Edwards: The Most Damning Excerpt

As you know, Al, we always felt Elizabeth was the one who should have run for office.  He was always just a little too needy.

Karen - Not to sound all "Rielle-ish," but since you are oft interviewed on TV to read the body language of public figures, what in particular about Edwards caused you to view him as "too needy"?

You have a skill that we all need to learn.

There was a moment between John and Elizabeth before the Iowa caucus that I will never forget. They were at a rally and Elizabeth was intorducing the candidate. It was a good introduction and heavy on facts and statistics and heartwarming family stories, typical Elizabeth stuff. All the while she's speaking and giving this wonderful introduction, John is waving and pointing and winking at the crowd. It was weird as hell. And then Elizabeth finishes, "People of Iowa, my husband, John Edwards!!!!". Well, John runs over, and without looking at his wife, he grabs the microphone and PATS HER ON THE HEAD! He pat her on the head like a freakin' dog. I was watching this with my mother and we both looked at each other with our mouths hanging open. I knew right then and  there that this was not a decent man. And when the baby mama drama started and he sat there and he denied it, I knew he was lying fake.

This is a man who attends to himself; he is always taking inner stock. We call this mode Shape-Flow and it manifests in a person's ability to move completely in relationship to one's own breathing and thinking. (Also known as primary narcissism).  John Edwards is very expressive but never, seemingly, in RESPONSE to anyone other than himself. Shape-Flow is not a BAD or negative behavior; we all go into it when we are taking care of ourselves, grieving, feeling and thinking about ourselves and what we want or need.

The problem with being highly expressive while remaining self-contained is that others have to come to you. And often they are DRAWN to you.

He's a touchy-feely guy, but when he touches you, you get the feeling he is getting more out of it than you are.

This is why, as you say, it is very important to be cautious about the differences between hearing comforting words and noting behaviors.

As we all know, actions speak louder....

http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/

Based on the excerpt(s) here, it doesn't look like Elizabeth was so wonderful either. And I've heard - PURELY ANECDOTALLY - from someone who babysat for them that it was a strange and neglectful home for the kids (and in which John spent several hours a day on the elliptical trainer). Sad all around - and scary that he had the sheer hubris to try to put himself on the Democratic ticket knowing that had his scandal emerged it would have torpedoed Democratic chances in the 2008 election.

and the fact that a guy championing the poor wasn't willing to run on single payer, but was fine with garnishing wages for mandated insurance.

but superficially, his delivery always struck me as rather phony, both in 2004 and 2008. FWIW, so did bill clinton's, so it might just be a knee-jerk west coast regional bias of mine against the sort of emotive white southern everyman political style that both played up to the hilt.

He looked creepy on TV and in pictures.  He could not hide it. The other clue for me that he was pimping the game was that he was running for POTUS while his wife was suffering from breast cancer.  I felt like adivising him to let someone else save the world and go take care of his wife and family.

There was enough to make some judgments about Edwards in 2004.  First, he was added to the Kerry ticket so as to win Ohio and, of course, North Carolina;  he did neither.  Second, as a successful trial attorney, one would have thought he could have held his own in the VP debate with Dick Cheney;  Edwards should have eaten Cheney up -- but he failed;  Cheney crucified him.  "Senator, I spend a lot of time in the Senate, but I've never seen you."  Of course, he wouldn't have seen Edwards.  The time Cheney spent in the Senate was meeting with the Republican caucus.  And Edwards had no retort to this.  Makes one wonder how he made his millions in the courtroom.

Our take is that he didn't come across as real or sincere.  It was as though we were watching an aspiring actor playing the part of fictionalized RFK in a made-for-TV movie.  While the script hit all the right notes, it was still clear that it was a script, not reality.

There's less to learn from getting all psychological about any celebrities, including presidential candidates, than tell-all books want us to assume (so we'll buy and read them).  There seems to be at least a dollop of narcissicism in many politicians, and at the presidential-campaign level, that is vastly facilitated by a legion of handlers and groupies.  One need only recall the Kennedy campaigns in the '60s, Gary Hart's presidential campaigns in 1983-84 and 1987-88, and the bantam-cock swath that Bill Clinton apparently cut through Arkansas prior to running for president.  Admiring young women orbit such a candidate most of the time on the campaign trail.  Local female as well as male campaign workers are delegated to knock on his hotel door and take him to the next event.  Devout adherents to marital fidelty can resist all this 24/7 opposite-sex availability, but others can't.  So they succumb, and then they start compartmentalizing like crazy, so they can get on with the main course of their professional, i.e. political-campaign life but still have dessert on the side.

