Who's Afraid of John Edwards?

[sunny]

From the CIA originated National Enquirer, we learn that John Edwards has been having an affair and his paramour is pregnant! Obviously this is the scandal some in the msm have been hinting would eventually leak out.

Here is the link to the NE story:

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/john_ed ... rity/64271

[FourthBase]

Those commercials he's been running contain awesome sloganeering.
Maybe they've been too awesome, too radical-sounding.

[Luposapien]

This is actually a bit of an old story. The NE article was published back in October. I remember running across mention of it in the News of the Weird blog. I think I posted about it in the "LA Times sitting on a big sex scandal?" thread.

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=14276&star

[Sepka]

Why on earth would anyone waste their time sabotaging the John Edwards campaign?

[FourthBase]

Why on earth would anyone waste their time sabotaging the John Edwards campaign?

Have you seen his recent ads?

[judasdisney]

Why on earth would anyone waste their time sabotaging the John Edwards campaign?

Edwards takes lead in InsiderAdvantage Iowa poll
December 18, 2007 —

John Edwards has leapfrogged over his rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and leads the Democratic field in Iowa, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll. In the Republican caucus race, Mike Huckabee continues to hold a narrow lead over Mitt Romney.

The race among the three top Democrats is extremely close, with the potential for any of them to finish first – or third.

Edwards leads with 30 percent in a poll of Democratic voters who said they intend to participate in the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, followed by Clinton with 26 percent and Obama with 24 percent. When the sample was narrowed to the most likely caucus-goers, based on several questions, Obama leads Edwards by less than a percentage point with 27 percent, with Clinton in third place at 24 percent.

Edwards holds a significant advantage, however, among a group who could be key to the first contest of the presidential year: those who say their first choice is someone other than the top three. Under Iowa Democratic Party rules, candidates who poll less than 15 percent in the first vote at each caucus around the state are eliminated, and their supporters get a second chance to vote for another candidate.

Under both screens, Edwards leads as the second choice of these voters, with Clinton trailing Obama.

“If Edwards is the second choice at this stage of those who intend to vote for other Democrats, then it would not be surprising if he produced a bit of a shock in Iowa,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery.

Who's afraid of John Edwards?

The Clintonite who owns National Enquirer

The political world has been holding its nose for the last twenty-four hours while peering at the weekly tabloid National Enquirer, which published a story yesterday alleging that presidential candidate John Edwards had an extra-marital affair.

"The story is false," Edwards told reporters in South Carolina today, according to a reporter who was there.

What the tabloid's readers, in politics and out, may not know is that a key owner of the Enquirer is a prominent New York investment banker and one of Hillary Clinton's key backers, Roger Altman. Altman was an official in the first Clinton administration, and his name is often mentioned as a possible Clinton Treasury Secretary.

The investment boutique which Altman founded and chairs, Evercore Partners, bought a controlling stake in American Media, which publishes the Enquirer, in 1999, which it still holds with a partner. Evercore's president, Austin Beutner, sits on American Media's Board of Directors, according to Evercore's website.

A spokesman for American Media, Richard Valvo, said in an email that Altman has "no involvement in editorial, ever." He said that Evercore owns 20 percent of the company through an investment fund. Altman didn't respond to an email seeking comment or to a message left with his secretary.

American Media has also published lurid and negative stories about the Clintons since its acquisition.

Yesterday's National Enquirer story was mirrored by a pair of stories in the Huffington Post -- whose public face, Arianna Huffington, is a harsh critic of Clinton. The Huffington Post stories implied that the Edwards campaign was concerned about its relationship with a film-maker, Rielle Hunter, who had shot web videos for Edwards. The stories stopped short of directly suggesting the candidate had a relationship with her, something Mickey Kaus made explicit on Slate yesterday.

"The MSM seems to be strenuously trying to not report it," Kaus wrote, and indeed, aside from a disapproving link to Kaus's item on the website of the New Republic, and gleeful coverage on the gossip blog Wonkette, the story has mostly stayed out of the old-line press. But it's unclear whether that reluctance is the result of Clinton-era neurosis about the topic of sex, or a less fraught sense that there simply isn't much to report here, particularly in the case of a candidate who lacks the media wattage and poll numbers of his rivals.

The Enquirer story cites anonymous emails from the un-named woman allegedly involved to another un-named source.

