I'm Disappointed in John Edwards

The Huffington Post, 8-8-08

His political career flames out in a tawdry tabloid mess

I’m disappointed in John Edwards. The former presidential hopeful’s admission that he did in fact have an extramarital affair with his one time campaign videographer Rielle Hunter was not surprising to anyone who’s been following the story. Nor was his fessing up to having repeatedly lied to the public in his attempts to cover up the affair, or conceding the National Enquirer was accurate to report he had recently met with Hunter in a Beverly Hills hotel.



I feel badly for his wife Elizabeth and the rest of the Edwards family. The public exposure of what should have remained a private matter is an unfortunate situation all around. But what dismays me the most about this episode is the astoundingly bad judgement it reveals about the man. He was risking his own political career, and potentially the Democratic party’s chances of winning the presidency if he had been nominated, all for some cheap thrills in the sack.

Before entering politics, Edwards didn’t even vote regularly in national elections until the 1990s, so perhaps he missed what happened to Gary Hart in 1987. The then-frontrunner for the Democratic nomination thought he was invincible enough to cheat on his wife without anyone finding out. When it hit the press, Hart’s White House bid was over.



Flash forward twenty years to April of 2007. Several months before questions began swirling about Edwards’ relationship with Hunter, he came under fire for his $400 haircuts. And many progressives, myself included, rushed to his defense. Edwards had a lot of admirers on the left during his second run for the presidency. Many thought he was an effective advocate for working people who have been left behind by the growing income inequality in America.

People wanted to believe that John Edwards was sincere when he talked about his dedication to ending poverty and fighting for average folks. He positioned himself as the most liberal of the major Democratic contenders in 2008, far to the left of the centrist persona he displayed while running for president in 2004.



As a result, Edwards got a pass from the left on a lot of things, from his early cheerleading for the war in Iraq to his weak support of gay rights. And when rumors of his affair with Hunter first surfaced last fall, progressives circled the wagons. When the Enquirer reported on July 22 that Edwards had visited Hunter and their supposed “love child” in the Beverly Hills Hilton, the same thing happened. Last week, a HuffPo blogger who wrote about the Edwards scandal was banned from DailyKos, one of the biggest progressive sites on the internet.

I volunteered for John Edwards’ presidential campaign in early 2004 at his national headquarters in Raleigh, N.C. There I met Andrew Young, the former Edwards campaign aide and married father of three who helped cover up the candidate’s indiscretion. Last December, Young claimed he had the affair with Hunter and was the father of her child.

In 2004, Young was serving as director of operations for the Edwards campaign. To me he seemed like an aging frat boy, a fairly common type on political campaign staffs. What I didn't know at the time was that Young had started out a staffer, but become a close Edwards pal. If anyone was going to take the fall for John Edwards in an embarrassing situation like this, it would be Andrew Young. There was a high turnover among Edwards’ campaign workers and consultants. But Young was part of the inner circle, on board since Edwards was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998.

The moment press reports stated Rielle Hunter had moved down the street from the Youngs into a tony, gated community just outside of Chapel Hill called Governor’s Club, it was obvious something shady was going on. If Edwards thought the best response to rumors of an affair was to whisk his former girlfriend down to North Carolina and hide her away from the national media’s prying eyes, he was clearly delusional. And by engineering a clumsy coverup that implicated Young, his trusted campaign aide, Edwards created even more questions for inquiring minds.



But he got lucky. It was the week before Christmas when the Enquirer broke the news that Rielle Hunter was pregnant, and in its most sensational charge, alleged she was carrying Edwards' baby. The same media blackout on display for the past two weeks held firm then. Mainstream media organizations refused to report on the story, although Edwards was one of the top contenders for the Democratic nomination and had led Iowa caucus polls for much of 2007.



Edwards’ withdrawal from the presidential race in late January after losing the South Carolina primary made it even more likely that the press would forget the whole thing. Yet the National Enquirer stayed on the beat. As interest in Barack Obama’s vice presidential shortlist heated up, they decided revisiting the Edwards “love child” story might help sell some late summer papers and stave off the Enquirer’s impending bankruptcy.

