lowercase thought.
Friday, June 22, 2007
The Continued Schmuckiness of John Edwards
First of all, let me say that John Edwards would make an adequate President. Adequate. And right now, that's a significant upgrade. Let me also restate for the record that I worked for him in 2004 as a staffer for the PA Kerry/Edwards campaign. I was more than impressed with his political ability to connect with the rural, working-class folks I routinely interacted with there. But my admiration for the man stops there.Today, the New York Times has great piece on the questionable way in which Edwards used an ostensibly anti-poverty not-for-profit organization in order to fund opportunities for political activity and lock up campaign staffers for the '08 cycle. To be honest, I'm not particularly troubled by this. Edwards is not the first political figure to use a supposedly legit public-service campaign as a way to keep alive presidential hopes (I'm looking at you, Al Gore).
But the real issue I have is somewhat buried in the article:
He was hired by the Fortress Investment Group, a New York hedge fund, to “develop investment opportunities,” according to a 2005 Fortress news release. That led to meetings with such people as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; Henry Kravis, founder of KKR, one of Wall Street’s most successful investment funds; and the chief executives of General Electric, Citigroup, Coca-Cola and DaimlerChrysler.
“Fortress became a vehicle for foreign travel,” Mr. Turlington said, “but it was also a way to spend more time with sophisticated financial people.”
Okay, so while John Edwards is peddling his "man of the people" and "son of a mill-worker" image, he's simultaneously rubbing elbows the who's-who of the global corporate clique as a representative of a German hedge fund. Edwards loves to claim that he's never taken corporate PAC money; but when you're personally paid big corporate dollars, is that any better? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think Sens. Clinton & Obama or Gov. Richardson have worked for a private investment firm in the recent past.
Couple that with Edwards' blatant politically-opportune "come to Jesus moments" on Iraq and the PATRIOT Act, and frankly, I'm embarrassed to have been in that picture on the left at his announcement--and not because I was 30 pounds heavier back then (as evidenced by the tightness of the t-shirt).
Docciavelli 9:32 AM