

John, let's look at this calculatedly: you had a two year head start on Hillary and Barack. You practically moved to Iowa.

And you placed second. A distant second. You haven't placed closer ever since.

Your message of Two Americas, as noble as it is, is not resonating with people who are deathly afraid of the Depression that is coming.

And why should it? You offer no hope to those who "have," who own a house and have a car and maybe even a decent health insurance from work, even tho in reality those are the people who are most in danger of becoming citizens of the Second America.

As best as I can figure, your entire campaign now rests on this statistic: the last three elected Democratic presidents all came from the South. But that dynamic, one of moderate centrist white men winning in the South by forging a coalition of Blue Dog Democrats, is in danger of being overwhelmed by the envigorated black vote and the carpetbagger Northeasterners who moved to follow their jobs.

And you're too liberal to sway the former Reagan Democrats.

I get this picture in my head that there's this big chalkboard at Edwards' campaign headquarters, with this long complex equation on it. It starts out "White House=..." and the last term in the equation is "+and then the miracle happens!"

Get over it, John. The last true miracle in this country happened in Lake Placid in 1980. You're not the solution the country wants and right now, you're running as the candidate who believed he was entitled to the nomination because it was "my turn," having failed so miserably in 2004 as VP.

Which basically means, you're part of the problem. Get out.

The Race So Far

It's been an interesting month in both the Democratic and Republican primary season, one filled with surprises and not-surprises-that-sort-of-looked-like surprises. I figure this is as good a time as any to assess where things seem to be headed.

First, the Republicans:

It seems pretty clear after Saturday's South Carolina win by John McCain that he has the momentum, and that the only serious challenger to his nomination is Mitt Romney, who could outfinance John McCain and still have enough left over for a downpayment on a Caribbean island like, say, Guadeloupe. If he can win Florida, Romney might be able to save enough of his fortune to buy Jamaica.

Rudy Giuliani, who has been all but anointed by the White House (if you scan back across the Bush administration and see how many times Rudy's name pops up in connection with appointees, you'll see what I mean), has lost any mojo he had as the presumed nominee of 2007. TOo bad for Rudy, the election is THIS year. In your next life, maybe you'll treat your wives with a bit more respect.

John McCain's strength in the primaries will be his name recognition. Second only to Giuliani, John McCain's name is one of those quirky things that voters who really could give a rat's ass who faces Hillary the Democratic nominee in November will remember when they pull the lever. That alone could give him a substantial leg up over Romney, but keep in mind that the South has barely had a chance to ratify Mormonism, and there is an awful lot of anxiety over Romney's religion in the deep Christian south.

It's been fun to watch this race, not so much for the main event, but for the sideshow: watching right wing pundits fall all over themselves to find a "true conservative in the mold of George W. Bush" (I can't imagine anyone saying that with a straight face), and failing miserably as each of their Chosen Ones has withered away like old roses: Hunter, Tancredo, now Thompson.

So much for the might of the Blogosphere, not that Blogtopia (© Skippy the Bush Kangaroo) has fared much better.

Prediction: John McCain delivers a severe blow to Romney in Florida, who had hopes of swiping Giuliani's thunder. He then racks up enough delegates on SuperDuper Tuesday to guarantee at least a seat at the table for any brokered convention.

Which of course means it's time to revive this old Googlebomb:

There was an odd pol, John McCain:
John McCain ate the Punditry's brain:
John McCain's silly "straight talk"
Made Tweety joyfully squawk --
And out of his Hardballs, he came.

Now, the Democrats

To be honest, I was deeply troubled by the Iowa results. While I never expected Hillary to win that state's caucuses, I expected Edwards and Obama to split the caucus more evenly, leaving Hillary a far better showing than ten points off the lead. It made me wonder if we were seeing a brand new historic moment to go along with all the others: the realization that Americans have an attention span and remember Edwards' miserable campaign at the Vice Presidential nominee in 2004.

That may well still be a valid observation-- it never pays to be in the number two slot on a losing ticket-- but as the polls suggested an huge Obama win in New Hampshire, you finally saw Hillary wake up. I think she took the loss in Iowa for granted, and only when she realized how much ground she had to make up did she wake up and start campaigning in earnest.

I don't mean working the crowds or anything like that. That has about as much to do with winning elections as sending an e-mail to a Congresscritter has to do with passing legislation. I mean, getting her ground game in business, and leaning on the people who were doing the fundraising, the networking, and the grunt work of shoring up the mechanical aspects of campaigning: making sure people vote. The Clinton strength has been the organization that elected Bill twice. I'm not sure why she delayed getting that into high gear. Perhaps she believed her own press.

