Disgraced John Edwards back in the spotlight

[Adelante]

This is more about the effect the affair had on the Edwards presidential campaign than the personal issues.

In the fall of 2006, John Edwards’ political high command began hearing disturbing reports from aides on the road. The candidate, they were told, was spending too much time with an eccentric filmmaker named Rielle Hunter.

So when Edwards and Hunter returned from his trip to Africa in early October, his former campaign manager Peter Scher confronted him: If Edwards was having an affair, he told the candidate flatly, he couldn’t run for president.

Edwards denied the affair, but Scher and other loyalists from his 2004 campaign doubted his word, made excuses, and stayed out of the 2008 presidential race when Edwards launched his campaign after Christmas.

-snip

The concerted effort to keep the Enquirer story from reaching the average Iowa Caucus-goer was, a former top aide said, “a campaign within a campaign.” Even Edwards’ new top strategist, Trippi, was left off the first of the conference calls on the subject, which included some of the candidates’ 2004 circle who had taken a pass on the race, as well as aides who had stayed in 2006.

The aides ran a full-court press on reporters who asked about the Enquirer piece, asking them if they really planned to follow a supermarket tabloid and saying—accurately—that the evidence of the affair was thin.

For those who suspected the story was true, the real point of the effort was to prevent Elizabeth Edwards and their children from having to read about the candidate’s infidelities in the newspapers, one campaign insider said, but the effect was to keep Edwards’ shot at the White House alive.

Full article here

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22127.html

[provis99]

1. Edwards turned out to be a deluded egomaniac

Glad he wasn't our nominee, though I initially supported him before Obama.

[cali]

2. more and more damning

he really is a piece of shit who doesn't give a fuck about anyone but himself. Reminds me of the story about how JE told JK this story about his dead son and how he'd never told anyone this story before, but later JK found out that he had indeed told the same story.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Well, you and I read him like a book, didn't we?

Built-in BS meters sure come in useful.....hey?

[cali]

6. we did. and I didn't say half of what I thought

even the most mild criticism of John Edwards met with howls around here for months.

The thing is, I can't even claim to have this great bs meter. There was a lot of evidence that he was a self-serving sleaze.

[Adelante]

4. There really is something wrong with this man

Something missing inside him.

[tritsofme]

5. I bet John is just happy to see his name in the news again.

Nothing was more entertaining last year than watching his political career crumble before your eyes.

You don't see too much of his apologists any more, but they always used to be a riot.

[FrenchieCat]

7. That Breck Girl Hair Tape was a dead giveaway.....

if you ask me! How could anyone that enamored with himself even be taken seriously?

Well, whatever.

It usually does all come out in the wash...!

[frebrd]

8. I thought I wouldn't have to hear about him any more.

Never could stand him, with his too cute smile.

[TK421]

9. I remember hearing about the affair and thinking to myself "Damn, did I have him pegged wrong"!

as he seemed to me to be a stand-up guy ( at the time )

Goes to show you just never know....god, what a frigging embarrassment he was

[Cha]

10. This is what I'm talking about..

the political side that came from the personal cheating and lying.

"Assuming the timeline that has been made public is accurate, I think both Elizabeth and John are to blame — both of them carried on this facade,” said David Redlawsk, a professor at the University of Iowa who was a prominent Edwards supporter in the key state. “For the good of the country, he certainly shouldn’t have run. For the good of the country, she should have said something.”

Unreal.

[Adelante]

11. I don't think she had to say anything, not then and not now

I do think she should not have stood with him, but let him go alone taking people down the garden path. That would have been the honorable course for her, imo. I hold them both responsible for the deception of voters and supporters, and endangering the nation, her painful personal situation notwithstanding. This is about the public life more than the personal to me.

[Cha]

12. Yeah..Elizabeth staying out

would have said a lot.

[Adelante]

13. Something weird, too, from the article

A staff member says Elizabeth was much more into continuing the campaign after her cancer recurred than John was. That would have been the perfect excuse to put a stop to the charade.

“John was much more reluctant to continue the campaign than she was,” said a former aide who was present as they made their decision.

Who knows if this is correct or not, but it's what this person took away from the decision meeting.

[Cha]

15. I saw that..and thought

it was very bizarre. Doesn't sound like what she's saying in her book.

A lot of people put their trust in him and he knew he couldn't deliver. There's a quote from him that states he was narcissistic and a egomaniac..paraphrasing.

[liberalpragmatist]

16. It said that was after her cancer recurred

So I suppose her motivations were different. She said in the excerpt from her book that she asked him to quit the race when he told her of the affair. But I guess she didn't want her cancer to be the reason he dropped out.

Also -- and this is entirely speculation -- it's possible that, given what she was going through, she was trying to rationalize the campaign. Maybe after her initial anger and shock, she was going through a phase of trying to forgive him and maybe even blaming herself, and if that were the case, she may have decided to encourage him to keep running.

[Raine]

14. Just go away John

as a former supporter I don't want to see or hear from you ever again!