Hotline Looks At Edwards Campaign and gives Him some advise

I don't know about the Edwards supporters and how they will view this. It is like an op ed on Edwards campaign. They look at how and why there was a few trip ups and the ongoing look at the haircut.
They give an unvarnished view of some of the mistakes he has made but, at the end they say it did not damage his standing with democrats.
I hope you guys read this in a good frame as it is just meant to answer why the focus on some things by the media and not on the serious stuff. it is something he will work out of as he has in the past.
Read this with common sense involved and not an attempt by them to be mean and that it is basically a good article on him.



John Edwards is a rich guy, owns a big house, dresses nicely, got a $400 haircut, earned lots of money at a hedge fund, runs a poverty center and focuses his political energies on pushing the idea that poverty in America is a scandal and ought to be eradicated.

The volume of press coverage directed at proving that, yes, Edwards is a rich guy and invests his money like a rich guy suggests that the media senses hypocrisy. And that's a very, very dangerous sensation, so far as John Edwards is concerned. A large number of national and local editors and reporters -- think of the AP's Mike Glover in Iowa -- can't get enough of the story.

The truth is that the media seems to be confusing “hypocrisy” -- doing what one says one must not do -- with bad optics and a few cases of ill-considered judgment. (This Newsday headline: "Poverty Campaigner And Spouse Earned $29M") is pregnant with meaning, and yet logically suspect.)

The fact is, if you're in politics and you talk about poverty, extra attention will be paid to the manner in which you display your personal wealth -- whether, by dint of expensive haircuts and mammoth homes, you spend the money you earn and don't care about "what it looks like."

Edwards has been uncautiously ostentatious. That's the basic mistake. He's set himself up for questions about the work his poverty center did, the Cayman Islands, why he joined Fortress, Sudan holdings, etc, not because he held himself to a different moral standard, but because he didn't hold himself to a high enough political standard. The press reads this as arrogance.

Knowing he was going to focus on poverty, he probably should have dialed back his displays of wealth. The optics would look better. Roger Simon wrote that the problem with Edwards's $400 haircut was not the haircut itself; it was the fact that it slipped into his campaign finance report. Wrong. The problem was the haircut -- or, more precisely, the shrug of the shoulders that accompanied his decision to get it. The press pays attention to these things. It -- we -- have a fetish for the discrepant, the unseemly, the showy. You just don't get a $400 haircut during a campaign to eradicate poverty. Your credibility as a messenger suffers.

Think of what would happen if Rudy Giuliani profited off of 9/11. (Uh... that's for another post. We won't want Katie Levinson to get mad at us today.)

At the end of the day, the standards may not be fair. Who faults Bill Gates for having a tremendo-mungus home and a zillion cars? (The riposte might be: has Edwards actually helped the world's poor, yet?)

The good news for Edwards is that, per public polls and private polls done for Democrats, the haircut/hedge fund coverage hasn't cut into Edwards's lead in Iowa, the only state that really matters right now to that campaign. Unions still love him. He's still the only guy who's running on poverty. But a few more weeks of coverage like this might begin to do some damage.

1) John Edwards, should he become President, would need a very big house. You need room for cabinet members and secret service, when you go back home. People who criticize the acreage of Edwards' property are clearly not "thinkers." Bush has a ranch. The Kennedys were not living in the middle of town. If you are going to become President you need a big place and a lot of space around it, for safety and so that you can house more people than yourself. Where would Angela Merkel stay if she visited Edwards' house on a visit to the United States and he lived in a 3 bedroom brick house? In the garage, or would Jack and Emma Claire stay over their grandparents' house so Merkel can have their room for the weekend? Please, get real. The house isn't and issue for people who can think.