None of this means that the candidate in question is a profound head-case or isn't intelligent or isn't capable of thinking imaginatively about what ails the country or what's needed in the White House.  So I distrust the idea that something was necessarily "off" about Edwards and that the hidden soap opera with his wife and side squeeze were symptoms of deeper problems.  Maybe they were, maybe they weren't -- but the Heileman-Halperin book isn't sufficient evidence to reach that conclusion.

Remember that as of 2004, Edwards's colleagues and professional politicians were impressed with his intelligence, believed his commitment to progressive issues (including, at that time, conditions faced by ordinary workers) was sincere, and were particularly impressed with his ability to make cogent, passionate arguments to ordinary people about otherwise complex issues.  The latter came from more than 20 years spent arguing before juries as a trial lawyer, where you have to focus diverse people on a couple of critical questions, weave a narrative that explains them, and then relate that narrative emotionally to the context of their lives.  This ability is missing from two-thirds of politicians today, who take speech drafts or press releases and then basically just recite them, usually badly.  Edwards did us own thinking and synthesizing of issues, mastered his brief, and wowed his listeners.  It was a skill he showed consistently for 18 months before the '04 election and then again before the '08 primaries.  If we forget that now and chalk up his early success to his looks or a gaga media, we're kidding ourselves in order to sit in cheap judgment on our democratic process as well as fictionalizing what happened.

Even the most politically impressive presidential candidates (and presidents) can lead, as we have seen, compartmentalized lives, and use one or more compartments in which to indulge themselves.  If they get found out, the media scandal machine brings them down.  And it's just as well that we're then left with politicians who are less narcissistic and don't let themselves be distracted by women to whom they aren't married.

In the case of 2008, none of this -- and I'll say that again, none of this -- made a bit of difference to the outcome, for one simple reason, which Al chronicled meticulously that year:  Barack Obama out-organized all of his competitors.  It was organizing even more than character that trumped the field in '08.  Edwards, despite his real merits as a substantively agile speaker, never really had a chance against that.

I'll add an afterthought about what I find most harebrained about Edwards' attempt to negotiate his support for Obama after Iowa. As the South Carolina primary exit polls reveal, it would have had been better for Obama had Edwards remained in all the following contests, and campaigned hard in California and elsewhere on Super Tuesday and beyond. Obama trounced in the South Carolina primary to a greater extent because Edwards' presence was taking more votes away from Clinton than from Obama. There, Edwards won the white male vote (45% to Clinton's 28% to Obama's 27%) and came in second for the white female vote (36 percent to Clinton's 42% and Obama's 22%). Obama, however, sopping up 77% of the nonwhite primary vote plus about a quarter of white voters put him convincingly over the top.

My point is that had Edwards really been a smart politician he would have tried to bargain not in exchange for getting out of the contest and endorsing Obama, but to stay in the contest and keep splitting Clinton's constituency with her.

So not only was his "offer" of a deal found offensive by the Obama camp, but it was also not offering it anything it needed or wanted.

Perhaps Edwards the trial attorney could make a groundbreaking case against Edwards the politician for political malpractice!

is lumpy, bumpy or uneven to make it seem perfect?  This.

Never liked Edwards, even when he was a senator. Always have had a really, really strong, gut feeling that he was just not trustworthy - too desperate, too slick, too glib, too perfectly groomed, too much emotion, too much of everything. Acting, as described by BR feels right.  In fact, I had this same exact gut feeling about a guy I dated for awhile -- didn't like him at all when I met him and felt the warning signs of "untrusthworthy" right away, but he wore me down with his charm so I finally went out with him. And ended up in a 2 year, on and off, completely dysfunctional relationship with possibly the most narcissistic sociopath I have ever been personally acquainted with.   

And frankly, I thought Edwards' VP debate performance with Cheney was pitiful - he seemed utterly vacant, scripted and superficial to me - was sad Kerry chose him and I really liked John Kerry.