Obama lost this election in the final debate before New Hampshire, and he knows what he did that caused it: his petulant attitude towards someone who deserved more respect than he was willing to give her. You'll notice that after Hillary stomped a mudhole in Obama in New Hampshire, Barack was quick to change the tone of discourse towards Hillary.

You know what they say about a woman scorned.

Obama's best hope, perhaps his only one, is to hang around long enough for Hillary to be lulled back into the "inevitability" thing again and start making mistakes. This weekend's Nevada caucuses tell me she's not likely to do that again. Say what you will about the Clinton machine: apart from sex scandals, they learn fast.

I think Obama knows he's about to get the fork stuck in. When you start picking fights with the spouse of your opponent, you're making a big mistake, and he's done that twice in four days now. As I've said before, Barack, your fight isn't with Bill Clinton and loony comments like praising Ronald Reagan ahead of him is just going to tie you up when you most need to be campaigning. He's good, he's very good, at antagonizing his opponents. Don't mess with The Big Dog until you've got some scalps in your pouch already.

Obama's worst enemy is John Edwards. Despite the appearance of being in agreement, these two men really should be at each other's throats, and I'm not sure that's not a dynamic based on some "between the lines" reading I've been doing.

For instance, while Edwards has "me, too'ed" a lot of Obama's comments towards Hillary's problems, that mere bobbleheaded agreement has caused Obama headaches as Edwards was more than willing to take things one step forward with his comments.

For example, while Obama was careful not to comment on Hillary's moment of emotionality in New Hampshire, Edwards questioned Hillary's strength.

Since he had played hitman in the last debate before this show of emotion to Obama's mob boss portrayal, both of them suffered badly for that misstatement by Edwards, and directly attacking Obama's message of unity. That couldn't have played well in the Obama camp.

I can understand Edwards being pissed as all get out at Obama. After all, only ONE one term Senator should run for President on a platform of change at a time, and Edwards was there first!

Prediction: Hillary loses in South Carolina to Obama, who steals near-native-son Edwards' lunch. Hillary however goes onto Florida, wins there, and then takes California, New York, and Connecticut on SuperDuper Tuesday, all but guaranteeing her nomination with those contests, based on the selected delegates as well as the super delegate counts.

It pays to be in the Senate for more than two years, you see, because you get to meet the superdelegates: elected representatives to whom you can dole out pork. Hillary started the season over 100 delegates more than Obama had.

So it's shaping up as a John McCain/Hillary Clinton showdown in November, unless something brutally outside of the foreseeable happens.

This Is JUST What The Doctor Ordered!

Dr. Karl Rove, that is:

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Race became a focus of the Democratic presidential campaign on Sunday with Hillary Clinton accusing rival Barack Obama of distorting remarks she made last week about the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement.

Obama, who would be the first black president, called this "ludicrous" but said Clinton had offended some Americans who believed her comments last week had marginalized the role of black leader Martin Luther King in advancing those rights.

Clinton, who would become the first woman president, and Obama are locked in a close race for the right to represent the party in the November 4 election to succeed President George W. Bush. Republicans too are in a tight race.

In case you missed it, and you may have, Clinton said in effect that while Martin Luther King Jr's words were passionate and powerful, it took a political process to bring about the changes he wanted to see.

And she was right. And wrong. There's no guarantee that President Johnson would have done much about civil rights if not for the powerful words AND actions of Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the other hand, Martin Luther King Jr could not introduce legislation into Congress to create The Civil Rights Act, The Great Society or The Voting Rights act. It was Johnson's sheer power, force of will, and knowledge of Congress that got these passed.

It is precisely this kind of bitter dissension that the Republicans are hoping for. The focus of BOTH campaigns should be to show the American people how they'll improve our lives. The economy is tanking, there's a war going on that's draining our lifeblood figuratively as well as literally. We have more important things to do than to assess credit for what little progress has been made in this country regarding race.

And while Clinton's wording was clumsy when she made her original comments, "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done," it's a little hard to say she minimized King's contributions, but I suppose if you're thin-skinned enough (or willing to lay down the race card), you can make the claim. One can have a dream, work hard for that dream, and yet it may take something beyond one's control to realize that dream.

