John Edwards

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For the 18th century preacher, see Jonathan Edwards.

John Edwards, is a prominent Democratic candidate for Vice President and running mate of John Kerry for the 2004 presidential elections. He is known for his advocacy of populist policies.

Contents

Early Life and Education

John Edwards was born in Seneca, South Carolina on June 10, 1953. He grew up in Robbins, North Carolina, and graduated from North Carolina State University in 1974, and received a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977.

In 1977, he married Elizabeth Anania. Their son Wade was born in 1979 and daughter Cate in 1982. Following Wade's death in a car accident in 1996, the couple chose to have more children. Emma Claire was born 1998, and Jack was born in 2000.

Private Sector

Edwards served as a personal injury trial lawyer in Tennessee and in North Carolina for 20 years, specializing in negligence and medical malpractice suits. Critics ascribe Edwards personal fortune as having been amasssed preying on malpractice victims and using junk science to win large settlements. [1] Michael Medved said "Ambulance chasers like Edwards don’t create wealth; they seize wealth from its creators...There are also serious questions about his misuse of his own S-type corporation to dodge taxes, and the shady sale of his previous mansion in Georgetown in a sweetheart deal with a supporter who’s currently under government investigation....lawsuits on which Edwards built his career damaged the economy ...building nothing at all and benefiting only the lawyer and his clients. On what basis can Democrats argue that government should cap or actively discourage big salaries for successful corporate heads, but never consider such a limitation for a court-room conniver like Edwards?" [2] The deal Edwards pocketed the most from was a $25 million suit for a girl who was disemboweled by a swimming pool drain.

Social commentator Ann Coulter quoted an article from the New York Times about Edwards behavior in the courtroom with this description, "He's the trial lawyer who pretended in court to channel the spirit of a handicapped fetus in front of illiterate jurors to scam tens of millions of dollars off of innocent doctors. According to The New York Times, Edwards told one jury: "


“ She speaks to you through me ... And I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you. [3] ”

Political Career

In 1998, Edwards ran as the Democratic candidate for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He beat incumbent Senator Lauch Faircloth to win the seat.

Edwards served in the Senate for one 6 year term, declining to stand for re-election so that he could run for the 2004 Democratic party nomination for President. He withdrew from the presidential race on March 2, 2004 after failing to win any state of the 10 contested states in the Super Tuesday elections. Democratic nominee John Kerry named Edwards as his vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic ticket.

2004 Vice-Presidential Candidacy

Democratic National Committee insider Bob Shrum reported in his book No Excuses about the 2004 loss of Kerry/Edwards. In the book Shrum told of private Kerry-Edwards discussions when Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry was considering Edwards for the Vice-Presidential slot;


“ (Kerry) was even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else -- that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before -- and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again. ”

The Kerry-Edwards ticket lost to incumbent president George W. Bush and Dick Cheney with 48% of the vote to the Republicans' 51%.

2008 Presidential Candidacy

On December 28, 2005, John Edwards officially announced that he would again seek the Democratic nomination for president for the 2008 election.

Edwards is reported to be miffed over having been branded "the Breck Girl" [4] in the 2004 Vice Presidential contest. Columnist Joan Vennochi characterized Edwards problem, "Usually, women are forced to ward off stereotypical thinking that equates beauty with brainlessness. But Edwards is not the first male politician to feel the double-edged sword that comes with being too pretty to be taken seriously." [5] In the spring of 2007, Edwards was ridiculed for getting $400 haircuts and charging his political campaign for them. He later said that he reimbursed his campaign $800.[6]

On Memorial Day 2007 Edwards was accused of using the National Holiday to "trash the sacrifice, honor and glory of American soldiers." [7][8]

The New York Times reported Edwards created a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, according to tax filings. The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.

While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations. [9]

John Edwards ended his run to become the Democratic candidate fot the 2008 presidential election after the Florida primaries on January 29, 2008, when he became a distant third to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It was the third primary in arow where he ended third, and he dropped out before Super Tuesday, when voters in twenty-two states allocating about 45 per cent of the delegates.

Political views

During his Senate career and the 2004 presidential campaign, one of Edwards' main themes was "Two Americas," contrasting the poorer working-class Americans with wealthier Americans. Critics cite the hypocrisy of Edwards call for "affordable health care," when it is malpractice attorneys that use junk science to win big awards such as himself that have made the cost of health care beyond the reach of the poor.

Criticism

Edwards came under fire for not firing two of his campaign workers who made bigoted and hateful statements on their blogs. Statements included calling Christian supporters of President Bush his "wingnut Christofascist base", asking what would have happened if the Virgin Mary had taken an emergency contraceptive[10], and asking religious conservatives "What don't you lousy motherf——ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds and our families?".[11][12] These incidents were largely ignored by the mainstream media.[13] Edwards was criticized for not firing the employees, but they later resigned themselves.

Critics also cite Edwards lack of government experience. One often heard criticism is that, other than the fact he has a full head of hair, there is little else to qualify him as a candidate.