Love transcends ideology. The Edwards story shows that being a sociopath does, too.

It would have taken no unusual insight to ask of Edwards, "Narcissist? Who knows if it's borderline personality disorder narcissism."

But monstrous sociopath?

My question is simply this: did no one close to him all these years see this? And that makes me wonder how true it is that high-level Edwards campaign operatives (past or 2007-08-period present) were willing to sabotage his campaign had he won Iowa or New Hampshire.

Perhaps they indeed were. But I also wonder if that isn't self-serving, after-the-fact spin.

I half agree with you, as I have little doubt that Edwards played a spoiler in Obama's favor in the south and probably would have done so in rust-belt states, it's also true that in certain places Edwards seemed to get support at Obama's expense. For example, I continue to believe that had Edwards not been in the race in New Hampshire, Obama would've won the state.

And now that I think about it, the deal Edwards should've tried to  strike would be to campaign hard in selected Super Tuesday states (Missouri, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee) while not having any presence in the caucus states (North Dakota, Idaho, Kansas, Alaska) and then maybe staying in the race until Ohio and Texas (Edwards could've been decisive for Obama in the Texas primary)

(1) The man had no record in the senate. He was basically a blue dog senator that made Evan Bayh look good; I couldn't reconcile who he was as a senator with who he was as a candiate.

(2) Bob Shrum reported in his book a momment that grossed me out completely and led me to look at EVERY democratic candidate seriously (even Kucinich was a better option) as opposed to Edwards. Shrum talked about Edwards telling Kerry about this dead son Wade and how he crawled into his casket sobbing and how he had never told this emotional story to anyone before; except for the fact that Edwards HAD actually told Kerry that very same story earlier in another context. It freaked Kerry out and he had serious reservations that Shrum and those around him pushed against; thinking Edwards was just what the ticktet called for at the time. That Kerry STILL choose Edwards made me glad Obama didn't make him VP, frankly. And that this man could use his child like this was beyond creepy, to frankly pathological.

It's not surprising the establishment never looked to Edwards to provide opposition to Clinton; through I really was surprised at the news Schumer sent a message through McCaSkill that Obama should take a 2X4 to the HRC campaign. Obama had a lot of support within the senate caucus it seems; which makes the thater around the super delegates absurd and shockingly far from reality.

Also, I'm shocked at the Bill Clinton comments that HAVE been reported. No wonder Ted Kennedy was pissed the eff off. Clinton's been working to improve his realtionship to Obama; I wonder how this will leave it?

Also, I think the Halperin leak of the misstaments by Reid was low. Espeically given Reid's immediate and deep support of Obama, his age, and his actual optimism about race in America. I feel bad that this is hitting him so hard.

And just to add a little-remembered tidbit reinforcing Al's point that the smart deal for Edwards would have been to stay in while longer (at least through Super Tuesday; after that, though, continuing would have become a what's-up-with-this buzz/joke), in the West Virginia primary in early May, about four months after he'd dropped out, Edwards still got seven percent of the vote in a "race" in which Obama received his lowest percentage in any of the primaries except for Arkansas. Yes, even less than in Kentucky a week later.

Al -

Do you have the archives of your posts from ruralvotes from the primaries posted somewhere?  This discussion about the primaries and Plouffe's book (which I'm reading now) makes me interested in reading some of your past wisdom.

I didn't like him in 2004.  I had no doubt he could not win the primaries in 2008, mostly because of his positions but partly because I did sense something was 'off'.  Can't pinpoint what though.

Whoever masters Form may fill the blank to riches.

Form morphs into substance, preempts coherence, prevents thoughtfulness from settling in, engages in clichéd social reality mapping, builds up emotional Firewalls, cashes in finally from the ever roaming Power Brokerage.

It's a Game that's been played over and over ever since the discovery of Fire and of the ...Power Broker. It's a Game where Ideology is the trump card; makes a strong hand but bound to let you down because systemically overplayed.

Whether Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney on your right or Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Howard Dean on your left, they're all playing the Formal panache Game with 'fill in the blanks' purety and 'head for the bank' fraternity.

As Jean de Lafontaine once wrote: ''Ils n'en mouraient pas tous, mais tous étaient atteints...''