Luck, after all, is the residue of hard work, and no one is denying King did the hard work.

It's not the only time Obama partisans have unfairly injected race into the, well, race:

In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president.

“There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”

(You might ponder how tied up Obama might be in a general election when Republicans fight with the gloves off as you read this piece.)

The race has gotten nasty (even John Edwards has "me, too'd" the whole Martin Luther King thing, and he might do better to shut the hell up and let these two scratch out each other's eyes. Did New Hampshire teach you nothing, son?). If it's going to get over and done with quickly, fine, but if this animosity lingers well beyond February, it could rift the Democratic Party enough to hand the election to the Republicans.

So...again, I'm just a shlub blogger who's only been politically active and aware for 40 years.. it might behoove both Obama and Clinton to shake hands, and apologize.

And grow a thicker skin.

Notes on New Hampshire

There's been an awful lot of analysis of the results from last night's New Hampshire primary, including some rather "over the top" stories.

"Clinton Escapes"? *snark*

Hillary Clinton did get a wake-up call in Iowa, to be sure. I don't want to minimize that, She also was in deep trouble, based on the polling leading up to last night. Even her internal numbers looked bad, if you read between the lines of the news stories coming out of her camp.

So what happened? What changed between Iowa and New Hampshire?

One word: organization.

Clinton had very little organization in Iowa. Indeed, she was warned going into Iowa that she stood very little chance of winning the caucuses and she should consider skipping them, but the impression of the "inevitable nominee" skipping any primary or caucus didn't play well.

So she went in expecting to lose. I don't think she expected to lose that badly.

In New Hampshire, it was a different story: she had the blessings of the regular Democratic machine in the state (Jean Shaheen, former governor of the state, and wife of former Clinton press aide Michael Penn, was her state campaign chairman), and she had a network of volunteers that recruited 6,000 volunteers from out of state this past weekend to knock on doors.

Too, she caught a break in the frenzy over scheduling: as Iowa, Michigan, and Florida started to play with the calendar, New Hampshire was forced to move their primary up into the winter break for Dartmouth University. Dartmouth would have provided some votes for Clinton (single college educated women went strongly for her), but Obama and Edwards would have gained many more votes than she.

Edwards provided another firewall for her, to be sure. By aligning his position so closely to Obama's, he gave political cover to those who wanted to vote for him but who felt obliged to acknowledge Obama's "change" narrative. I think this backfired on Edwards. I think he meant to take Clinton out, but only hampered Obama's chance for victory.

One more unintended resource for Cljnton was the independent vote, which swerved from Obama in Iowa to support John McCain in New Hampshire. I'm thinking hatred of Romney survives from his gubenatorial reign in neighboring Massachussetts.

But to say that Clinton "escaped" in New Hampshire is to tacitly acknowledge that Obama "escaped" in Iowa, because these factors I've listed here (with the possiblee exception of Edwards) worked for Obama in Iowa.

Hillary Clinton finally got her campaign back on track, doing pretty much what I prescribed earlier this week (albeit in a way I had never pondered when I wrote my piece), She took the focus away from the infighting and turned the spotlight more clearly on what she wanted to do for this country, and how this country had slipped back from progress:

"You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said, her voice breaking a bit. The audience applauded.

"This is very personal for me, it's not just political, it's [that] I see what's happening, we have to reverse it," she said emotionally, adding that some "just put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds.

"But some of us are right and some of us are wrong. Some of us ready and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one, and some of us really haven't thought that through enough."

"So as tired as I am and I am. And as difficult as it is to try and keep up what I try to do on the road, like occasionally exercise and try to eat right -- it's tough when the easiest food is pizza -- I just believe so strongly in who we are as a nation.

Just keep it up, Hillary. You've got your groove back.

Thoughts On Iowa

There's yet another Clinton hit piece in the New York Times today. Given how the Times has been in the back pocket of the Republican party for close to ten years now, it's understandable.

Here's what I think about the Iowa results.

Obama ran a fine campaign. So did Edwards. But it was going to come down to those two under any circumstances: Edwards has campaigned there since 2006....remember, he was part of the elite luxury idle rich...and Obama comes from a neighboring state. Hillary never really stood a chance in a state that's as close to red without actually being red, and still has strong animosity towards her husband.