But Hunter reportedly issued a disgusted denial of the stories earlier today, via a spokesperson quoted by the veteran blogger Jerome Armstrong on MyDD (Armstrong emailed Politico that the spokesman was her lawyer, Robert Gordon):

The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the internet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous....

When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional.

This concocted story is just dirty politics and I want no part of it.

[populistindependent]

I think Edwards and Huckabee are the two most feared candidates because they both threaten the coalitions that hold the two parties together with the things they are saying. Words have power - words are the most powerful things in politics - and certain ideas are very dangerous to those in power merely by them being uttered in public.

The success of the Republican party has depended upon an alliance between the corporate interests and the religious right.

Huckabee is splitting those two constituencies apart.

The success of the Democratic party has depended upon a alliance between upscale cultural war liberals, who are deeply authoritarian and conservative on everything except the handful of hot-button cultural issues, and those supporting workers rights and labor.

Edwards is splitting those two constituencies apart.

Only one of these four groups can gain political power on its own - in the absence of a phony and cobbled together alliance with one of the other groups. The religious right cannot; the corporate worshippers and appeasers cannot; and the upscale lifestyle liberals cannot. Most of the people in the country are suffering at the hands of the powerful people in those three groups.

There now exists the possibility of the most important election in a century. To understand this, you have to put aside all of the phony cultural war lifestyle issues and focus on power and economics - which is all politics is about anyway. Then consider a Clinton-Huckabee race. In that contest, the Democratic candidate would be far to the right of the Republican candidate.

I have been saying for a while now that most people in the country are in the wrong political group - vote for or belong to the wrong party.

I think that everyone here would - or should - welcome a threat to the two parties the way that they are presently configured.

On the Democratic side, Obama and Clinton represent the duopoly as presently configured. On the Republican side Paul and Romney represent the best hope for propping up the duopoly. Those four candidates do not threaten the unholy alliances that keep the two parties together. All of the other candidates are straying from the line to some degree - speaking heresy - and of those other candidates the two who most threaten the political status quo are Edwards and Huckabee because their appeal is slicing at a ninety degree angle to the current phony liberal-conservative divide.

Libertarians and modern liberals have dominated our political discussion for 30 years. They each represent perhaps 10% of the population, but they are upscale and domineering and have controlled the discussion. The people, the everyday people, don't agree with either and are fed up with both.

Both the libertarians and the liberals are authoritarian and are covertly promoting aristocracy. They disagree as to the make up of the aristocracy the want to see in power.

With a Paul presidency corporations will be completely free to ravage the country, and the super-wealthy will be further entrenched as an aristocracy. Paul is also firmly in the camp of the religious right. That combination, that alliance - the religious right and corporate interests - is Republican party business-as-usual and perpetuates the duopoly and the power of the few over the rest of us.

With a Clinton presidency, the "for your own good" busybody authoritarianism of the upscale liberals will be vindicated. Corporate power will not be seriously challenged, it will be "guided" to "do the right thing." Clinton is business-as-usual Democratic party politics.

Clinton or Obama- everything the people hate about modern liberalism.

Romney or Paul - everything that has failed in modern conservatism.

Things are unraveling. We should all be glad to see that happen.

[sunny]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

~snip~

There is no question that the media has paid far less attention to Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee[disagree with GG on Huckabee-sunny] than the respective successes of their campaigns merit. To that list, though, I would add a third candidacy that has received far less media attention than it merits by all objective metrics (polls, stature and money): the John Edwards campaign. In 2004, Edwards was the party's Vice Presidential nominee, came closer than anyone else to beating Kerry, and has continuously been very near the top of Iowa's polls. Yet the media has all but ignored him -- it's Clinton v. Obama in their World -- except to mock him on the pettiest of grounds, from his hair to his house.

Edwards, Paul and Huckabee are obviously disparate in significant ways -- ideologically, temperamentally, and otherwise. But there is a vital attribute common to those three campaigns that explains the media's scorn: they are all, in their own ways, anti-establishment candidates, meaning they are outside and critical of the system of which national journalists are a critical part, the system which employs and rewards our journalists and forms the base of their identity and outlook. Any candidate who criticizes and opposes that system -- not in piecemeal ways but fundamentally -- will be, first, ignored and, then, treated as losers by the press.

It is very striking how little Edwards' substantive critique of our political system has penetrated into the national discourse. That's because the centerpiece of his campaign is a critique that is a full frontal assault on our political establishment. His argument is not merely that the political system needs reform, but that it is corrupt at its core -- "rigged" in favor of large corporate interests and their lobbyists, who literally write our laws and control the Congress. Anyone paying even casual attention to the extraordinary bipartisan effort on behalf of telecom immunity, and so many other issues driven almost exclusively by lobbyists, cannot reasonably dispute this critique.

