John Edwards 2008: What’s not to like

When Mr. Obama first started trying to organize the state earlier this year, he began in the usual way, seeking endorsements of traditional power brokers. The campaign offered a $5,000-a-month consulting contract to state Sen. Darrell Jackson of Columbia, a longtime legislator and pastor of an 11,000-member church, who also runs an ad agency.

Mr. Jackson’s ability to turn out the vote — or suppress it against rivals — is the stuff of local legend. In 2004, he helped clinch a primary win for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, even as Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry was coming off wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. At the time, Mr. Edwards was paying him consulting fees of roughly $15,000 a month, according to federal records.

Mr. Jackson says he seriously considered the offer from Mr. Obama, but instead became a paid consultant to Mrs. Clinton, essentially running her state operation for substantially more than what the Obama camp offered. “A lot of our hearts were torn — it wasn’t an easy choice,” Mr. Jackson said. He drew more than $135,000 from the Clinton campaign from February 2007 through September 2007, the latest figures available, according to federal election filings, and remains on the payroll.

Wall Street Journal 1/23/08

WASHINGTON: An investment fund for philanthropist Rachel Mellon contributed $495,000 to a labor-backed group that is running ads in Iowa in support of Democrat John Edwards’ presidential campaign.

A Federal Election Commission filing by the Alliance for a New America reported the donation from Oak Spring Farms LLC, the corporate entity that holds Mellon’s fortune. Mellon is the 97-year-old widow of philanthropist Paul Mellon, the son of industrialist Andrew Mellon.

Rachel Mellon contributed the maximum $4,600 allowed to Edwards’ campaign earlier this year.

Alexander Forger, a lawyer listed in New York city property records as holding power of attorney for Mellon, lists himself in FEC records as director of Oak Springs Farm LLC. He also has contributed the maximum $4,600 allowed to Edwards’ campaign.

Oak Spring Farm LLC contributed $250,000 last year to a nonprofit political group that Edwards set up called One America.

Forger did not immediately respond to e-mail and telephone messages.

Both One America and the Alliance for a New America are “527″ corporations, nonprofit groups that can carry out some political activity but have come under scrutiny by the FEC for their advertising during past presidential campaigns. They derive their name, “527,” from the section of the IRS code that authorizes them.

The Alliance for a New America is a newly created organization headed by former Edwards adviser Nick Baldick. It has received most of its support from labor groups, many of them locals belonging to the Service Employees International Union. The alliance is spending about $600,000 on radio ads and about $750,000 on television ads in Iowa supporting Edwards.

Edwards is also getting support from another 527 group, Working for Working Americans, that is financed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and is running television ads supporting Edwards in Iowa.

Such groups are not allowed to coordinate their efforts with a political campaign. Edwards aides have said there has been no such coordination, and Edwards himself has called on the 527 to stop its activities. But in an interview on Radio Iowa Thursday, Edwards also said he was proud of the support from the SEIU, carpenters and steel workers unions that are backing him.

“There are some things that when a union supports you can work with them on and some things that you can’t, and we have been absolutely in complete compliance with the law, both the letter and the spirit of the law,” he said.

Dave Regan, president of SEIU District 1199, one of the groups financing the Alliance for a New America, said:

“We are pleased to help support this organization and have allies who believe that issues like universal health care, the well-being of the middle-class and a strong economy warrant a positive discussion.”

Associated Press 12/28/07

527 Group Supportive of Edwards Backed by Mellon MoneyCaucusgoers in Iowa and New Hampshire have already seen signs of the heavy hand of independent groups trying to influence the outcome of the 2008 presidential contest.

For the most part, the activity has been financed by labor unions, which have long been a potent force in Democratic electoral politics. But newly public documents filed with the Federal Election Commission this week show there has also been a hefty infusion of private money behind the efforts of Alliance for a New America, a group that is promoting the candidacy of Democrat John Edwards.

The filing shows that on Dec. 19, the Alliance group received $495,000 from Oak Spring Farms LLC, a corporate entity operating from a posh hotel on Central Park South in New York City. Land records and other documents trace the Oak Spring corporation to Manhattan trust attorney Alexander Forger. Forger holds a power of attorney for Rachel Lambert Mellon, who is 97 years old. Other records and published reports show Oak Spring Farms is controlled by Rachel Mellon.

Mellon, known in social circles as “Bunny,” is the widow of Paul Mellon and daughter-in-law of industrialist Andrew Mellon. Paul Mellon also had a home in Virginia known as Oak Spring Farms.

The same Oak Springs group made a $250,000 contribution to the Edwards-affiliated One America 527 group in 2006. That contribution prompted a report in the New York Sun which raised questions about the way contributions could arrive anonymously.

Edwards has made campaign-finance purity a major component of his campaign, disavowing contributions from special interests and political action committees, and becoming the only major candidate to accept public matching money.

A message left at Forger’s office has not been returned. He told The Sun in 2006, regarding the One America contribution: “I’m simply acting on behalf of somebody else.”

Mellon’s involvement in the decision to donate to the Alliance group is unknown. But published reports and federal election records show Forger has been a major supporter of Edwards’ candidacy. Crain’s Business Journal reported in February that Forger and “a group of prominent New York lawyers” hosted a fund-raiser for Edwards at Essex House — the Central Park South address where his office is located.

Forger has also personally donated $4,600 to Edwards’ campaign, according to FEC records.

The group Alliance for a New America reported in the same FEC filing that it made a $798,797 purchase for television advertising.

“We are pleased to help support this organization and have allies who believe that issues like universal health care, the well-being of the middle-class and a strong economy warrant a positive discussion,” said Dave Regan, President of SEIU District 1199, a union whose affliliates have been the major sponsor of the group, in response to an e-mail asking about Oak Spring Farms.

Washington Post 12/28/07

In an interview with Political Machine, National Enquirer Editor-in-Chief David Perel called the tabloid’s story about the John Edwards love child as “one of the Enquirer’s greatest political scoops” and denied that the story was leaked by a rival campaign.

“I wish I had been that easy to tell you the truth, but sadly we had to dig it out ourselves.” Perel said.

The story about the former North Carolina senator’s supposed relationship with Rielle Hunter, who had done video work for the campaign, has gotten a tremendous buzz on the Internet even though the mainstream media has largely ignored or dismissed it. Further complicating the matter is public insistence by Hunter that former Edwards aide Andrew Young, who is married, is the father of her child and not Edwards.

To be sure, the Enquirer wouldn’t make such an allegation without it being throughly vetted by its lawyers. Perel described the sources dug up by the seven-person investigative team over the past few months as “extraordinarily good” and “beyond reproach.” He declined to discuss whether they had been paid.

“Because of our agreements, I am not liberty to talk about any of my dealings with them,” he said. “You can’t run a story like this without tremendous sourcing.”

Before people dismiss the story as being tabloid trash, remember that this is the Enquirer’s core competency. The tabloid was first to report about Jesse Jackson’s “love child,” Rush Limbaugh’s drug addiction, Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt and Jennifer Lopez’s pregnancy, Perel said.

“We have been in North Carolina …staking out the general area, watching, collecting information for more than 4 weeks,” he said.The Edwards campaign seems to hope that the story will blow over and are just ignoring it as is most of the mainstream press.

-snip

“I look at this story as a bright dividing line between new media and old media,” he said.

“It set the record for unique visitors to our web site.”

Political Machine 12/20/07