For her part, Hillary could probably have run a stronger campaign, and not made some of the costly errors that she did, most notably the cocaine attack (she should have had surrogates raise the issue that couldn't be so easily traced back to her). That coke use is going to be an issue in the general election should Obama win (or be the VP candidate). Make no mistake about it, and there is a significant part of the population that simply won't vote for someone who's done drugs, particularly one with the criminal trappings that cocaine has.

This is why Bush had worked so hard to cover up his coke use. You or I might not care, but in a country where recent elections have been decided by miniscule vote differentials, that one issue might be enough to prevent him from winning.

We have a slamdunk in front of us. We shouldn't be wasting the opportunity on someone who made "youthful indiscretions" beyond getting a little frisky in the backseat of a car at the drive-in. I'm sorry.

The surprising margin of victory should give us all pause. I suspect the Oprah factor was more important than many allowed, but I haven't really looked at exit polls to be sure of this. Clearly, when every major polling organization has a statistical dead heat in a race where the winner walks away with nearly ten percent more, those agencies ought to look at either their methodology or whether the vote count was accurate.

I'm not saying, I'm just sayin' it doesn't have to just be Republicans that steal elections, altho a head count of people standing around (what a dumb way to run a party!) would be pretty hard to fake...even if I can think of four ways off the top of my head that might work.

So Obama won. Now what?

Well, New Hampshire becomes a bit more important to the Clinton campaign. She should do extremely well there, likely a winner. South Carolina might go for Edwards, but Obama's surprising strength in Iowa will energize Democrats there, and so that race now becomes a toss-up as well. Clinton can outlast Edwards (who has like zero dollars in the bank).

None of these states really matters in the long run, however, except for the media exposure a win brings. SuperDuper Tuesday is the prize, and that's the strategy Rudy! Giuliani has rolled the dice with: make it past these pisher early states (although he has to win one of the next three primaries), and reap the rewards of being a media darling. Clinton's strategy takes the same form, altho my guess is she could lose New Hampshire and still win the nomination on the 5th.

Obla di, obla da

Oh Brother! Where The Fuck Art Thou?

Let's assume that this story is true for a second:

NATIONAL ENQUIRER WORLD EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL!

So?

Isn't his wife, Elizabeth, terminal? Isn't it pretty clear that she's likely not only aware of this relationship, but has possibly even given it her blessing?

Given the, um, rather randy way the Republican line-up has comported themselves in their personal affairs...Rudy Giuliani himself has almost as many spouses as half the Democratic field...who really cares?

Now, let's take the story's merits under close examination by parsing it:

The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to Edwards in a cheating scandal earlier this year, is more than six months pregnant – and she’s told a close confidante that Edwards is the father of her baby!

OK, so we have some hearsay, second hand information that John Edwards is the father of an illegitimate child with a woman he has long been associated with.

No direct proof, not even the word of the woman herself. Just some overheard gossip.

Let's move on:

The ENQUIRER has now confirmed not only that Rielle is expecting, but that she’s gone into hiding with the help of a former aide to Edwards . The visibly pregnant blonde has relocated from the New York area to Chapel Hill, N.C. where she is living in an upscale gated community near political operative Andrew Young, who’s been extremely close to Edwards for years and was a key official in his presidential campaign.

Hang on, this story has one more twist:

Young – a 41-year-old married man with young children -- now claims HE is the father of Rielle’s baby.

So she moves to Chapel Hill to be...either closer to the father of her baby or to duck out media scrutiny.

On the prima facie evidence, which seems more likely? If she's ducking media attention, then moving to the same community as a high profile campaign official hardly seems to be the way to go, don't you think? Gated community or not, the media will be camped out in that area, waiting.

That's hardly ducking out!

In a statement issued to The ENQUIRER through her attorney, Rielle said: “The fact that I am expecting a child is my personal and private business. This has no relationship to nor does it involve John Edwards in any way. Andrew Young is the father of my unborn child.”

QED

From the woman herself, we have the admission that indeed, it's not Edwards' baby, and that Edwards never even had sex with her, unlike the Monica Lewinski affair, in which Monica herself kept quiet about it until she had to testify.

MEMO

TO: The Republican Right Wing
CC:: "Eggman" Matt Drudge

GROW THE FUCK UP, WILL YA?

We have bigger problems in this nation than to get tangled up in the private affairs of people.

I thought you learned that when the country viciously backlashed against the Clitnon impeachment?

Fussed Responders

In 2004, as the Democratic national convention closed and weeks before the Republicans opened their hate-fest in NYC, a window of opportunity opened: John Kerry was the chosen nominee. George W Bush had not been formally coronated for his second term campaign.