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-zunes/the-democrats-twisted-mor_b_...

http://www.fpif.org/articles/john_edwards_foreign_policy

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/zunes.php?articleid=3074

I liked Obama, but thought it was too soon for him -- that he couldn't win so soon after coming to DC.

Edwards came to NYC for a low-dolllar fundraiser in June of 2007. I arrived early and got a spot right up front. I was ready for him to win me over. But that's not what happened.

I got a very weird vibe from him. It was like when he was speaking, he looked animated and passionate, and when he paused between lines, he kind of "turned off." There was a disconnect that creeped me out and made me extremely wary.

The following week Michelle Obama came to speak to a small group of "women for Obama" in Harlem. The experience was just the opposite of the Edward's speech. She was real, engaged and seemed to be talking directly to every person in the room. By the time she finished I had tears in my eyes. I said, "If Barack is half as good as she is, he's going to win this thing."

Having already met Kerry, Wesley Clark & Howard Dean at fundraisers, I also did the same with Edwards because I wanted to suss out all of the candidates running that year.

As soon as I laid eyes on him, I felt that if I placed my hand on his shoulder, it would go right through it.  His hollowness, shallowness and lack of presence was immediately apparent, like there was no one there.

When we spoke one-to-one, he came across like an actor auditioning for a role that he wasn't right for... and would be in over his head if he were actually cast in that role.

I thought... if JFK was a larger-than-life movie star and Bill Clinton was a made-for-tv star, then John Edwards belonged on public access.

There was also a desperation about him that was disquieting.  His frantic campaign to be Kerry's v.p... running around the country, trying to drum up support... also showed that he had littlle class or character.  He was trying to back Kerry into a corner to select him, which of course Kerry did.

As for his performance debating Cheney, not only was he weak & ineffectual, but didn't even have the instinct or balls to stand up for himself when Cheney said he didn't remember previously meeting him.

Hearing him do a 180 on his sudden concern for the poor when he started running again in '07 oozed with insincerity and was too far to the left and not in tune with the zeitgeist to get him elected.

That he turned out to be a bigger a piece of crap than I had suspected was a bit of a surprise.  But I never felt that his face being carved onto Mt. Rushmore was in his future.

Russ Feingold, Jan 17, 2008, two weeks after Iowa caucus:

"The one that is the most problematic is (John) Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act, campaigns against it. Voted for No Child Left Behind, campaigns against it. Voted for the China trade deal, campaigns against it. Voted for the Iraq war … He uses my voting record exactly as his platform, even though he had the opposite voting record.

