John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

snip: …

No matter what he does, he can’t seem to get much respect from the mainstream media following the race.

Take for instance coverage of last weekend’s appearance at a gay Pride breakfast in San Francisco by Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, who is making his second attempt at the White House. Based on the coverage in the local daily press one would think she was the first person tied to a presidential campaign to make such an appearance.

Yet Richardson, and not his emissary, showed up at the Pride festival in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Saturday, June 2. Unlike Elizabeth Edwards, who went to an LGBT Democratic political club’s private event where non-members had to pay $85 to get in, Richardson dropped by the Midwest city’s public festival and met with attendees free of charge.

[Curiously enough, an actual presidential candidate took part in San Francisco's Pride parade, but former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel's appearance went unreported by the mainstream press. The reason is right in the lead of the two articles the San Francisco Chronicle published, which touted Elizabeth Edwards's being at the Pride breakfast as "a first for a major presidential candidate or spouse." Gravel polls near the bottom of the pack.]

Also not mentioned in the coverage is that John Edwards could have joined Richardson at the Iowa Pride festival, as could have New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, and Delaware Senator Joe Biden. All five candidates were in town that day for the Iowa Democratic Party’s Hall of Fame dinner. Clinton had even been rumored to attend but never showed

Bay Area Reporter

http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1953

SAN FRANCISCO - Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, kicked off San Francisco’s annual gay pride parade Sunday by splitting with her husband over support for legalized gay marriage.

Elizabeth Edwards announced her backing of same-sex marriage, a hot-button departure from what she said was her husband’s opposition.

“I don’t know why someone else’s marriage has anything to do with me,” Elizabeth Edwards said at a news conference before the parade started. “I’m completely comfortable with gay marriage.”

snip

Another parade watcher, Judy Ellerman of San Francisco, said she would rather have seen the candidate than the spouse appear in San Francisco.

“She herself isn’t running for president,” Ellerman said.

Associated Press/News Observer
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/615807.html

AP: There’s a split in John Edwards’ household over gay marriage, but he says his difference of opinion with wife Elizabeth hasn’t created any awkward moments.

“It’s not the only thing we disagree about,” the Democratic presidential candidate quipped Monday on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

“She actually says what she thinks,” Edwards said.

Elizabeth Edwards kicked off San Francisco’s annual gay pride parade Sunday by declaring her support for legalizing gay marriage. “I don’t know why someone else’s marriage has anything to do with me,” she said.

The former North Carolina senator, with his wife at his side on Leno’s couch, said he was unaware of her position on gay marriage and was surprised to learn about it while reading the newspaper.

“A lot of people I love and care about feel the same way Elizabeth does,” Edwards said. “I’m very strong about ending discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.”

“But I’m not quite where Elizabeth is yet,” he added.

SF Gate

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/25/politics/p181110D37.DTL&type=politics

In San Francisco today at the Gay Pride event, Elizabeth Edwards endorsed gay marriage:

“I don’t know why someone else’s marriage has anything to do with me,” Mrs. Edwards said at a news conference before the parade started. “I’m completely comfortable with gay marriage.”

John Edwards supports civil unions but not gay marriage. Why? According to Elizabeth,

He has a deeply held belief against any form of discrimination, but that’s up against his being raised in the 1950s in a rural southern town.”

I don’t like that excuse. He seems to have broken the chains of the rest of his southern taboos, why not this one?

Talk Left

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/6/24/215427/654

This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” June 4, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: The political world is buzzing tonight about the new book by former Kerry campaign manager, Bob Shrum. Now it’s called “No Excuses”, and it does not pull any punches, especially when talking about Kerry’s former running mate, John Edwards.

Now in the book, Shrum discusses how he basically talked then Senator Edwards for into voting for the Iraq use of force resolution in 2002 over the senator’s objections and those of Mrs. Edwards.

Shrum describes how he made the decision to join the Kerry campaign instead of the Edwards campaign, describing Edwards as a lightweight and saying about Edwards that he’s a “Clinton who hadn’t read the books.”

He also recounts a scene in 1998 when Edwards said, in a discussion about gay marriage, that he wasn’t, “comfortable around those people.”

Mrs. Edwards now disputes that her husband ever said that.

Shrum is the veteran of more than a few presidential campaigns. His frankness about the once and current presidential candidate has taken some people by surprise. And he joins us in the studio.

BOB SHRUM, AUTHOR, “NO EXCUSES”: Good. How are you?

HANNITY: Well, I love the book. Your life is phenomenal. I mean, your experiences are phenomenal. Pretty harsh words about what we just described, about you saying about John Edwards, because you started with it early.