Which meant that John Kerry was barred from spending his general election campaign funds because he accepted public funding, but also barred from spending the residue of his primary campaign warchest in the general election period.

Naturally, this void was quickly seized upon by Karl Rove and the other Republofascists, and attacks were quickly launched: Ted Sampley, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the proto-flipflop charges were launched against Kerry.

Kerry, not having media savvy (and frankly, was boring as hell in front of a camera), didn't take the magnitude of these attacks or their repercussions seriously. The campaign wrongly calculated that this three pronged assault on Kerry's character wouldn't resonate.

And in truth, the original charges did not (except the infamous "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it"). But the image people had in their minds early on was one of a man who spoke out of both sides of his mouth.

Not good. What Kerry needed was what Bill Clinton had: a rapid response team.

Move forward to 2008. Hillary Clinton is running and now that things are reaching crunch time, people on both sides of the aisle are launching attacks:

CONCORD, N.H., Oct. 29 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton came under pointed attack Monday by her two main rivals for the Democratic nomination, who said she was not being direct on Social Security and also suggested she was too cozy with Washington lobbyists.

The rivals, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, in campaign appearances in Iowa and here, took on Mrs. Clinton by name, escalating their attacks on her a day before they were to share a stage at the Democratic debate in Philadelphia.

PETERBOROUGH, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Sunday blasted Hillary Rodham Clinton for talking about what she would do on the diplomatic front between her possible election and inauguration.

Clinton has told crowds she would send "distinguished Americans of both political parties to travel around the world on my behalf with a very simple message to the governments and the people alike: The era of cowboy diplomacy is over."

Giuliani, pointing to a story in Sunday's Des Moines Register about her statements, said such comments hurt the United States and undermine the balance of President Bush's term, which ends Jan. 20, 2009.

I'm going to ignore the laughability of Rudy's claim about "credibility". That's kind of like saying Jeffrey Dahmer must be a vegetarian.

Instead, I want to focus on a little-noticed aspect of her campaign:

When Barack Obama confronted Hillary Clinton's vote on Lieberman-Kyl, the Clinton campaign quickly mailed a detailed explanation of her vote to Iowans.

When Barack Obama told the New York Times that he would start to challenge Clinton more aggressively and picked her refusal to detail her Social Security fix as his first target, within 10 hours the Clinton campaign was on the air in New Hampshire with an ad attempting to inoculate any perceived vulnerabilities on Social Security.

Depending on the size of the buy, more New Hampshire residents probably saw the Clinton ad before they heard too much about Obama's charge on Social Security. And notice how Clinton frames her opposition: by using George W. Bush as a foil.

The ad contains a most excellent bit of writing:"These days, it seems like every candidate on earth is coming here for You. But which candidate has been there for you all along?"

The Bill Clinton rapid response team had T shirts printed up in 1992 that said "Speed Kills", meaning the faster they could get a response out to anything Bush the Elder tried to do in the campaign, the faster they could kill his Presidency.

As Carville points out, by 1996 he had moved on. By 1998, nearly all of the team-- Carville, George Stephanopoulos, Dee Dee Myers, and others-- had moved on.

You wonder how the Lewinski affair would have played out if they had stayed?

Now it's 2008. Another Clinton is running and it appears that, yes, a rapid response team has reformed and is running the war room.

One of the big differences this year is YouTube, which did not exist in 1992 or 1996 (or really, in 2004, when you think about it), but which had an huge impact in the 2006 midterm elections. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama make generous use of this medium, so we might even see simultaneous assaults and responses launched in cyberspace and the main stream media.

Presumably, in a general election, greater use of these tactics will have to be employed, and strategies developed to deflect and deflate charges that will be made.

YouTube, as well as other Internet outlets, do not have the same level of self-regulation as even the pitiful excuse we have for news reporting does. Any slander or smear can be posted, with minimal reprisal, yet it will force a rapid response.

And that's not to say the right is without facility in this regard, although their results have been far from effective, much less as dazzling as Clinton's.

So who might make up this rapid response team for Hillary? Well, Mandy Grunwald, one of Hillary's senior advisers, has been blogging for her, so we can assume she's had some input; Crystal Patterson, who was Ted Kennedy's Internet operations manager before joining the campaign; Lee Feinstein, who worked under Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, has the foreign policy duties; and then there's Mark Penn, chief strategist for BOTH Clinton's and James Carville protege. And of course, the Big Dog himself.