When you had the opportunity to vote a certain way in the Senate and you didn't, and obviously there are times when you make a mistake, the notion that you sort of vote one way when you're playing the game in Washington and another way when you're running for president, there's some of that going on."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/272604

~~~~~~~~~~

I had problems particularly with the Iraq vote, but at least Edwards admitted the error.  At least it was clearer than H. Clinton's positions on Iraq (or her husband's version of her positions).  I also remember Edwards made several opportunistic challenges (to pledge this or that) at Obama that were just cheap.  They were easy to make for someone who wasn't holding office at the time and accountable to a constituency.

Feingold simply nailed it on Edward's lack of consistency with many vital issues.  His comments marked the time when I had no more patience for Edward's particular brand of posturing.

Action talks; BS runs a marathon.

When John Edwards, super-populist and champion of the poor emerged in 2006, my immediate take was 'come on, now'.  There was nothing, NOTHING, in his Senate voting record or previous public comments that was remotely related to his new stance.  Yes, all thinking beings have the ability to evolve, but I believed Edwards' 'evolution' had more to do with trying to secure a different political demographic from Hillary Clinton that could possibly catch fire and secure the nomination for him.

But, as happens when reality appears on the scene, stuff started happening that revealed more and more that Edwards' stance was self-serving and false.  The move to New Orleans; the multi-million dollar home in the woods of NC that led to the clearing of a few acres of trees; and the unwillingness to bring that populist message to urban areas in the North populated by African-Americans and Hispanics.  Something was amiss.

So, I am completely unsurprised by any of the revelations surrounding John and Elizabeth Edwards, Bill Clinton and Harry Reid.  What's done in the dark will come to light.

I was leaning strongly towards Edwards until the Yearly Kos debate in August, 2007.  He definitely got the most applause, but he never answered any questions (that makes me nuts.)  He just spat out catch phrases the crowd wanted to hear.  At one point, Richardson pointed out that he hadn't answered a question about the deficit.  If Bill Richardson has to tell you that you've hedged a question, you have a problem!

Obama gave extremely detailed, thoughtful responses, particularly about foreign aid and China.   They weren't good sound bites, and it was the kind of thing that he was criticized for, but it made him look a hell of a lot more like the real deal, at least to me.

Rhoda said, above:

(1) The man had no record in the senate. He was basically a blue dog senator that made Evan Bayh look good; I couldn't reconcile who he was as a senator with who he was as a candiate.

And, I think I must have run into the Russ Feingold quote too, to reinforce that impression.

I was puzzled at the time, because most people on dailykos seemed to be saying he would fight, fight, fight so hard for the common man.  My question was-- how?  I didn't see how he had any plan or method to tame the tiger's den, fierce jungle, crazy-with-corruption place that is Capitol Hill.  I didn't see evidence of him thinking on his feet and coming to lightning quick correct approaches.

He said he had power, as I remember, but words are cheap.

made him popular with the Poutrage crowd. Remember how they screamed for Obama to show anger and talk like Edwards with his "two Americas."

From Christopher Hayes's twitter: "Just when you think the news cycle can't get any stupider, Mark Halperin publishes a book."

Sloane - One's distaste for a specific messenger (although Halperin is only half the authorship of that book) doesn't make the message itself any less compelling. Did you read the linked excerpt in NY mag? It was a tour de force no matter who wrote it.

Seemed like if you squeezed him, he'd blow up like a balloon. People would go "huh...that was weird" and move on.

I'm definiitely not a Mark Halperin fan ( I don't know anything about the other author) nor a political heavyweight - lol, and compared to many here, may not even be a political lightweight.  But the article about Edwards rang true to me.  I remember watching him during the debates and felt that his factual expressions just didn't support his words.  He seemed to possess a smurk - a smug smile - especially when talking about poverty - that just didn't resonate with me - that just wasn't approrpiate for the subject matter.  Like someone said earlier, his affectation was just 'off'.   

Someone made a comment earlier suggesting Reid was taking a beating re the 'Negro' comment.  When I first heard the comment, I sorta laughed becuase I had heard many, many variations of the same theme from family members and friends.  I sincerely believe that President Obama's light skin and ability to speak the 'king's english' were significant assets to his quest for the presidency.   I'd be shocked if there was wide-spread 'outrage' from the black 'community' regarding this issue.

Al, haven't commented in quite a while, but haven't missed a post since I discovered you in early 2008 and will provide a little financial support as soon as I'm no longer an unemployment statistic.

For me it was his supporters.

I always saw him as a bit phony and third tier.  I didn't care about him too much.

However I found that I really disliked his supporters.  They seemed dishonest, self-aggrandizing, and also to be petty jerks.  After the reveals it seems like they simply identified with his character.  It makes sense that people who value stated policy positions over character don't have much of it.