Post Political Career

After losing the bid for vice president in the 2004 election, he became the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Attacks on Ann Coulter

In August 2007, John Edwards viciously attacked social commentator Ann Coulter, calling her a "she-devil" [14]

Recently, ABC’s Chris Cuomo ambushed Ann Coulter with a personal attack on her and the GOP by asking,


“ But to begin with the tough words, some tough words for you by the three top candidates in response to what you had said, some were calling it a homosexual slur, you said it was a taunt. They all came out when you were talking about John Edwards and said, 'This was wrong. We must deny it." Fair criticism of you or a shift towards the tolerant among the GOP? [15] ”

Coulter responded,


“ No, no. There were, I was denounced all over. All over. I think the one that hurt the most was, was from I'mALittleGirlInAPinkPartyDress.com… Very upsetting…Though about the same time Bill Maher said - and by the way, I did not call John Edwards the F-word. I said I couldn't talk about him because you go into rehab for using that word...But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack -- so I've learned my lesson: If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot. [16] ”

In March 2007, Coulter was attacked after saying,


“ Oh, and I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm -- so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards. ”

Six days after the New York Times published an article about the questionable practices of Edwards non-profit group which allegedly had been founded with the stated aim to fight poverty but had in fact been used by staffers for travel and campaign work, Elizabeth Edwards in what was obviously an effort to detract from the revelations attacked Ann Coulter on Chris Matthews HARDBALL. Matthews, a former Democratic presidential speech writer for Jimmy Carter, with a reputation for constantly interrupting guests in mid-sentence, never once interrupted Elizabeth Edwards. Coulter was not informed before hand by Matthews and staff she would be appearing with the candidates wife. Mrs. Edwards said,


“ I'm the mother of that boy who died. These young people behind you are the age of my children. You're asking them to participate in a dialogue that's based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues, ”

referring to an article Coulter wrote in 2003 about various Democratic Presidential candidates who had exploited family tragedies for partisan political purposes:


“ Al Gore famously inaugurated the family tragedy routine at the 1992 Democratic National Convention...to recount the story of his son being hit by a car. At the 1996 convention, Gore told a tear-jerker about his sister's long, painful death from lung cancer. ...Gephardt has taken to spinning out a long, pitiful tale of his son's near-death three decades ago. ...Mrs. Gephardt weeps anew as her husband tells the same gut-wrenching story over and over again. ...John Edwards injects his son's fatal car accident into his campaign by demanding that everyone notice how he refuses to inject his son's fatal car accident into his campaign.

Edwards has talked about his son's death in a 1996 car accident on Good Morning America, in dozens of profiles and in his new book. ("It was and is the most important fact of my life.") His 1998 Senate campaign ads featured film footage of Edwards at a learning lab he founded in honor of his son, titled "The Wade Edwards Learning Lab." He wears his son's Outward Bound pin on his suit lapel. He was going to wear it on his sleeve, until someone suggested that might be a little too "on the nose."

If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those "Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident" bumper stickers? Edwards is like a politician who keeps announcing that he will not use his opponent's criminal record for partisan political advantage. I absolutely refuse to mention the name of my dearly beloved and recently departed son killed horribly in a car accident, which affected me deeply, to score cheap political points.

I wouldn't want John Edwards to be president, but I think even Karl Rove would be willing to stipulate that the death of a son is a terrible thing. [17]

”

President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush suffered the loss of a child sibling in 1953; there is no record whatsoever of the Bush family using the death of a child to gain sympathy in any of the Presidential elections G.H.W. Bush was involved in, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, or G.W. Bush in 2000 or 2004, yet certain liberal authors have exploited the tragedy to attack, slander, and impugn the entire Bush family, Bush Sr., Barbara Bush, and G.W. Bush. [18]

The staged event netted Edwards sorely lagging campaign $450,000 from 2300 donors using cropped, out-of-context video snippets within 24 hours. [19][20]

Miscellania

Books

The Four Trials (with John Auchard), about his career as a lawyer

Trivia

The $25 million settlement was the largest in NC history.

See Also

Articles about John Edwards from previous "Breaking News"

References

  1. ↑ Peter W. Huber, Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom, 1993. ISBN 0-465-02624-9.
  2. ↑ For Presidents Day: Our Most Under-rated Chief Executive, Michael Medved, February 20, 2007.
  3. ↑ That Was No Lady -- That Was My Husband, by Ann Coulter, Human Events, 06/28/2007.
  4. ↑ John Edwards the Breck Girl "Sometimes another pretty face is just another pretty face."
  5. ↑ Edwards' obstacle: 'Breck girl' good looks, Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe, 01.10.2004.
  6. ↑ CBS News, John Edwards And The Case Of The "Breck Girl" Comment, April 24, 2007.
  7. ↑ John Edwards criticized for 'trashing' troops on Memorial Day, Jim Brown, OneNewsNow.com, May 30, 2007.
  8. ↑ Edwards Defends Stepped-Up War Opposition, By Mike Glover, Associated Press, May 26, 2007.
  9. ↑ In Aiding Poor Edwards Built Bridge to 2008, Leslie Waynem New York Times, June 22, 2007.
  10. ↑ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/13/politics/p171426S05.DTL&type=politics
  11. ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251620,00.html
  12. ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251009,00.html
  13. ↑ http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2007/fax20070222.asp
  14. ↑ Edwards Calls Coulter 'She-Devil', ABC News, August 17, 2007.
  15. ↑ Ann Coulter Discusses John Edwards, Bill Maher, and the ‘F-word’ on ‘GMA’, Noel Sheppard, Newsbusters, June 26, 2007.
  16. ↑ That Was No Lady -- That Was My Husband, by Ann Coulter, Human Events, 06/28/2007.
  17. ↑ The Party of ideas, Ann Coulter, 11/19/2003.
  18. ↑ Bush on the Couch By Justin Frank, 2004. Retrieved from the History News Network 29 June 2007.
  19. ↑ Edwards and McCain Battle to stay in 2008 top tier, John Harwood, Wall Street Journal Washinton Wire, June 29, 2007.
  20. ↑ ABC Links Edwards/Coulter Call to '08 Fundraising Deadline, NBC Distorts Coulter, Brad Wilmouth, Newsbusters, June 28, 2007.

Sources

http://johnedwards.com/

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