So if this all seems familiar, the way the campaign is running, hitting on all cylinders with nary a hiccup, there's the team to credit. Or blame.

The "So Be It" Barack

Much has been made about the mantle of inevitability of Hillary Clinton's candidacy, if not her Presidency. I tend to agree with this sentiment, and while I have my reservations about Hillary's abilities to lead this country, from a purely political standpoint, I think she's done a fine job of campaigning for the past six years.

The only other candidate, it seems, with the staying power to compete with Hillary as well as the platform that might topples this juggernaut (including Republicans) is Barack Obama.

Now, I like Obama, too, and should the choice come down to these two at the end of the trail, I'd be hard pressed to choose between them.

On one hand, we have the inevitability factor, as well as far more experience than Obama. On the other, we have the certainty of youth and the creativity of an outsider.

Tough choice. Obama is trying to attack Hillary's experience, tho, and I think that's a really dumb mistake:

"He's basically going to lay out a comprehensive case for why his original opposition to the war demonstrates why he has the kind of strength and experience to lead this country," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Citing aides to Obama, The New York Times reported he will also propose setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism.

If this is the major theme he's going to attack Clinton on, Obama has some questions to answer, not least of which is why his voting record on the war and war funding since he was elected is nearly identical to Clinton's.

For a strident war opponent, one who nags both Clinton and John Edwards constantly about their vote to authorize, the sense I get from his subsequent votes is that he would have fallen in line right alongside everyone else. I suspect I'm not alone in that impression.

We're Democrats, not Republicans. We can read.

But to go on...:

Obama has tried to turn the tables on Clinton in recent days by saying he has the equivalent experience that her husband, Bill Clinton, had when running for the White House in 1992.

"I remember what was said years ago by a candidate running for president," Obama said in New Hampshire on Saturday. "He said, 'The same old experience is not relevant. You can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience.'

"Well that candidate was Bill Clinton. And I think he was absolutely right," Obama said.

Yea, he said that...as a two-term governor of Arkansas, with experience running a bureaucracy, balancing a budget and being directly responsible for administering a government.

Barack, you've got two election wins under your belt, the bigger one based solely on a terrific speech you gave at the national convention, running against a guy who couldn't have beaten OJ Simpson. That's all. To be comparing yourself to Bill (Greatest. President. Ever) Clinton is a little...cocky, to put it mildly.

A better, and perhaps more valid comparison to make is Hillary with George Bush: a family member of a former President being thrust into contention based almost solely on name recognition, with the opposition party lying in the bushes (er, no pun intended), waiting to pounce.

And then hope no one bothers to read up on her Senate record. They might not, because this line of reasoning at least rings true for people.

Look, people out here want change. Even I'm uncomfortable with the fact that it's highly likely that, for 36 years, we could have either a Bush or Clinton in the White House (going back to Bush the Mature as Reagan's VP). Dynasties are supposed to be missed in a democracy.

Whether we still have one is in question and is the subject of a different post. To the point at hand, experience matters, to be sure, when a country is as unsteady as this one is, but change matters, too.

For Barack Obama to come from behind and win this thing is going to require a ground-up rethinking of his campaign, starting with, from all accounts, his stump speech, which I'm told is about as mechanical as John Kerry without any of the glamourous war stories. He's a more vibrant speaker than his stump speech let's him be. He needs to connect with people.

John Edwards is challenging in the one must-win state for both Obama and Edwards, despite being handicapped in fund raising, because Edwards can touch people. He has some of Bill Clinton's sympatico and common man feel, despite the haircuts and fancy suits.

Too, Obama's tone-deafness in Iowa can't be helping. Iowa is an old state, with a high percentage of over 50 voters. To slough off an AARP debate is practically suicide, even if you believe your staff that the under 30 vote is being wildly undercounted.

When a 50 year old says they're going to vote, they're going to vote. When a 20 year old says it, you'd better damned well hope the St. Louis Rams aren't in the playoffs or it's not finals week.

By all accounts Obama's fund raising strength plus the broad base of small contributors he's built is formidable, but much of that is from people who just hate Hillary and can't take Edwards seriously added to people who genuinely admire Obama and believe he can win.

It also skews very young, which again doesn't bode well for the commitment to Obama they've made.

He has the stuff to survive Iowa and New Hampshire and perhaps to make a game of it in South Carolina, but he has to start running as opposed to just showing up.