That article on Edwards made me ill. But, it explains why Edwards got no support from his ex-Senate colleagues.

However, what I find fascinating is that so many of the Democratic Senate heavyweights were pulling for Obama and not Clinton - Reid, Schumer, Kennedy, McCaskill. It makes you wonder why Hillary could not win over her own colleagues who had known her for decades.

As a big Kerry supporter, I didn't like how he wiped Kerry off his shoe immediately after the 2004 election like Kerry was some kind of dog poo.

It was very telling how Feingold basically personally attacked him. Feingold doesn't make a habit of going after people in such a personal way -- especially not other Democrats. At the time, Edwards supporters had all kind of reasons for Feingold's saying this (none of which made any sense of me): Feingold was a corporatist after all, he was jealous, he was bitter, etc.

I never warmed to Elizabeth either. But I'm not sure why.

A friend of mine was an active Edwards supporter while I was for Obama from day one. We argued. She thought I (and Obama) were naive. I thought she was misguided. I didn't get his Anti-Poverty campaign. I don't remember the exact goal but it was something like cutting poverty in half in ten years. He presented it in a messianic way, practially with tears in his eyes. And I thought, but what about the other fifty percent? You are happy to leave the job half-finished? It seemed like he was positioning himself for a campaign plank rather than talking about an issue he cared about or even had a grasp of.

Also the jet-ski joke was odd for a guy promoting anti-poverty.

To my chagrin, I was an early Edwards supporter because I thought he had the best chance of winning the general election.  I still find it hard to comprehend the level of selfishness (bordering on sociopathic) that would lead someone like him to stay in the race after having an affair on the campaign trail, given the stakes involved.  I mean, holy jeebus, what if he had gotten the nomination or been selected as the VP candidate by Obama?  We'd be looking at McCain/Palin adminstration right now.

However, I think Elizabeth Edwards has been given too much of a pass through all of this.  She knew about her husband's affair and did not insist that he drop out of the race and continued to work for the campaign.  Elizabeth Edward chose, just as John, to risk the welfare of the entire country.  I still find it mind boggling.

Not yet mentioned:  John Edwards used his "opposition to nuclear power" to cultivate primary voters in NH.  Some folks who oppose Seabrook (going back to Clam Shell Alliance) decided to back Edwards on this single issue.  I tried to remind them that when he was in the Senate and when he had the opportunity, he voted the wrong way backing Yucca Mountain (NV) and the transport of nuclear waste.

I suppose it's harmless to beat up on a political figure whose public life has vanished, on the basis of feelings that he wasn't sincere or that he sounded and looked too plastic.  But we should try to detach our political analysis of why Edwards had appeal in '04 and '08 from what we know about him now.  The reality is that Edwards was the most effective speaker on the stump in the primary battles of '04, conveyed more concern about problems affecting the poor and disadvantaged in the '08 cycle (and displayed it), and held his own in debates with Obama, Clinton and the other candidates.

Go back and actually look at those early debates or read their transcripts.  Biden and Dodd were doing Senatorial lectures, Richardson kept laboriously reciting his bio with no small condescension toward his competitors, Obama usually descended into policy-wonk answers, and Clinton was "it's-all-about-me".  Only Edwards was initially ready for prime time.  That, and his relentless energy on the stump, were how he sustained his appeal.  The reality is that the ability of presidential candidates to give pithy answers in complete sentences, in terminology that the average voter can understand, has enormous impact.  By the end of 2007, Obama had acquired that ability.  Edwards already had it.  That's an important reason why he lasted as long as he did in that race.

One additional reason, which is still relevant today:  Edwards' appeal to red-state working-class voters in '07-08 (a lot of whom have now joined the tea-bag movement) was based in part on his argument about the injustice of our economic system, as shown in the government's response to Katrina, our treatment of industrial workers who've lost their jobs, and the health care system.  No other national Democrat in '08, including Obama, made this argument with passion -- until Hillary started channeling it before the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, which she won (and no national Democrat is making this argument effectively today). This too helps explain why Edwards' appeal lasted as long as it did.

Democrats on Capitol Hill and the White House seem to ignore the reality that the right-wing (as all fascist movements have done in the past) are opportunistically hijacking this resentment of the system and turning it against progressive policies, which are derided as elitist.  We will not advance the progressive cause unless we set aside our disappointment that Obama has not turned into Robert F. Kennedy, engage the battle of neutralizing the right's false populism (instead of merely demeaning the tea baggers' intelligence), and demand that Democrats muster some passion for helping people who've been left by the side of the road by our present economic and political system. Fake or genuine, Edwards' animation about that resonated with people.