SHRUM: This that was a big rollup. And when I first met him I called my partners in 1997 and said, “I think I just met a future president of the United States.”

HANNITY: Right.

SHRUM: And I still believe that may be true. And I think the Frank Luntz data you had on just now said that he should be taken very seriously as a candidate.

SHRUM: I think he wasn’t ready to run for president in 2004. I think the voters made that judgment.

Since then, he’s done a huge amount of work on poverty. I think it’s great that he’s brought the issue of poverty back to the Democratic Party. He’s got a serious health care plan.

But I was — I was writing, not a book about stick figures and papier mache people, which is what so much of politics is about but about people who have flaws, including my own flaws which, I’m very Frank about, I think, at least I tried to be.

But, you know, take the comment, for example, that you mentioned about gay rights.

HANNITY: Right.

HANNITY: Is he a lightweight?

SHRUM: He did say. I was sitting in the room. “I’m not comfortable around those people.” The first reaction from Harrison Hickman, his pollster, was, “That remark was taken out of context.” I usually take that comment as a confirmation.

Mrs. Edwards’ explanation — and I have a lot of respect for Elizabeth — but Mrs. Edwards’ explanation was that there was a whole back story that I didn’t know about. I used the word uncomfortable, or I had heard the word uncomfortable but I didn’t understand the back story.

HANNITY: What I love about the book, and I’m halfway through it now, is I love the fact that it takes you behind the scenes of some pretty interesting decisions that happen. Not least of which is you talk about the decision Kerry, you know, choosing his vice president.

SHRUM: Right.

HANNITY: There are two sides of this. One he considered Hillary Clinton, and I thought you told a very brutal story about John Edwards. Now, he had lost his son.

SHRUM: Right.

HANNITY: And can you go into both those issues for me?

SHRUM: Well, Senator Clinton didn’t poll particularly well as a vice presidential running mate. Senator Kerry had told me that during the discussions about the vice presidents, he was talking to Senator Edwards. He talked about after the death of his son, told Senator Kerry he was going to tell him something he never shared with anybody else.

HANNITY: Never before.

SHRUM: That — I’m just telling you the way it was told to me. — That he’d never shared before, had gone into the funeral home, and he’d basically pledged that he was going to do something to make a difference in life.

And what really stunned Kerry about this was that he had heard almost the exact same story from John Edwards, in the exact same words, a year before.

Now, I want to make it clear. I have no — I have no idea whether John Edwards knew he had ever told that story to John Kerry before. I do know that he never talked about this politically. I never heard him talk about it politically.

HANNITY: What did it tell you, though? It talks about his ambition.

SHRUM: You know what it tells me? People are mixtures of ambition and idealism, hope and maneuver. And the vice presidency was on the line. He was trying to get to know John Kerry better. Just like gay — the whole gay rights question we’re talking about.

COLMES: By the way, not surprisingly…

SHRUM: He’s clearly evolved on that. I think his evolution is genuine.

COLMES: Not surprisingly, the Edwards camp disputes much of what you say about him in this book. And Harrison Hickman, the pollster you just mentioned, according to The Boston Globe a few days ago, he said he doesn’t recall Edwards saying he was uncomfortable around “those people”.

And should point out Elizabeth Edwards said she was there; he never said it.

SHRUM: Well, its a kind of shifting set of reactions. The first thing he said, which was quoted very early on, was “that quote was taken out of context.” That’s all a long way from that was taken out of context to he never said it.

Elizabeth Edwards actually said yesterday on television that the word “uncomfortable” had been used, but I hadn’t understand it because it was a back story about a gay person she had introduced Senator Edwards to…

COLMES: Do you have any doubt now that now when he says he supports civil unions, to give gays the same rights as straights? He supports the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and the Ryan White Care Act. You have no question about his support?

SHRUM: I know no one will believe this. The Edwards campaign doesn’t believe it. This wasn’t an attempt to write a gotcha. I described the evolution of other people in this book on a whole set — on all sorts of different issues.
John Edwards himself said a few months ago up in New Hampshire that the background he came from — came from made it very difficult for him to come to terms…

COLMES: Gay marriage.

SHRUM: His daughter was quite comfortable with it, and he had evolved. I think he has evolved. I absolutely believe it.

Fox News Transcripts

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,278115,00.html

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Elizabeth Edwards stepped into the spin room Sunday night to answer questions about her husband’s debate performance. While most questions focused on his performance, she also responded to claims in veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum’s new book, No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner.

