John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

Since his stint as the Democrats’ vice presidential candidate in 2004, the tension between Edwards’ private life and his politics has been growing. In recent years, Edwards, 54, has adopted a more populist tone at the same time he’s taken on more of the accoutrements of wealth.

That tension may be one reason that Edwards has struggled against Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

“I think it does hurt him, because it calls into question his sincerity,” said former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Hartpootlian, who backs Obama. “If you base your campaign on where you come from, the haircut, the corporate portfolio, all that is inconsistent with that.”

snip

As a lawyer, Edwards went for the big payoffs, making millions suing doctors, hospitals and corporations and building a net worth he’s reported at about $30 million. Edwards wasn’t an anti-poverty lawyer, and he did little pro bono work. He didn’t emphasize fighting poverty when he ran as a moderate in 1998, defeating Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth, or during his six years in the Senate.

snip

But since his Senate election, he’s traded up to progressively tonier residences: a $3.8 million house near Embassy Row in Washington, a $5.2 million house in Georgetown and finally a $6 million house, which includes a full-size indoor basketball court, built in 2005 outside Chapel Hill.

Edwards also took a part-time consulting job with Fortress Investment Group of New York in October 2005. Fortress raises money from wealthy individuals and institutions, pools the cash in private equity or hedge funds and invests it in alternative ways - buying public companies and taking them private, for instance - to beat usual market returns.

With $43 billion under management, including $16 million of Edwards’ personal fortune, Fortress is among the major firms in its class. While Fortress was incorporated in Delaware, its hedge funds were incorporated in the Cayman Islands, allowing partners and investors to avoid or defer paying taxes. That’s a practice that Edwards frequently has criticized.
(more…)

Figure Eight Island was developed in the 1960s, when a group of wealthy men from Wilmington vowed to create North Carolina’s answer to coastal resort towns in Georgia and South Carolina.It is relatively small. About 460 houses are spread down the island’s 4 1/2 miles of landscaped roads and cul-de-sacs. Most have more than 3,000 square feet. About 50 have more than 5,000 square feet, according to property records.

Property sold in the past six months had an average value of $2.2 million.

The island has no commercial development — only a yacht club that is far more modest than most houses around it.

Its most famous homeowners are Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth. Also owning a house there: Charlotte lawyer and N.C. Board of Transportation member Marion Cowell, N.C. School of the Arts founder Thomas S. Kenan III and several descendants of the Stanback headache-medicine fortune.

Unlike most other barrier islands along the N.C. coast, it remains privately controlled. There’s no sign for the island at the turn off U.S. 17. A guardhouse waits ahead, and a uniformed guard demands a pass before letting visitors cross a bridge.

The beach itself is public — for those who can get there by boat.

snip

A coalition of 14 environmental groups has sent a letter to legislators, arguing that no pilot project is needed to protect “a dozen summer mansions” because the effects of a terminal groin are well known.

“Although Figure Eight is a (private) island,” the letter reads, “its ocean beach and inlets belong to the public and should not be barricaded with hardened structures.”

Charlotte Observer 11/18/07
http://www.charlotte.com/171/story/368026.html

Former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., has already been in attack mode for some time. “I’m with you, brother,” he declared when an audience member called for “a revolution tomorrow morning,” Jeff Zeleny reports in The New York Times. “With Mrs. Clinton taking heavy fire from Democratic and Republican candidates alike, Mr. Edwards is trying to recast the race, brushing aside questions about his fund-raising (trailing Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama on that front, he is accepting public financing) and poll numbers (his early strength in Iowa has eroded as those two rivals have lavished time and money here) to assert that only he can assure a Democratic victory next November,” Zeleny writes.

But if Edwards doesn’t get his clear shot at Clinton, he may wind up helping Obama, Peter Canellos writes in The Boston Globe. “Edwards might be making some headway if this were a two-person race, Edwards against Clinton. But it’s not, and Obama, who has maintained a [John} Kerry-like posture, is ready to reap any of the votes that Edwards succeeds in peeling away from Clinton.”

Just don’t ask Edwards about those foreclosures tied to Fortress Investments: He told a Nevada Public Radio interviewer that such questions amount to a “personal attack.” “This, by the way, is not on the issues. This is a personal attack,” Edwards said. “These questions are all being planted by somebody. I’m through — I’ve said enough about that. What’s your next question?”

ABC The Note 11/6/07
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/Story?id=3105288&page=2

Political Flesh Feast 10/2/07
http://politicalfleshfeast.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=577

I know, calling John Edwards a hypocrite and then pointing out that hypocrisy is getting to be fish-in-a-barrel easy, but this latest one takes the cake:snip: Anyone who has an iota of brains saw this subprime crash coming. Lending money to those who are not able to pay it back does nothing for those people but drive them into bankruptcy. There’s a reason it’s known as “predatory lending”. The markets are experiencing huge swings because of this issue and it’s not going to end soon.

Now to Edwards; he’s spinning this as if he invested the money to help poor people and once he discovered that — gasp! — they were actually foreclosing on those who couldn’t pay and some of them are Katrina victims, well, he’s going to pull his money out or make sure it isn’t used for subprime lending. I would imagine with a nice, tidy profit.

AOL Elections Blog

http://news.aol.com/elections-blog/2007/08/17/edwards-hypocrisy-katrina-victims-edition/

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.Asked about the matter, Mr. Edwards yesterday pledged that he would personally provide financial assistance to New Orleanians who are facing foreclosure by Fortress-affiliated businesses or have lost their homes already. “I intend to help these people,” the former North Carolina senator said.