Sadly, I’m disappointed but not surprised by this turn of events for John Edwards. In the statement he issued today about his affair, Edwards said, “I made a serious error in judgement.” But throughout his short political life, he’s shown similarly poor judgement on many occasions. Like voting for the war in Iraq and swallowing the Bush Administration’s fairy tale about WMD’s hook, line and sinker. Or giving up his U.S. Senate seat after only one term to seek the presidency in 2004.

In the months leading up to the 2008 primaries, his defenders consistently slammed the press for covering the gaffes known as Edwards' "three H's" - his newly constructed 28,000 square foot house, $400 haircuts, and large salary earned from a hedge fund for the super rich. Edwards raised the charge himself, accusing the media of playing a game called "Let's distract from people who don't have health care coverage."

There were plenty of right-wing Edwards haters out there who gladly used the media spin machine to magnify any bad news about him. Still, most of Edwards’ problems during the 2008 campaign were self-inflicted.



Like it or not, if you're running for president, your every move is under press scrutiny. Too bad Edwards didn’t realize this in time. Of course, part of Edwards' statement from today helps explain his foolish behavior, regarding the affair as well as his other political missteps. “In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.”

In retrospect, Edwards’ entire political career was a flash in the pan, a triumph of hype over substance, and a big let-down for any progressives who were fooled into thinking Edwards was a working class champion capable of leading the Democratic Party to victory in a presidential race. Instead, John Edwards’ turn on the national stage will forever be remembered as ending in a tawdry tabloid mess, a cautionary tale of squandered potential.

John Edwards is Out to Get Himself

CHAPEL HILL - John Edwards and I now share hairdressers. I'm not talking about Joseph Torrenueva, the Beverly Hills-based hair artist who cut his locks from 2003 until March of this year, and whose expensive services have caused much political grief for Edwards. To atone for the $400 haircuts he regularly received from Torrenueva Hair Designs, Edwards has begun seeing the stylists at my neighborhood Great Clips, where the going rate is a far more reasonable $12. They've told me he's very down to earth, and a good tipper.

For someone who's been caricatured as a rich phony, John and his wife Elizabeth are about as regular people as you're likely to find in a presidential race. Most people by now know the basics of his biography, how he grew up as the son of a millworker, and was the first in his family to go to college. Even today, in the middle of the family's second campaign for national office, Elizabeth still shops at Target, and John takes the kids on expeditions to nearby grocery stores.

Edwards recently created a stir when his campaign released a video of an appearance he made July 26 before a group of voters in Iowa. In the video, he refers to "this silly, frivolous nothing stuff" in the media. "This stuff's not an accident," said Edwards. "They want to shut me up. That's what this is about."



His defenders have consistently slammed the press for covering the gaffes known as Edwards' "three H's" - his newly constructed 28,000 square foot house, $400 haircuts, and large salary earned from a hedge fund for the wealthy. Now Edwards has raised the charge himself, accusing the media of playing a game called "Let's distract from people who don't have health care coverage."

But is it accurate? Can John Edwards' stumbles honestly be blamed on mainstream media organizations out to get a candidate whose policy positions are seen as hostile to corporate interests? There are plenty of right-wing Edwards haters out there who have gladly used the media spin machine to magnify any bad news about him. And in light of the many challenges America faces in cleaning up after George W. Bush, the attention supposed character issues like the "three H's" have received is unfortunate. Still, a large part of the problem is Edwards' own poor political judgement.

After the 2004 campaign, the Edwards family moved from their house in an upscale neighborhood of Raleigh, N.C. to Chapel Hill, where housing prices are among the highest in the state. They bought land on the outskirts of town, and waited for their new home to be constructed, a sprawling compound that combines home and office space. The tax value of the house is $6 million, and totals 28,000 square feet. By comparison, the Clintons' Dutch Colonial in Chappaqua, NY has a square footage of 5,200, and was purchased in 1999 for $1.7 million.