Because of what we know now, I am as relieved as anyone else that Edwards wasn't on the 2008 Democratic ticket, but there are objective reasons why he ran second in Iowa and was a strong contender until the national media and the South Carolina results narrowed the race to Obama and Clinton, and those reasons are instructive today.

The comments on NYMag's "Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster" article are interesting.  Those who are rabid anti-Obama cannot believe he would make the statement that he shouldn't be Pres if he's willing to cut a deal.  They seem to think that because he's a Chicago politician..everything is done the "Chicago way".  It's unfortunate that some Illinois pols get a bad rap because of a few.   Paul Simon was an Illinois senator and I don't recall anyone accusing him of being Chicago style pol.    I'm not saying that Obama is a saint...he's a politician but this Chicago smear is ridiculous.

Tour d'force, indeed*

* If true - the book comes sans any source notes, and my understanding from reading reviews thus far is that the reporting ranges from "I saw that, I heard that" to third and even fourth-level hear-say.

I wonder why?

During the relevant period, I was still hoping for Gore, and not enthralled by Hillary's "inevitability" and not sure that Obama would even win the Iowa caucuses. So why didn't I turn to Edwards? Nothing big I can remember, just a succession of little things that maybe added up to a big "not interested". The 28,000 square foot house that he  built while he wanted to run an agency for poverty. Such an edifice is fine if you are a rock star or computer magnate who only takes care of himself and his friends and who has dedicated himself to serving the corporate entity that pays the bills. Working to alleviate poverty means making a few enemies of the kind of people who could help him afford a 28,000 square foot house.

I also felt that if the actual poor showed up at the place, they would be turned away.

If you care about that, shouldn't you scale back some and commit some of your ample funds to this work?? It seemed  to me he couldn't say no to Elizabeth if he couldn't scale back to a level that would allow him to live  his work without compromising his ideals, that Elizabeth was too spoiled and needy to allow even the modest amount of accomodation necessary for such a work.  I needed someone more decisive as President.

People say bad things about Al Gore's house, but Al at least bought an already existing structure and greened it, has real money from his VP pension, books and other actvities. And his house would fit into the 28k square foot palace Edwards owns.

Also, why quit the Senate altogether if you want to help? Why not stay in and decide not to run again and work on legislation that could actually help the poor in your remaining time in the Senate, or help others do so. Al Gore in a similar situation would at least have worked on environmental legislation during the time he had left in his term.

He did poorly as a running mate for Kerry-who if I remember, chose him in part due to the lobbying by some of the netroots. To this day I think Howard Dean might have been a better choice, scream and all. Dean has a strategic mind, executive experience, and was already pretty heavily vetted due to having been the front-runner earlier in the year. Plus, Dean would have vigorously defended Kerry instead of laying down in front of Cheney .

Most candidates have an overarching theme, a consummate policy interest that drives them to do real good in the world. Obama worked for years to eliminate poverty. Hillary cares greatly about the position of women. Biden cares about foreign policy. Kerry cares about veterans, Dean health care, and so forth. I never quite got what it was about Edwards. He never really had a policy interest that predated his run for the Senate, none during, and the poverty interest seemed half-hearted at best.

I know politicians have egos at that level, but that he even decided in an age of bloggers, cell phone cameras and the like that he could run a high-profile campaign with such a current secret boggles me. Old affairs long dead are one thing: Clinton dodged a bullet because things were already long over in both cases. But his situation with Hunter was completely unresolved-he hadn't even told her it was over, told his wife it was over, or checked to make sure everything was okay with Hunter.

How did he think that this volatile affair wouldn't eventually get out, and damage his campaign, perhaps at a time of the Republicans's choosing if he happened to win the nomination. He had already tried to dismiss the Enquirer stories among some of his fellow Democrats, but Republican opposition researchers would have no such qualms.

And to offer this flaming bag of dog poo to no-drama Obama? Obama who would have to expend precious resources defending this choice, explaining the affair away, or having his campaign message completely overshadowed by his running mate's salacious affair? This man is totally clueless and narcissistic. And if he was somehow able to kick the can down the road to the White House, run the risk of Rielle surfacing and completely entangling Obama in a net of Edward's lies and deceit, unable to govern fully until Edwards was replaced with someone who would be able to help him govern.

Tom - A lot of the "unsourced" stuff is pretty easy to suss out. For example, when they write that Hindery wrote such and such to Daschle in an email, that means that one or the other gave them the email (and the way it's spun I'd say it is obvious it was Daschle).

