February 09, 2007
Dear John
As a fellow North Carolinian (well, you're close enough), I'll be perfectly up front about this: you never had a chance at getting my vote. I still remember you channeling a five-year-old cerebral palsy patient as a personal injury attorney using junk science, long before North Carolina newspapers nicknamed you "Senator Gone" for missing 43-percent of Senate votes after suspending your first Presidential run.
And yes, I still remember how you took advantage of a tax loophole to avoid paying more than a half million dollars in Medicare taxes by forming a subchapter S corporation. Did you know there are books out there about that now? Impressive legal work, to be sure... but I'm not sure those folks in that other America--those without a 28,200 square feet mansion and a million-dollar home on a private Island--feel about that. That $591,000 you cleverly steered away from Medicare and back into your own pocket, seems, well, deceptive for someone claiming to run as a populist.
That said, there are quite few folks living in your adopted home state that voted for you in your Senatorial bid in 1998, and voted for you again when you teamed up to run for President with John Kerry in 2004. Quite a few of those folks--I'd guestimate roughly 400-500 or so--go to my church in Cary. Something tells me they might not be so enthusiastic about your candidacy this time around.
Fair of foul, people--and particularly those people under the intense spotlight of a foundering Presidential campaign--are judged by the company they keep. Now, it has been well known for quite a while that Elizabeth Edwards is well known in the left wing blogosphere, but let's face facts: most Americans simply don't read blogs. Still the potential for danger was always there:
There are two ways to view Mrs. Edwards' posting on blogs. Some will wonder how wise it is for Edwards to enter this swamp. Every blogger has a sane/insane ratio for political posts ... we come to accept it from our peers. But when an aspiring First Lady says something pointed, it's not just typical Internet chatter, it's potentially big news. Elizabeth Edwards is extremely smart and a terrific writer ... but it's an incredible high-wire act for someone so prominent to attempt.
To date, your lovely wife has avoided "stepping in it" as the saying goes, but you haven't done too well with your newest forays into the blogosphere, managing to hire for yourself a couple of bloggers whose "sane/insane ratio" has now become national news.
Part of me admires you for sticking to your guns and keeping Amanda Marcotte and Melissia McEwan on staff despite their obvious and long-standing hatred of Christians--Marcotte alone has referred to Christians derisively at least 114 times, as "godbags"--but I don't think too many of my fellow North Carolina Christians are going to recognize your political courage, in which you bravely responded to radical left-wing astrology site's IMPORTANT ACTION ALERTS by doing exactly as they wanted.
Most of these folks could care less about Marcotte's thoughts about what would have happened if the Virgin Mary had aborted Jesus as an independent blogger, but they are concerned, because you don't seem to much care about the image that gives your campaign. Some might just get the sneaking suspicion that you might feel the same way.
Now, I know you're simply pandering to the left wing base to give yourself some fleeting hope of being able to parley your campaign into the Number Two slot behind Hillary! or Barack Obama, but that's because I'm a political blogger myself. But I'm not everybody, and you never had a chance at my vote.
That said, the family usually sitting several rows ahead of me Sunday mornings has a cracked and peeling Kerry/Edwards sticker on their minivan, which should put you in contention for their vote, but what do you think they felt when they opened the print edition of the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News & Observer, or my hometown Greenville Daily Reflector this morning, to find stories like this? It doesn't bode well, John.
In Greenville, where someone with similar degrees of tolerance for "godbags" and the "Christofascist base" decided to burn two churches and vandalize a third only weeks ago, I don't think you'll win any new fans, either.
I wish you the best of luck with your choices and your campaign.
Lord knows, you're going to need it.
It's his choice, I for one, am interested in how this will pan out.
Posted by: Retired Navy at February 9, 2007 01:33 PMCY, time to face a few facts. Like it or not, a Dem is going to be president in 2009, almost certainly. Dems already have Congress, that means two years of investigations and fallout. So they're likely to consolidate their hold.
So everything you do to knock down Edwards - over blogger hires, of all issues - is working for President Hillary.
Posted by: Jake Ketcher at February 9, 2007 02:32 PMis working for President Hillary.
I'd take Hillary over Edwards in a heartbeat.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 9, 2007 02:41 PMAs they say, be careful what you wish for. You're likely to get it.
Posted by: Jake Ketcher at February 9, 2007 04:37 PMCY, I too believe we will have a Dem administration in 08. that admin will then be tested by Al Qaeda. If found wanting, which I expect, it may well be the last Dem admin we have for a long time.
As per John's blogging mistresses, he made a calculated decision not to lose more of the radical feminist/left. I personally feel it was a mistake. They are not a large enough block, they don't vote as a block, and, they are already turning on him and his mistresses.
Posted by: CoRev at February 9, 2007 04:38 PMSo everything you do to knock down Edwards - over blogger hires, of all issues - is working for President Hillary.