The Post’s Howard Kurtz recently reported that Shrum’s book claims that at the start of Edwards’s 1998 Senate campaign he asked the candidate about gay rights.

Shrum alleges that John Edwards said: “I’m not comfortable around those people,” and that Elizabeth Edwards said, “John, you know that’s wrong.”

Mrs. Edwards referenced her book, Saving Graces in disputing Shrum’s claims. “I have a very good memory of the incidents that Bob makes general reference to. But his factual recitation of that, are simply inaccurate,” Mrs. Edwards said.

She specifically called Shrum out for his recollection of the meeting on gay rights. “I remember it in intimate detail. I can even tell you where people were sitting in the room. Without casting aspersions on anyone — about where they were sititng, and how close to the doughnuts they were sitting. I even remember that,” she added.

What about Shrum’s claims that the Edwardses relationship with John and Teresa Kerry has gone sour?

“Also wrong,” Elizabeth Edwards said. “We’ve had numerous conversations over the years, and what I think is a good relationship. But we have less in common. Honestly, I don’t speak to her as much as I speak to my brother and sister,” she added. “But I talk to her more than some of my friends in Raleigh.”

Watch Elizabeth Edwards’s statements below. [video at wapo site]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/campaign-trail/2007/06/elizabeth_edwards_on_bob_shrum.html

O’BRIEN: You had a question during the debate yesterday about gay marriage. And with all due respect, I thought you dodged it a little bit, so I’m going to ask you…

EDWARDS: No. No.

(LAUGHTER)

O’BRIEN: Maybe it’s just me.

EDWARDS: What a ridiculous…

(LAUGHTER)

O’BRIEN: But I will — so I’ll just ask it again, maybe more pointedly. Do you think homosexuals have the right to be married?

EDWARDS: No. Not personally. Now you’re asking about me personally. But I think there’s a difference between my belief system and what the responsibilities of the president of the United States are. It is the reason we have separation of church and state. And there are very good people, including some people that I’m very close to me, my daughter who is sitting in the front row here tonight, feels very differently about this issue. And I have huge respect for those who have a different view about this.

So I think we have to be very careful about ensuring that the president of the United States is not using his belief system and imposing that belief system on the rest of the country. So what that… O’BRIEN: But if it’s…

EDWARDS: So what that — I’m sorry. All I was going to say is I think what that means in this case is the substantive rights that go with partnerships, civil unions, for example, and all the subsequent rights that go with that, should be recognized in this country, at least in my judgment, should be recognized. And I think it is not the role of the federal government to tell either faith-based institutions, churches, synagogues, what they should or should not recognize. Nor should the federal government be telling states what they should recognize.

CNN Transcripts

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/04/sitroom.03.html

O’BRIEN: You had a question during the debate yesterday about gay marriage. And with all due respect, I thought you dodged it a little bit, so I’m going to ask you…

EDWARDS: No. No.(LAUGHTER)

O’BRIEN: Maybe it’s just me.

EDWARDS: What a ridiculous…(LAUGHTER)

O’BRIEN: But I will — so I’ll just ask it again, maybe more pointedly. Do you think homosexuals have the right to be married?

EDWARDS: No. Not personally. Now you’re asking about me personally. But I think there’s a difference between my belief system and what the responsibilities of the president of the United States are. It is the reason we have separation of church and state. And there are very good people, including some people that I’m very close to me, my daughter who is sitting in the front row here tonight, feels very differently about this issue. And I have huge respect for those who have a different view about this.So I think we have to be very careful about ensuring that the president of the United States is not using his belief system and imposing that belief system on the rest of the country. So what that…

O’BRIEN: But if it’s…

EDWARDS: So what that — I’m sorry. All I was going to say is I think what that means in this case is the substantive rights that go with partnerships, civil unions, for example, and all the subsequent rights that go with that, should be recognized in this country, at least in my judgment, should be recognized. And I think it is not the role of the federal government to tell either faith-based institutions, churches, synagogues, what they should or should not recognize. Nor should the federal government be telling states what they should recognize.

CNN Transcriptshttp://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/04/sitroom.03.html

snip:
For the Democrats, the Iraq war spending bill that passed with no timetables for troop withdrawal — and was signed by President Bush — should remain a hot topic as they appeal to their primary base. One line of questioning perhaps would lead to who actually read the early National Intelligence Estimate years ago. And whether the candidates have any differences on how to proceed with an exit strategy.