About his work for Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based hedge fund, Edwards has said he wanted to learn more about the role of financial markets in helping alleviate poverty. Asked if he couldn't have just taken a class, he replied, "That's true." Edwards was paid a $479,512 salary by Fortress as an advisor during 2005 and 2006, and earned another $1.2 million in investment income from the firm.

It doesn't take a political genius to realize a job with a high flying hedge fund could hurt a candidate's anti-poverty credentials. Fortress greatly expanded its investments into sub-prime mortgage lenders while Edwards worked there, the type of predatory companies he regularly denounces on the campaign trail. "He didn't go through the portfolio," admits Elizabeth.

Edwards deserves the benefit of the doubt about his explanation that he didn't know how much his $400 haircuts cost. But he must have realized it wasn't cheap to fly a hairdresser to the stars around the country to cut his hair for more than three years. He may have been unaware of how Republicans have repeatedly used Democrats' fancy hair stylists to paint them as out of touch with average voters, although it happened to his running mate John Kerry in 2004. Regardless, Edwards was tripped up by his own bad judgement in getting such gold-plated hair treatment to begin with.



He also got into haircut trouble because his campaign team screwed up. His haircuts would never have become an issue if a staffer had not inadvertently billed two of them to the campaign during the first quarter of 2007, instead of charging Edwards’ personal account. Since no one in charge of filing his finance reports saw a problem with $400 haircuts, they became public knowledge, and the media reported on them. Like it or not, if you're running for President, your every move is under press scrutiny.

Beyond the "three H's," Edwards has fumbled through a series of campaign missteps that also call his decision making into question. Hiring bloggers who drew fire for anti-religious writings they'd previously posted on their personal blogs. Asking anti-war supporters to stage protests at Memorial Day parades, with a promise to post photos of the best demonstrations on a campaign-run website. Most recently, attacking Hillary Clinton for accepting $20,000 in campaign contributions from Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and Fox executives, saying "the time has come for Democrats to stop pretending to be friends with the very people who demonize the Democratic Party." Predictably, Fox News wasted no time reminding the world that Edwards earned $800,000 last year from a book deal with Murdoch's HarperCollins unit.

When it comes to lifestyle, John and Elizabeth defend their choices by pointing out John worked hard as a highly successful trial lawyer to achieve their estimated $29.5 million net worth, and their family should be allowed to enjoy it. Giving every American the opportunities John Edwards has been afforded is one of his candidacy's central themes, an underpinning of Edwards' crusade against poverty.

Yet Edwards is taking a big risk by allowing displays of wealth to undercut his appeal as someone who knows what it's like to come from humble means. According to Drew Westen, professor of psychology at Emory and author of The Political Brain, a candidate's personal characteristics trump their policy positions every time. Voters look for emotional details that help them measure judgement, integrity, and leadership, rewarding consistent narratives about what values and vision a candidate possesses. The voting public doesn't decide between candidates by rationally weighing their platforms. This reality helped sink nominees like Kerry and Al Gore, even though their policies were backed by more Americans than those of George W. Bush.

I want to root for the guy who goes to the same haircut joint as me, even if he's a Johnny-come-lately to Great Clips. His '08 proposals are the most progressive of the major Democratic contenders, from providing universal health care to raising taxes on the super rich. But Edwards is making it hard with his unending string of self-inflicted political nicks and cuts. The next time he wonders who's really out to shut him up, John might want to sit down in our $12 stylist's chair and take a good look in the mirror.

(UPDATE 8/12/08 – Versions of this column were rejected by multiple media outlets, including the LA Times, New York Times, New Republic, Slate, Salon.com, and USA Today. Clearly they didn’t like the piece, but why? Maybe the news cycle was already saturated with stories about Edwards’ “three H” gaffes, or editors were giving Edwards a pass after he accused them on July 26, 2007 of trying to “distract from people who don't have health care coverage” by reporting on his campaign missteps. Footnote to the story: after getting a haircut once at the local Great Clips to comb over his $400 haircut flap, Edwards didn't visit again throughout the rest of the ’08 campaign.)