A Kodak Moment

(hat tip to Bartcop)
If only this could be true:

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former Sen. John Edwards said at a Hurricane Katrina conference he would propose what he called "Brownie's Law" requiring that qualified people, not political hacks, lead key federal agencies.

Edwards, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, drew laughter when he spoke on Monday of the proposal at the "Hope and Recovery Summit" ahead of the two-year anniversary of the storm on Wednesday.

"It's an absolute travesty to have people who are essentially political hacks in a very responsible position," he told the audience at the University of New Orleans.

"Brownie" refers to Michael Brown, who was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Katrina struck the United States on August 29, 2005. He was criticized as being a political appointee unprepared to lead FEMA when a floundering government effort stranded thousands for days in flooded New Orleans.

He resigned shortly after President George W. Bush, who appointed him to the post, told him publicly, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" as chaos reigned in the devastated city.

Unfortunately, the tradition of patronage and rewarding hacks is a long-standing one in politics, not only in America.

True, Brownie blew up in Dubya's face (and a real leader would have fired him in a New York minute, rather than glad-hand him and give us weeks more of incompetent boobery in New Orleans and Mississippi), as did Alberto Gonzalez, another incompetent and ill-equipped appointee. Bush has cover on Gonzo, tho, since the Senate...the GOP-controlled Senate...had to vet and confirm that braying burro of an attorney general.

Still, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, Edwards' proposal, but one that is ultimately doomed to the bonepile of good-but-impractical ideas. Many questions can be raised: who would vet the credentials of the appointees? The Senate? That would be unConstitutional, which specifically delineates what positions require Senate confirmation.

A blue-ribbon panel? OK, but who would appoint them? And what qualifications would they need?

And you just know some right-wing blog is checking out Edwards' appointees and staffers, looking for any hint of incompetence or underqualification for the position they hold.

Which raises yet another, more basic issue: what would happen if someone whose qualifications are not immediately apparent was appointed to one of these posts?

Nothing in Brownie's past indicated that he would be anywhere near qualified for FEMA director, save for a job as a glorified secretary for some state emergency manager's office.

Sometimes, tho, those administrative assistants know more about the job and the responsibilities than the people who nominally oversee the agency.

Just ask Brownie's secretary at FEMA! In fact, I'd wager that she (or he) would have made a far better FEMA director than Brownie, but (s)he'd never be hired under Edwards' plan.

Nice thought, John-boy. Try again.

How Desperate Is John Edwards?

No one would ever accuse the Edwards' family of having a traditional family in the old style American sense: stay-at-home, docile wife, breadwinning hubby, 2.4 kids. But you'd figure John wouldn't hide behind his wife's skirt:

WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Edwards thinks her husband is a better woman warrior than Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In an unusually blunt, no-holds-barred interview with Salon.com, Elizabeth Edwards, who is fighting cancer, said Clinton is "not as vocal a women's advocate as I want to see."

She went on to question Clinton's commitment to defending abortion rights, making a veiled reference to the former first lady's recent claim that abortions are tragedies.

Fair enough, we're all entitled to different opinions. After all, we're not Republicans. Hillary Clinton, whose work for women's issues stretches way back to pre-First Lady days, doesn't need me to defend her comments that abortions should be safe, legal and rare. It certainly doesn't help us sway moderate voters when Ms. Edwards' tries to claim that's too moderate a position. Continuing...

"She describes some cost-saving things, which John also supports, but she acts like that's going to make health care affordable to everyone," Edwards said.

"She knows it won't. She's not really talking about poverty, when the face of poverty is a woman's face, often a single mother," she said.

You can't have it both ways, Ms. Edwards. If your husband supports the same measures that Hillary supports, then it's kind of pointless to claim Ms. Clinton doesn't have a comprehensive plan, unless by extension you're admitting your own husband hasn't done his homework as well.

What bothers me most about these comments is that it's not John Edwards who is making them, and it ought to be. I'm not saying Elizabeth Edwards has no place on the campaign trail...hell, she's earned her stripes...but attacks like this ought to come from the candidate him (or her) self, and Mr. Edwards ought to stand by them. That would take courage, of course, which seems to be in short supply in the Edwards' campaign.

I say this having remarked in the past that I think Elizabeth Edwards' voice may be the most important in her husband's campaign, but I said that with the meaning of speaking to the issues, not tearing down other candidates. Contrast these comments with the ones Hilalry made in 1992 when she was running against Barbara Bush for First Lady.