Yet because that argument indicts the same Beltway culture of which our political journalists are an integral part, and further attacks the system's power brokers who are the friends, sources, and peers of those journalists, they instinctively react with confusion, scorn and hostility towards Edwards' campaign. They condescendingly dismiss it as manipulative populist swill, or cynically assume that it's just a ploy to distinguish himself by "moving left." In the eyes of our Beltawy press, the idea that our political system is "rigged" or corrupt must be anything other than true or sincerely held.

~snip~

But even within the framework of the media's pettiness, not all candidates are treated equally. While anti-establishment candidates are virtually ignored (except when held up for ridicule), the candidates who are treated as Legitimate and Serious are those who are creatures of the political establishment, or who at least attract the establishment's support. Both Obama's campaign and Clinton's campaign are the recipients of enormous amounts of cash from our nation's largest corporate interests which control much of what happens in Congress. The same is true for Giuliani and Romney. By contrast, the three candidates whose candidacies are steadfastly downplayed if not scorned by the press -- Edwards, Paul and Huckabee -- have received very little money from those realms, and instead, the vast bulk of their contributions are from small donors and individuals (plaintiffs' lawyers -- who represent generally poor individuals against those same corporations -- donate heartily to Edwards).

~snip~

UPDATE IV: A couple of weeks ago, David Sirota wrote :

The media's version of the Iowa presidential caucuses is a story of five candidates and two rivalries. On the Democratic side, it is Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and on the Republican side it is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson. But the numbers suggest the most compelling story is about two underdog candidates and one demographic: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), former Sen. John Edwards (D) and the middle class . . .

What explains the unlikely rise of these two dark horses? . . .

Huckabee and Edwards are the only two major candidates staking their campaigns on an indictment of economic inequality, corporate power and corruption.

[sunny]

Oops, forgot the most intriguing part, which may explain why the NE story coming out right now:

UPDATE II: Marc Ambinder reports:
On Monday, the Edwards campaign recorded more e-mail sign-ups than almost any day in its history.

Over the weekend, the campaign was forced to add four new servers to handle all the web traffic.

Contributions are up online: Thursday and Friday, the two days after the debate, made for one of the highest 2-day totals they've seen in months. . . .

Not only has Edwards been greeted by unusually large crowds for him, he is outdrawing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton head-to-head. In Des Moines Monday, Edwards drew 400 to Hillary Clinton's 200; in Mason City on Saturday night, Edwards drew 600 to Obama's roughly 300.

Edwards has been a credible, legitimate candidate all along, but has probably received the absolute worst treatment from the press -- measured both by the quantity and quality of the coverage.

[sunny]

popindie, great post and so true. Read what GG quoted Huckabee as saying, excerpted in the same article quoted in my post above:

UPDATE: Mike Huckabee was on the Today Show this morning and was asked about criticisms from Rich Lowry and other members of the right-wing establishment. In response, he said that he's not part of the "Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power," and then added:

They don't control me. I'm not one of theirs. I'm not one of those guys that just owe my soul to the people on Wall Street. I'm not a wholly-owned subsidiary of them. I don't live in the circles of power in Washington. I really do come right up from the people. . . .

There's a sense in which all these years the evangelicals have been treated very kindly by the Republican Party. They wanted us to be a part of it. And then one day one of us actually runs, and they say, Oh, my gosh. Now they're serious. They don't want to just show up and vote. They actually would want to be a part of the discussion, and really talk about issues that include hunger and poverty and things that ought to be really a concern to every American, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. . . .

I never did propose that we would impose our religion on somebody else. What I did do [as Governor] was improve children's health, education, the road system. But we didn't do it just for the people at the top. The tax policies and other things we did, it helped the people at the bottom so they might have a chance to live the American dream. For that, I apologize to no one.

Whatever you might think about any of these specific candidates and their other views, this is the kind of talk that the establishment -- including the establishment press corps -- hates the most.

[populistindependent]

popindie, great post and so true.

Thanks, sunny. Glad that you understood what I was saying.

It is so hard to discuss political analysis intelligently, because people cannot get past "who they like" or what talking points they support and which team they imagine themselves to be on or whom they hate or fear.