I saw John Edwards in the shampoo aisle

Salon.com, 4-27-07

CHAPEL HILL - My wife and I ran into John Edwards in the shampoo aisle the other night. My wife didn't believe it was him at first. "Yeah, right," she said. "He's behind us ... buying hair gel?" But there he was, at the neighborhood grocery store. His eight year old daughter Emma Claire was with him, and she was busy devouring something with a straw. This was no staged press event, like George H.W. Bush's ill-fated trip to a grocer's convention during the '92 campaign, when he was famously accused of being amazed by a checkout scanner. There were no cameras, no entourage. Just a dad wearing T-shirt and shorts, with his little girl, stopping by the store to pick up something on the way home. A dad who also happens to be running for President.

John Edwards has been in the news a lot lately. But it hasn't been for his universal health care proposal, or for his ideas about making it easier for most Americans to file their taxes. Not even for his wife Elizabeth's courageous fight against her recurring cancer and their decision to carry on with a presidential campaign. Edwards' most recent round of publicity has been all about his hair.

When first quarter campaign finance reports were filed with the FEC, enterprising reporters learned the Edwards campaign had picked up the tab for two $400 haircuts for the candidate. Team Edwards claimed the bills had been sent to the campaign by mistake, and Edwards personally reimbursed his campaign treasury $800. He later explained to Iowa voters he hadn't realized how high the charges were going to be, and that his staff arranged for the two haircuts in California hotel rooms to save time between campaign stops. Appearing on the nationally syndicated Ed Schultz radio show, he called the episode "really embarrassing," and admitted "no one should pay $400 for a haircut."

The gaffe made Letterman and Leno, Maureen Dowd wrote a column about it and it landed the Edwards campaign unwanted publicity nationwide. For the media, the story was irresistible, especially in light of Edwards' signature campaign focus on looking out for the little folks. A $400 haircut doesn't exactly square with focusing on the plight of working and middle classes families or a war on poverty.

There's a problem here, though. When the media spends time covering "issues" like a candidate's haircuts it blatantly overlooks what's really at stake: Whoever sits in the White House has enormous power to change things for America, for good or bad. Presently, our country is falling apart, thanks to two terms under the worst president in history. We can't afford another George W. Bush. The media has a responsibility to help voters make sense of how the men and women running for the Oval Office would operate once they got there. Haircut stories don't cut it.

At a time when more and more of us are finding the American Dream harder and harder to achieve, there's a lot for the 2008 candidates to address. To Edwards' credit, he is the first Democratic contender to release a detailed plan for achieving universal health care coverage.
Rising health care costs and lack of coverage is the number one issue most voters say worries them about their economic future.

Growing numbers of Americans are losing their homes because they can't afford the rising payments. In the first quarter of 2007, home foreclosures increased by 35 percent from the same period in 2006, with 37 states reporting an increase. For all of last year, there were 1.2 million foreclosures, which itself was 42 percent more than in 2005.

A big part of this foreclosure crisis is that non-existent oversight of lending companies under the Bush Administration allowed them to sucker people into loans that would be almost impossible to pay back. It should come as no surprise that Bush put the wishes of big financial firms first, since credit card giant MBNA has been his single largest corporate donor. Edwards' platform includes legislation to help stop predatory lending, which he recently called a "shameful practice" that is "compromising our strength as a nation."

Let's not forgot the war in Iraq, now in its fifth year. Bush's war drains American lives and resources daily -- an estimated $8.4 billion a month that could be spent addressing needs here at home. Edwards has repeatedly apologized for his vote to go to war in Iraq, calling it a "mistake," and pledges to withdraw all troops if elected president.

For the record, we didn't see John Edwards pick out any hair products in the store. He used the regular checkout lane, chose plastic over paper, and put his own cart away before leaving. Edwards may have gotten two overpriced haircuts on the campaign trail, but when he's home, hanging out with his kids, he goes to the grocery store like everyone else. That should count for something. Especially at a moment when our country is in trouble because the Bush Administration never cared about the interests of average Americans, the kind of people who shop at grocery stores.