2) John Edwards did not get two $400 hair cuts. He received two hair cuts with the same stylist during two different campaign trips to California. His campaign arranged for him to receive them at his hotel between campaign stops. The stylist was an old friend of Edwards'. The stylist sent the campaign a bill for $800, and the campaign paid the bill. Does Hillary Clinton handle the bills that are sent to her campaign? How about Barak Obama? Of course they don't and neither does John Edwards. The people who handle that stuff paid the bill, because that's what they do. John Edwards didn't know how much the hair cuts cost, and he said that once he found out he agreed the $400 was absurd for a hair cut. The "Beverly Hills" stylist normally charges $150 for a hair cut, which is probably regular price in Beverly Hills. Either way, the way the media have covered this story is in fact swiftboating, because the media are giving the "false impression" that John Edwards likes nothing better than blowing $400 on a hair cut, which is not how the events play out.

They love to say, "John Edwards' lavish lifestyle." John Edwards is rich, but other than his house, what's so lavish about a guy who doesn't do much shopping and then goes to Target when he does, wears a cheap watch, and would rather eat at Wendy's than Ginza Sushiko. There's nothing "lavish" about John Edwards lifestyle, but it's the caricature of him that the swiftboating corporate press are determined to create of him, and he is doing a terrible job of protecting his image. But the fact remains, he's been relentlessly swiftboated by the media for the past 3 months for things that were indirectly attached to his name.

Next up, Sudan.

I can't remember.

1) Edwards has not even been selected to run for President, so why build a big house now?

2) Is the stylist who sent Edward's campaign that bill for $800, still a friend of Edwards?

Thank you for posting here at DU, and clearing up the swiftboating of John Edwards.

:hi:

edit to add a 3rd question - If Edwards is chosen to be the candidate for President, who would you like to see as his VP?

I have no idea whether or not Edwards and the stylist are still friends. I would think that a friend wouldn't tack on $250 to a $150 Beverly Hills price just to make a trip to a room.

I guess I need to keep lowering them.

Right? :shrug:

Oh, my.

I think you should go right ahead and keep accusing others of conspiring to "get" the poor fellow!

But remember that your drama and outrage as a standard response to posters who's opinions don't match yours about John Edwards is assisting in giving him a weak limp persona. John Edwards needs support from those who can debate the issues strongly and factually, as opposed to those who keep lamenting that he is being bullied and heaping scorn on anyone who doesn't post glowing reports about him.

And it is not just me noticing it.

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Makes me feel right at home. Only this time I am mostly here by myself.

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Don't you guys have some "news" for us? Clark's "new job" :shrug:

Why don't you tell us?

He is an investment banker; he edits military histories for a publishing company; he is a partner in James Lee Witt Associates emergency preparedness and recovery firm; he's joined a food company board; he is a UCLA foreign policy fellow; he is a public speaker worldwide. At least.

But none of it is news - so what "news" on Clark's "new job" do you have for us, Catchawave? Don't keep us in suspense.

I thought it was new since it doesn't begin til June?

I'm not riddlin' ya, just would like to stay up to date :hi:

In terms of sustainability and feeding the hungry. I don't know what the product tastes like, but apparently it's having a positive impact on malnutritional children in Africa and Malaysia.

Right?:shrug:

I like all of the candidates enough, some more than others.

I like OBama. I Hillary. I like Richardson. I even like Edwards. I prefer them all over any Republican anyday.

I prefer honesty in my debate. I prefer to understand those seeking higher office and why they have decided they are most qualified. I resent the Media for deciding who the frontrunners are, and I dislike them for deciding what's important in a candidate and what is not.

The Iraq war is the biggest foreign policy debacle in our history, far as I'm concerned.....and I hold each candidate's judgment in the promotion and/or discouragement of its start as much, if not more then its future end.

Political courage means standing with only a few for something when it is unpopular but right, not standing for something along with everyone else when it is popular and right.

Like the candidate that I wish would run stated a couple of days ago,
"First of all, we distorted, overplayed, exaggerated the threat. This was not a defensive war. It was an elective war. America chose to go to war when any reasonable look at the intelligence, even at the time, would've said, 'This is not a necessary war.'"
<>
We have something here which simply can’t be washed away and covered up. I’ve met with too many parents who’ve lost their children. I’ve met with too many foreign leaders whose faith in America has been damaged. I’ve met with too many military leaders who are struggling to come to terms with what they felt were the pressures and orders from above and what they knew in their hearts and had reservations about as a consequence and tried to resolve it. "--Wes Clark.
http://securingamerica.com/node/2425

when some said that he favored privatizing Social Security and then--if you can imagine--used a RW site as the "proof" of that assertion! And that despite the fact that Sen. Obama has consistently said quite the opposite! But some love to take down people like Sen. Obama while they hero worship...

