[BB Odd 549, 3 June 2007, 727 words]

That ought to tell folks elsewhere in the nation something useful.  Why should anyone take him seriously for President, or even Vice President, when those who know him best – in his own state – don’t take him seriously as a mere Senator?

Plus, there are more immediate defects in Edwards' campaign this time around.  He has violated the late-night comedy Rule.  Any candidate, who has done enough ludicrous things that the late-night comedians are getting larger laughs about them than about the current President, is electronic road kill.

Let’s review Edwards’ recent personal disasters.  But first, let’s review the history of Marie Antoinette to compare.  She never said, “Let them eat cake.”  She said, “Let them eat brioche,” which is actuallynot really insulting. Yet the Queen had a reputation for being a wastrel with no sympathy for common folks.

The primary reason she was beheaded was not quite a direct result of what she said or did, but who she was married to.  King Louis XVI earned his beheading, while his wife largely inherited hers.  This is not to insinuate that John Edwards has earned a beheading. 

The last American to face that fate from a government was Tom Paine.  As a member of the French Assembly, he earned a decree of execution from Robespierre for urging mercy for the King and Queen of France.  But I digress.

Let’s review what Edwards has done.  He built the largest house in Orange County, North Carolina, with enough space for ten normal families in it’s 28,000 square feet.  But that was before this year.  The recent events get worse.

We’ll go from the ridiculous to the sublime.  A $400 haircut is ridiculous.  And what was his excuse?  He didn’t arrange it, and he didn’t know how much it would cost.

Hey, when I walk into any establishment, I have a more or less definitive idea about the prices I'm about to cough up.  Just like a Mercedes Benz dealership, it not only looks differently from a Ford dealership, but it even smells differently. 

The bigger items are these: Edwards took a half-million dollar part-time job for a New York hedge fund which engaged in subprime mortgages.  In the meantime, he gives speeches decrying predatory lending practices.  As for why he took that job, he said he wanted to “learn about poverty.”  The jokes just wrote themselves.

It’s difficult to say which of Edwards' mistakes is worse.  The latest blunder to be revealed is in the running for top of the line, or bottom of the line, depending on how you look at it.  He gave a speech at U Cal. at Davis on “Poverty, the Great Moral Issue Facing America.”  He got $55,000 for that speech.  Students were charged $17 a ticket to hear his words of wisdom.

Lastly, Edwards created a “charity” to deal with “issues concerning poverty.”  But, according to Business Week magazine, it spent 70% of its money on travel for Edwards and salaries for staffers who, in short order, joined Edwards’ new campaign.

In short, Edwards has one of the most pronounced tin ears for political reality in modern America.  And no one should take this self-promoting fool seriously, given his proven incapacity.

I’ve read the polls.  I know that Edwards might win in Iowa or New Hampshire, which are his targets for trying to keep his sad candidacy alive for another day.

If that strategy works, I won’t see any reason to write about Edwards again.  He should be dead and buried, politically, after the ad hoc national primary on February 5.  And if the ultimate Democratic nominee has the good sense to choose anyone other than Edwards for Veepee, Edwards will cease to exist as a politician.

What about the people who are foolish enough to vote for Edwards in his targeted states?  Well, the simple truth is, some voters sometimes are dumber than road lizards.  Think about it; are those the kind of voters that a candidate, like Edwards, deserves?  Let’s just hope there are not too many of them.