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Christopher J. Dodd voted against the war spending bill; Senator Joseph R Biden Jr. voted for it. Former Senator John Edwards has been opposed to any legislation that does not include timetables for a quick removal of the troops. This weekend’s news of a potential plot to attack JFK Airport in New York offers a spot opportunity for questions about talking tough on terrorism.

snip: Several books about to be published or published also could provide fodder for a question or two. Carl Bernstein and The Times’s Don Vatta Jr. and Jeff Gerth (recently retired) have two new books about Mrs. Clinton, her ambitions and her life with former President Bill Clinton.

Another book that has stirred a bit of controversy for Mr. Edwards is “No Excuses” by the consultant Bob Shrum. Elizabeth Edwards discounted Mr. Shrum’s recollections about Mr. Edwards’s war vote in 2002. In her interview today with Mr. Blitzer, she also disputed the Shrum account of the North Carolina Democrat’s comments that he was “uncomfortable” around gay people.

Here’s the exchange from a CNN transcript:

your position, Mr. Edwards, on Mr. Blitzer: Shrum writes this: He says: “More troubling was an exchange we had one afternoon as we were throwing around questions and answers in his law firm’s conference room. ‘What is gay rights?’ I asked. ‘I’m not comfortable around those people,’ was how he began his answer.” …
…
Mrs. Edwards said she was there during that conversation. “I believe that Bob Shrum brought up the issues of gays and lesbians, and John said, you know, I come from a small Southern town, Baptist, you know. As far as I know, I don’t know — this is, I honestly, he said, honestly an abstract issue for me because he said, you know, I don’t really know, as far as I know, know any gay people….

“And I said, well, actually you do. I referred to a friend of mine from English graduate school and how we had been out — John and I had been out for the evening. I saw this old friend from English graduate school when we were still in law school, and I went over and spoke to him, and I knew that he was gay, and I said, you know, I’m engaged. And there’s the fellow over there I’m engaged to.

“And he said, oh, he’s awfully cute,’’ she recounted, saying he told her that he wanted to “snake him” and she related the conversation to Mr. Edwards. “And this is where he used the word “uncomfortable.” He said, ‘that made me feel uncomfortable.’

“So Bob correctly remembers the word ‘uncomfortable’ but incorrectly remembers the circumstances in which he said it. All of us feel uncomfortable at someone snaking us — I guess in the presence — trying to snake us in the presence of our fiancee, and that made him feel uncomfortable, and John talked about that.”

That’s it for now. Come back to The Caucus later today for live-blogging of the debate.

The New York Times Caucus Blogs

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/getting-ready-for-tonights-debate/

Perennial Democratic strategist Bob Shrum drops a bombshell in his new book, according to a report in today’s Washington Post.

In the book, he says he asked former Sen. John Edwards at the outset of his 1998 Senate campaign, “What is your position, Mr. Edwards, on gay rights?”

“I’m not comfortable around those people,” was Edwards’ reply, according to Shrum.

snip

Eric Schultz, an Edwards spokesperson, says Shrum is more interested in selling books than in the truth.

But Edwards’ people don’t deny the accuracy of the quote; it was conveniently “taken out of context,” they say.

“Those people?”

Does he mean the same people whose money and votes he’s been trying to win since 2003?

Edwards’ record on gay issues has always been a rather mixed bag and now we finally see why: he’s simply not comfortable around us. That’s a typical feeling among the inarticulate, unsophisticated masses, who can’t justify their narrow-minded views and so fall back on the “icky” defense.

snip

Such double-speak and evasion are typical of Edwards. He’s frequently been absent when gay voters could have used his voice. For example, during the July 2004 congressional debate over a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the Senate rejected the amendment in a 50-48 vote. The only senators absent during the vote? Edwards and running mate Sen. John Kerry. How convenient.

Edwards does seem to have an attendance problem when it comes to gays. In July 2003, seven of nine Democratic presidential candidates addressed a first-of-its-kind forum sponsored by HRC. You guessed it, Edwards was a no-show.

There were about 500 people, mostly gay, in the audience (including me). I guess that’s too many of “those people” in the room for his comfort.

Edwards scored a 66 out of 100 on HRC’s congressional scorecard for the 108th Congress. Where I went to school, that’s a big fat “D.”

snip

That was then. In 2007, there are enough candidates in the running, including Rudy Giuliani on the GOP side, that gay voters and donors needn’t tolerate a hypocrite like Edwards.

Someone who rails against the injustices of poverty while paying $400 for a haircut and takes piles of cash from gay donors despite his discomfort with us doesn’t deserve gay money, gay votes or gay support.

“Those people” have better options in 2008.

Washington Blade
http://www.washblade.com/blog/index.cfm?type=blog&start=5/24/07&end=5/25/07