It's sad. So sad.

smears posted about him, and re-posted even when they were shown to be false. That is sad, but his supporters challenged the accusations instead of whining about them and debunked them, so that's actually great!

Same for Hillary's supporters, who have got to be one tired group of people on this board sometimes, lol.

how, even with that, and the msm, democrats are not buying it and still standing by him. I thought it would be good news.

You are right. Democrats aren't buying it - the tactics. It's encouraging that people are of independent mind. People want a new direction in our country. They voted in the last election for a new direction. They see a media that doesn't take that seriously and talks sometimes about silly things. Maybe we should be taking about, say, climate change and what to do about it, instead of haircuts. Just maybe.

the facts, which are, the media are fabricating all of this mess to create a caricature of John Edwards.

I wonder how long Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlon spend in the make up room before they come on the air, but their ilk wants to make fun of Edwards because he has good hair? Maybe they are jealous.

Since this is advice night.

Obama needs to quit glossing over stuff and really say specifics. He needs speak out more specificly.

Hillary needs to quit relying on the people she surrounds herself with. They control her too much.

You know, it's funny. I have got articles on all the candidates. I don't post them as a rule, and they are divisive.

Odd, huh?

already out there about him. The other candidates need to be outed.

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I've seen enough flamebait Hillary and Clark threads that never got locked until they reached triple digit numbers that make Edwards threads pale in comparison.

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/edwards_haircut.html

and the author is Marc Ambinder

Jerry Falwell ?

Effective blogging does require good sources to help people decide. I appreciate your effort and hope the OP does remember proper formatting next time s/he's concerned about Edwards :D

Oopsy, edit to add linky:

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/on_jerry_falwel.html

I hope the article wasn't about the *nice* Jerry Falwell...eek!

There is nothing to be "bought."
Superficiality is something that matters to some people. How many people who say it does not matter that he lives a life of excess while claiming to be an advocate for the poor are living on less than $10,000\ year?

I can't tell when you are saying something or the Hotline is saying it.

Edwards, Haircuts, Poverty, Memes, The Press and Hedge Funds

snip: "John Edwards is a rich guy, owns a big house, dresses nicely, got a $400 haircut, earned lots of money at a hedge fund, runs a poverty center and focuses his political energies on pushing the idea that poverty in America is a scandal and ought to be eradicated.

The volume of press coverage directed at proving that, yes, Edwards is a rich guy and invests his money like a rich guy suggests that the media senses hypocrisy. And that's a very, very dangerous sensation, so far as John Edwards is concerned. A large number of national and local editors and reporters -- think of the AP's Mike Glover in Iowa -- can't get enough of the story.

snip: The fact is, if you're in politics and you talk about poverty, extra attention will be paid to the manner in which you display your personal wealth -- whether, by dint of expensive haircuts and mammoth homes, you spend the money you earn and don't care about what it looks like.

Edwards has been uncautiously ostentatious. That's the basic mistake. He's set himself up for questions about the work his poverty center did, the Cayman Islands, why he joined Fortress, Sudan holdings, etc, not because he held himself to a different moral standard, but because he didn't hold himself to a high enough political standard. The press reads this as arrogance.

Knowing he was going to focus on poverty, he probably should have dialed back his displays of wealth. The optics would look better. Roger Simon wrote that the problem with Edwards's $400 haircut was not the haircut itself; it was the fact that it slipped into his campaign finance report. Wrong. The problem was the haircut -- or, more precisely, the shrug of the shoulders that accompanied his decision to get it. The press pays attention to these things. It -- we -- have a fetish for the discrepant, the unseemly, the showy. You just don't get a $400 haircut during a campaign to eradicate poverty. Your credibility as a messenger suffers."

If you want to read the whole thing: http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/05/edwards_haircut.html

/The OP has the entire article I believe.