What's that? She said nothing about Mrs. Bush?

My point, precisely. Meanwhile, Mrs. Bush had great sport with Hillary Clinton and in the end probably cost her husband more votes with her bitchiness than she garnered for him by tearing down Hillary.

I voted for Edwards over Kerry in the 2004 primaries. I won't make that same mistake again.

Iraq The Vote

There is an interesting dynamic developing in the Democratic Presidential race:

AMES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama drew a contrast with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Iraq war on Sunday and said it was unclear how she planned to end the conflict.

On the day after he formally launched his 2008 White House bid, Obama said on a campaign swing through Iowa that even before the war began it was possible to see the dangerous consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well," the Illinois senator told reporters, indirectly contrasting his stance with presidential rivals Clinton and John Edwards, who both voted to authorize the war in 2002.

Clinton, now a war critic who has promised to end the conflict if she wins the White House, has been criticized by some Democrats for her 2002 Senate vote on authorization and for not renouncing the vote.

So, we have three possible positions to take on the vote to authorize the President to go to war in Iraq: Voted for it, and stand by that vote; voted for it, but repudiated it; would not vote for it.

Of course, Obama's cynical calculation of his position on the Iraq war vote in 2002 is meaningless: he wasn't a senator and is therefore free to say whatever he feels will draw the most attention. Since the war is going badly and the majority of people in the United States (certainly, the majority of Democrats) oppose the war now, this is the easiest position to take, requiring no finessing.

Too, Edwards gets a bit of a free pass on this, since it wasn't until he was out of the Senate that he declared his vote was "wrong", whatever that means. Kinda easy to paint your former colleagues as warmongers when you don't have to face them in chambers any longer. Had he done it during the 2004 campaign, he'd have shown a bit more backbone.

Which leaves Hillary's stance. Say what you will about her vote to authorize war and her nuanced excuse for that vote (like Obama, I would have voted against the war. Like Obama, that's an easy thing for me to say) the simple fact remains that she's correct: the vote in October 2002 was about leaving Bush the option to use force if necessary.

Now, let's take a closer look at that vote.

1) If Hussein had WMDs AND was threatening to use them against the United States, then tying Bush's hands behind his back might have had unforseen consequences, such as the destruction of Jerusalem or Riyadh or Kuwait. The intelligence that Bush and Clinton had access to indicated this was the case, and it was imperative that weapons inspectors get back into Iraq and find them. To have the cudgel of being able to enforce that demand was an imperative. Bush promised to allow inspectors time to complete their work. The one thing that gets overlooked in all of this was the unknown that Bush had an agenda against Iraq that pre-existed September 11. HAD ANYONE KNOWN THAT PIECE OF INTELLIGENCE, no doubt they would have voted against the authorization bill.

2) If Hussein did NOT have WMDs, but was bluffing (as he substantiated in his November 2002 reply to the United Nations, something the United States, even Democrats, poo pooed), then allowing weapons inspectors would have been the last thing Hussein would have wanted, therefore (as noted above) it was imperative that Bush have at least some military backing to force his hand.

Under either circumstance, then, that vote had to be in favor of giving Bush the authority.

To her credit, Hillary has said "Had I known then..." Hindsight is 20/20, and considering that nearly 70% of Americans at the time supported the war, it's very unfair now to hold her up to ridicule for that vote. I'd wager that about half the people who heckle her now were all "Oh, let's get Saddam!" back then. I'd even wager about a third of those are Republicans who are stirring the pot to foment a rift in the Democratic primary system.

I didn't support this war for the same reasons I didn't support Gulf War I, or any "war" we've waged since and including Vietnam. War is almost always wrong. We had no national interest vested in it, and as such, we had no business letting our boys and girls die in it. That Hillary or John or anyone else voted to authorize the use of force as opposed to simply voting against it is a matter of disagreement, but that won't stop me from voting for either of them, if I believe they are the best candidate for the job. Period.

And I've voted for Edwards and Clinton whenever I have had the chance to, and will have to take a long hard look at my vote in the New York primary should the two of them survive the process to that point (same with Obama, even though this will be my first opportunity to vote for him).

All three have said we need to get our troops home, and all three have stated that it's up to Bush to do so, so any of those three positions I can support. To look back now four, five and soon six years is pointless.

Hillary Clinton
John Edwards
Barack Obama
Democrats
2008 presidential election