There just could not be a book like this if every word was sourced because nobody on the inside would talk under those conditions. Also, you have political reporters like Marc Ambinder, Ben Smith and me excited about the book because what we read corresponds in those areas where we do have some backroom knowledge of events. You can be sure if the book's claims were disparate from what we know then we would say so loudly.

For example, the anecdote about what Bill Clinton said to Ted Kennedy about Obama "fetching coffee" for them is something I heard back when it had just happened, including the part where it absolutely floored Teddy to hear it, but at the time was off the record. Now that it is in public view, I can say that I have independent understanding of the same incident. And as you know, I was the first to report that Teddy would endorse Obama. I had a front row seat to that process.

Other than some denials from the Palin camp, nobody has stepped forward to say "that thing they reported is false." Even Harry Reid immediately admitted to his "negro" gaffe. It seems like a very well and cleanly reported work. And you can be sure the spin machines of the many politicians embarrassed in it have been working overtime to try to shoot holes in it but so far have come up empty handed.

Like I said, I think Heilemann is top shelf as a political reporter, and people forget that before Halperin did The Page he edited ABC's The Note, and in fact created the format for it. These guys experienced much of this stuff as I did - as it was happening. And the sheer excitement of the moments shines through in the pages I've been able to read so far.

He has reminded me too much of Lionel Hutz.

I prefer that my presidents not be phony and shallow and lacking intellectual heft.

Edwards impresses as a total phoney. He brings to mind Mary McCarthy's masterful takedown of Lillian Hellman: every word she ever wrote was a lie - including and and the.

Getting preached to by rich people about poverty is always hard to take. In fact, it's equally hard to take from another faux-populist - Arianna Huffington - who issues poverty salvos from her LA mansion with a little too much forced zeal for my tastes.

There's just something inherently patronizing in the rich talking down to the poor. Smacks of opportunism.

Still, there was no good reason to issue a merciless smackdown on Elizabeth Edwards. Beltway sadism, IMO.

Who knows what the percentages are - but it's inside the beltway, village gossip with no impact on policy - it's little boyism, basically. Fun, I know. Some truth there, yeah. Pissed off staffers from losing campaigns, second-raters with a license the thrill with erzsatz quotes. But blind, second/third-hand, unsourced 'reporting' on some of the harsher aspects isn't even a step above Drudge or TMZ.

I agree Heilemann's good - I don't know why he put his name on this stuff. I won't read his reporting the same way anymore. I mean c'mon - some notes, please.

Let's take the Kennedy quote. Sadly, the Senator isn't the source. So it's at minimum second hand, perhaps farther out. Single source for corroboration? Who knows. Exact quote - very, very doubtful. Heck you even got it wrong: it's "getting us coffee" not "fetching." Do we "know" it was those words that pissed the Senator off and turned him toward Obama and against Clinton - nah, we really don't. It's like a game of telephone...

When Edwards spoke, especially in interview settings, he kept sticking his tongue out of his mouth, like a lizard, not at the corners of his mouth, but right out the middle between his lips. And he did so not in forming words but inbetween words.  It seemed an autonomic response.  It was extremely weird.  Didn't anyone else notice this? To me, it betrayed an absence of self-control and that he was controlled instead by base instincts, that he wasn't even aware of.  And I had supported him in 2004 and tried to in 2008 till the tongue tic made me look closer. The closer look showed me more of the shallowness of the man and the disconnect between Edwards the senator and candidate. Also, whereas he seemed fairly authentic to me in 2004, it seemed by 2008 he had become merely mechanical and ambitious, as if he were too aware of it being his last hurrah if he lost the nomination.

My wife's "jerk radar" picked up on Edwards' duplicity in mid 2007, and that hardened into fact for her when she saw him, on camera, talk rudely and brusquely to Elizabeth as if she were a naughty inconsequential pet, even while in the company of other campaign people.

Yes, Edwards was not even in control of his own behavior, except occasionally when acting in front of the camera (or jury).  Nor was he aware of that obvious fact, and nor could he do anything about it if he tried - because that's just who he is.

Tom - Knowing Teddy, it is also fully plausible that he decided to make a big deal of that "coffee" remark because he knew it would rally the base. Like I said, a little knowledge about reading between the lines and the book is fun, fun, fun.

I can't make any claim to being "right" about Edwards, but for whatever random reason my gut dislike of him turned out to be well founded.  To the extent I can point to tangible reasons, it probably comes down to the phoniness (sp?) that others have mentioned.  He just seemed like a pretty face telling people what they wanted to hear.  I never sensed any gravitas and his record didn't line up with his public personna.  I was often confused by the love he received from some of the blogosphere who's views I otherwise overlapped quite a bit with.

As has been mentioned, the alternate reality where he lost to McCain/Palin because of the scandal would likely have driven me over the edge.

What's beyond that edge?  I'm not sure, but it definately ain't ice cream.