Regarding John Edwards
I once heard the opinion expressed by someone or other:
“I am worried we’ll see that the Democratic Party decided to make history and thus failed to elect a president.”
Parce the meaning further, and this lands at John Edwards, the “Bronze Medalist” in the Democratic Primary Contest. Before any of the primaries and caucuses, Edwards was consistently ahead of Clinton and Obama in terms of hypothetical match-ups with the Republican candidates — largely a matter of name recognition and Clinton’s high negatives. But today we can pretty well state that Obama turned out more likely to be elected than Edwards.
Assuming Edwards’s affair controversy ends where he states it does, and on this I trust the National Enquirer which is when it states things unequivocally an accurate news tabloid, he still had an affair with a wife who just suffered through Cancer. A personal matter to be sure, and on that score I wonder if this problem would be defusable with a 2007 press conference near the start of his primary campaigning, a pre-emptive admission of guilt, quick and not entirely painless, wife not at his side because the public has gotten sick of political wives propped up behind sunglasses, with the statement along the lines of:
“I gave into temptation last year and had a brief affair. This is a personal matter between my family and I, and we have worked to put it behind us. In the meantime, I will be waging a campaign for America’s future. Thank you.”
Or something to that effect. Clinton largely defused such matters in 1992 with a press conference, and the nation proceeded to elect a man nobody thought much of in such personal matters. As it were John Edwards, if nominated, would currently be dogged by reporters, sinking in the polls, and we would be facing the John McCain presidency. Interestingly, I thought that the controversy surfaced as Edwards was basically eliminated from contention, but looking back on this blog I see December 2007.  Damned it, the Edwards hypothetical is worse than I thought.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
John McCain is silent about Edwards do you think his infidelity may come up when he was having an affair with his current wife Cindy while married to Carol? William Jefferson isn’t shabby in the affair department either. Take heart you are in very good company and may be a good presidential candidate.