I've got a news flash for you, since you haven't figured this out yet: barring a major meltdown, the nomination is Hillary's for the taking. The Democratic primaries boil down to little more than deciding her running mate among a stable of inexperienced lightweights.
If he's realistic, Edwards will realize he is doing nothing more than running for the Veep nomination against Obama. I think that is precisely why he's latched on to the netroots; he can't win the Presidential nomination, but he's doing his damnedest to placate the netroots, who he obviously sees as the one shot he's got to place. The risk he takes is that by embracing the netroots, that moderate Dems--quite possibly people like the Christian Democrats he's offending by his choice of bloggers--might just bury his already slim chances.
And yeah, I agree with your assessment that we'll have a Democratic President, come '09 barring the entry of a "clean" darkhorse. All the current Republican candidates suck, and I don't mind being quoted on that. None of them excite me.
Personally, I'd like to see Fred Thompson join the race. I don't know a thing about him other than that he is a conservative and an actor, but his acting abilities can presumably at least make him look presidential, something no other Republican candidate thus far seems able to beg, borrow, or steal.
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at February 9, 2007 04:50 PMFred Thompson - that's an interesting pick. He's on no-one's radar, and he'd get a lot of face recognition from people who don't even know he was a Senator.
Posted by: Jake Ketcher at February 9, 2007 04:53 PMAs they say, be careful what you wish for.
I want to see Hillary running in the general. She'll lose.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 9, 2007 06:20 PMThompson with Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller as his running mate. I'd WORK for that ticket.
Posted by: SDN at February 9, 2007 10:16 PMMark my words, it's going to be Gore in 2008. He's holding back to avoid these early kerfluffles and to engage his rivals in whatever terms the media (mainstream and blogosphere) cast them, but he'll jump in by late spring to make sure he has enough time to raise money.
Posted by: Aplomb at February 9, 2007 11:51 PMIf Hillary were nominated, I'd vote for one former New York city mayor before I'd vote for her.
Posted by: Frederick at February 10, 2007 12:38 AMIf Hillary were nominated, I'd vote for one former New York city mayor before I'd vote for her.
Exactly.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 10, 2007 04:30 AMI'm not so sure that the American people will elect a Democrat president. I think the past few years of having one party hold two branches of government is "not a good idea" - after all, isn't that what Democrats kept telling us.
BTW I had Thompson in my dark horse column.
Posted by: Maggie at February 10, 2007 09:22 AM"Junk science" seems to be the word du jour for the righties, applied even when it doesn't seem to fit. I read the linked article twice and didn't see anything about "junk science" in it.
Posted by: Doc Washboard at February 10, 2007 06:05 PMBarack Obama announced today that he will be a candidate for President. He compared himself to Abraham Lincoln. Shucks, I knew Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Obama. Abraham Lincoln was a friend of mine. Mr. Obama? You are no Abraham Lincoln!
Posted by: Retired Spy at February 10, 2007 11:47 PMJeez, kick a guy when he's down? Hahaha. Fact is, the huckster Silky Pony is now dead meat. Better to be dead, though, than eaten alive by Hillary.
Posted by: bird dog at February 11, 2007 10:28 AMI can understand how some Christians could be offended by "godbags". I personally refer to them as "Christianites", or "American Taliban". First, I am a Christian, but I do not force my religious views on others through political or other means. I try to live as an example for others to follow, not as a terroist who chooses to use force to rape Americans of there freedom, and ostricize them for thinking differently. Mary did not want an abortion, so no coathanger was needed, and Jesus lived. Jesus did not attack people who disagree, Mohammed did. Jesus did not force people to live His way, Mohammed did. These Godbags are the Christians who choose to use force to convert all to their idologies, just like the Taliban, and every other radical
Muslim cult. These words are synonomous:
Godbags/
Christianites/
American Taliban/
Republicans/
Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger are both Republicans; are they therefore godbag christianite American Taliban too? And when is the last time born again Bible thumping Christians flew airplanes into office buildings? Most conservative Christians do not advocate abrogation of the Constitution in favor of the Bible; they prefe the Constitution that protects their freedom of worship. Frankly O'Connell I think your equation is simplistic. Perhaps it is a failure of diction: you don't understand the meaning of synonomous. Either that or you're an ass and I'd rather give you the benefit of the doubt.
Posted by: Zhombre at February 11, 2007 10:28 PMthe Christians who choose to use force to convert all to their idologies
Could you provide a single example of someone who was converted by force?
Posted by: Purple Avenger at February 11, 2007 10:35 PMI'd normally debunk Mr. O'Connell at length and in great detail, but I've got to go execute some Buddhists who refused to take Communion this morning, and then head to the reeducation camp to beat the crap out of an old Hindu couple until then convert.
If the criticism came from another source and not William Donahue, perhaps Edwards would've fired the bloggers. However, if Edwards caved to him, he'd have lost the entire left blogosphere.
Posted by: Shawn at February 12, 2007 12:44 PM