Whatever you might think about any of these specific candidates and their other views, this is the kind of talk that the establishment -- including the establishment press corps -- hates the most.

Indeed.

Neither Paul nor Kucinich are a threat to the establishment, by the way, and for the same reason. They are safety valves - blind allies that the faithful are lead down, "heat sinks" to draw away all of the energy and passion so it can be safely dissipated.

[FourthBase]

It is very striking how little Edwards' substantive critique of our political system has penetrated into the national discourse. That's because the centerpiece of his campaign is a critique that is a full frontal assault on our political establishment. His argument is not merely that the political system needs reform, but that it is corrupt at its core -- "rigged" in favor of large corporate interests and their lobbyists, who literally write our laws and control the Congress. Anyone paying even casual attention to the extraordinary bipartisan effort on behalf of telecom immunity, and so many other issues driven almost exclusively by lobbyists, cannot reasonably dispute this critique.

Yet because that argument indicts the same Beltway culture of which our political journalists are an integral part, and further attacks the system's power brokers who are the friends, sources, and peers of those journalists, they instinctively react with confusion, scorn and hostility towards Edwards' campaign. They condescendingly dismiss it as manipulative populist swill, or cynically assume that it's just a ploy to distinguish himself by "moving left." In the eyes of our Beltawy press, the idea that our political system is "rigged" or corrupt must be anything other than true or sincerely held.

Might just be words, but Edwards is talking the talk right now.

[slow_dazzle]

Those of us who are not American don't fully understand the dynamics of US politics so it is always helpful to read informed comments from you guys over the pond.

I have long believed Ron Paul is there to absorb the energy of an increasingly pissed off electorate. I agree PI; RP is a pressure release valve. And I'm now begining to think Kucinich serves the same purpose too. There is something about him that just seems...what's the best word...unpresidential? (I just made that word up). And when I think about RP I can't see him as presidential material either. Maybe this is simply my conditioning at work. We tend to equate leaders with something other than well meaning, but uninspiring, rhetoric. RP just comes across as a grey old Southern Baptist type although Kucinich has a certain sincerity about him. Can't see him in the WH though.

It is fascinating to observe what is going on if one has an understanding of the forces at work. There's a flip side though. It can be quite alarming too.

The run up to the next US presidential election is going to be well worth watching.

[populistindependent]

Might just be words, but Edwards is talking the talk right now.

Don't ever say "just words" - words are very powerful. Even if Edwards were to prove to be a complete sell out and never come through on anything, saying the things he is saying starts a process that is powerful and can't be easily stopped.

Edwards would do better with the media and fundraising if he weren't saying these things, by the way. That suggests that he is sincere to me. But I don't care about him, I care about all of us.

[populistindependent]

Those of us who are not American don't fully understand the dynamics of US politics so it is always helpful to read informed comments from you guys over the pond.

I have long believed Ron Paul is there to absorb the energy of an increasingly pissed off electorate. I agree PI; RP is a pressure release valve. And I'm now begining to think Kucinich serves the same purpose too. There is something about him that just seems...what's the best word...unpresidential? (I just made that word up). And when I think about RP I can't see him as presidential material either. Maybe this is simply my conditioning at work. We tend to equate leaders with something other than well meaning, but uninspiring, rhetoric. RP just comes across as a grey old Southern Baptist type although Kucinich has a certain sincerity about him. Can't see him in the WH though.

It is fascinating to observe what is going on if one has an understanding of the forces at work. There's a flip side though. It can be quite alarming too.

The run up to the next US presidential election is going to be well worth watching.

I love Kucinich and have worked for his campaigns in the past.

I remember in the last presidential election, comparing the financial statements of the 8 or so Dem candidates that they are required to make public. All were millionaires, some multi-millionaires or even billionaires. Kucinich on the other hand had a net worth of something like $2800 and listed a used car and an old suit as "assets."

Kucinich grew up the son of working class father, and his family was homeless for a stretch when he was young.

I think Kucinich is sincere and I don't think he is intentionally acting as a safety valve nor is he part of a conspiracy to have his campaign be a safety valve. Nevertheless the practical function of his campaign is to act as a safety valve.

You can't imagine how impractical and disorganized his campaign is. The last time around Kucinich was the only one speaking for the working class, and against the police state. This time, with Edwards and to some extent Biden and Dodd taking those positions, his voice is not as important as it was last time. Also, he has drifted farther and farther away from working class advocacy and into cultural and spiritual issues. That plays well with his base, but is marginalizing him with the general public.