He also promised to cleanse his portfolio of any investments that may be profiting from their losses. “I am going to divest” from any Fortress funds that have a stake in the subprime lenders that filed the foreclosures, he said in a telephone interview. “I will not have my family’s money invested in these firms.”

Mr. Edwards didn’t give details on how or when he was going to proceed, either to alter his holdings or to aid borrowers. He said he plans to begin making amends to New Orleans homeowners first by contacting them and “seeing where they are in the process.” He said his help may come from his own cash or in collaboration with a charity that specializes in repairing homes. The foreclosures, Mr. Edwards said, “run counter to what I’m about.”

more

The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118728685546999884.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat and 2004 presidential hopeful, is four months delinquent in paying the property taxes on his Georgetown mansion and owes the cash-strapped District more than $11,000, city records show.

Mr. Edwards is worth somewhere between $12 million and $30 million after a successful career as a personal injury lawyer, according to his financial disclosure forms. He bought the eight-bedroom, 6,672-square-foot home in the tony neighborhood for $3.8 million in September.

In February, the city sent Mr. Edwards a tax bill for $9,562.46, which he was supposed to have paid by March 31, according to tax records. As of 3:30 p.m. yesterday, Mr. Edwards owed $11,092.46 with interest and penalties, according to the city’s tax collection office.

Mr. Edwards’ office was not aware of the unpaid taxes but at 7 p.m. yesterday issued the following response by e-mail after The Washington Times faxed a copy of the bill:

The senator and his wife, Elizabeth, “had not received a bill. As soon as they received one, they paid it,” the statement says.

Mr. Edwards’ delinquency came during a year in which the city faced a $323 million budget shortfall. The District was forced to cut funding for public education and a wide array of city services.

The senator’s tax bill is among the city’s largest for private homeowners. (more…)

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who is running on an anti-poverty platform, is facing questions about his $6 million estate near Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The Raleigh News and Observer says Edwards has been asked whether there is a contradiction between his home—which has a basketball and racquetball courts, along with a pool — and his pledge to reduce poverty. Edwards has said that he’s been lucky — making millions as a trial lawyer. He has said feels the responsibility to help people help themselves. In his first presidential campaign, he was attacked for living in a Georgetown mansion while he was talking about two Americas — one rich and one poor.

Fox News 1/30/07
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,248790,00.html

Edwards has said the new house isn’t an image problem.

Until last month, the Edwardses owned four residences. They have since sold two.

On Jan. 12, the Edwardses sold the 6,224-square-foot home in Country Club Hills where they spent most of their adult lives for $1.46 million, according to Wake County records. That was less than their $1.9 million asking price. It was purchased by Gordon Smith III and his wife, Beverly. Smith is a magazine-fortune heir and co-founder of Exploris children’s museum in Raleigh. WASHINGTON

In December, the Edwardses sold their Georgetown mansion for $5.2 million to Paul and Terry Klaassen, founders of the nation’s largest assisted-living chain for the elderly. The Edwardses had purchased the federal-style house from socialite Polly Fritchey in 2002 for $3.8 million. The house had been on the market for 18 months; the original asking price was $5.6 million.

FIGURE EIGHT ISLAND

This is a gated, oceanside community in New Hanover County near Wilmington. The 2,778-square-foot house, built in 1989, has had a tax value of $1.03 million for the past eight years.

CHAPEL HILL - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who toured the country last fall talking about other people’s homes, is now fielding questions about his own $6 million estate outside Chapel Hill.

Edwards had hit the talk show circuit to plug his book “Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives,” which describes the childhood homes of various more-or-less famous people, including his own modest mill village houses.

But since he announced his second run for the presidency in December, Edwards has been more likely to be asked whether there is any contradiction between his 29,000-square-foot Orange County estate and his pledge to reduce poverty and help the working poor.

The questions underscore how everything about a presidential candidate — including lifestyle decisions — becomes fair game in a political campaign.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004, was not available for comment last week. But he told CNN last month that he didn’t think the house presented him with an image problem. (more…)

RALEIGH - Presidential candidate John Edwards and his family recently moved into what county tax officials say is the most valuable home in Orange County. The house, which includes a recreational building attached to the main living quarters, also is probably the largest in the county.

The Edwards residential property will likely have the highest tax value in the county,- Orange County Tax Assessor John Smith told Carolina Journal. He estimated that the tax value will exceed $6 million when the facility is completed.

The rambling structure sits in the middle of a 102-acre estate on Old Greensboro Road west of Chapel Hill. The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing” signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate.

Don Knight, Orange County building plans examiner, told CJ that, including the recreational building, the Edwardses’ home would be one of the largest in Orange County.

Knight approved the building plans that showed the Edwards home totaling 28,200 square feet of connected space. The main house is 10,400 square feet and has two garages. The recreation building, a red, barn-like building containing 15,600 square feet, is connected to the house by a closed-in and roofed structure of varying widths and elevations that totals 2,200 square feet.

The main house is all on one level except for a 600-square-foot bedroom and bath area above the guest garage.

The recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.”

Edwards was the Democratic candidate for vice president in 2004 and a former N.C. senator.

Thursday afternoon, the Edwards for President press office was unable to provide information on any additional buildings planned for the estate.

Carolina Journal, 1/26/07
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848