So: what can Scaife dig up on Edwards?

[Recursion]

Edwards seems something like Clinton without the Clenis and without a quite as strong a fetish for anti-worker trade policies. In short, he sounds damn threatening to the GOP. What will Scaife et al dig up about him? Anybody from his state know the kind of thing we should be prepared for? Or has KKKarl rendered the Scaife style of smearing hopelessly obsolete?

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

1. So far nothing ... absolutely nothing.

I remember something about PS3s a couple of weeks ago but ooh scandal.

[Warpy]

2. If he can't find anything, he'll have his trolls make something up

The best thing Edwards can do is just laugh at it.

Too many candidates get trapped into answering this stuff, thus giving it a dignity it should never have.

Unless they pin a murder or pederasty on him, he should just laugh it off.

[Erika]

8. Most people are wise to the dirty politics of the right

Edwards lost a son and his wife fought breast cancer.

The right wing will interject "Pony boy likes Suave Shampoo"

[LiberalFighter]

18. There are too many that are not wise enough to see through this

They are swayed by their prejudices. Harold Ford in his race for Senator was slimed by Karl Rove's tactics. The facts weren't there but the people wanted to believe it would be true and voted against him.

[Erika]

21. Yes, Harold Ford was slammed by the fundies, big time

The playboy ad against him was purely racist. Fundies backed that completely.

John Edwards is a class act.

[last1standing]

9. Kerry tried to laugh off the swiftboaters.

I think laughing off well funded slander has been proved to be a mistake. The answer it to hit back quick and hard. Knock them off their feet while they're still gloating over their attack.

[Warpy]

44. That was a little different

because they were distorting historical fact and had PRINTED it. Kerry had grounds to sue and I will never forgive him for not doing so.

The point isn't always to win the suit. Sometimes the point is to shine a strong light on the cockroaches.

The problem with hitting back like you suggest is that Democrats have been getting bogged down in hitting back at the barrage of shit from the GOP slime machine.

The better tactic is to identify the slimers for what they are, to let people know they're just more partisan LIARS, and then to laugh off the ridiculous claims as "Oh, there they go again. I guess they're going to bring out the cannibalism tomorrow."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. they will find nothing.. but they will try

and if they fail... they will make something up. They have no concept of "fair play" :mad:

[alittlelark]

4. His wife had CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!

HE is TRULY scarred by the experience and will likely die of CANCER w/in 18-24 months.


We at Scaife Warmogeriopia are sad to tell you the facts, but there they are.

[Erika]

6. He also lost his 16 year old boy

They came through it with dignity.

[alittlelark]

24. No they did NOT (MSM talkin')

They are PERMANENTLY scarred - those scars will cause CANCER and they will DIE... just look at his wife.... he has only MONTHS to live.


They'll find a doc to support them on every network - and parents of deceased children will be given months to live by a REPUTABLE Doc right before the election.

[Montauk6]

29. The Good Lawd Juheezles put that mole on his lip for a REASON, glory!

[Erika]

5. I love John and Elizabeth Edwards

They are America. They are beautiful people who want to uplift all Americans.

[waiting for hope]

7. I think if anything was

to be found - they would have dug it up in 2004 - I think Edwards is on the up and up and the real deal.

[devilgrrl]

10. He was a "Trial Lawyer"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:

Heavens to Betsy!!!!!

:wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow::wow:

[Erika]

12. Yes, he was a trial lawyer who fought for the injured and diseased

W's lawyers fight for the privileged and corporate elitists.

[question everything]

35. This means that he knows how to fight (nt)

[ReadTomPaine]

11. They will use the trial lawyer angle, most likely.

In 2004 election there was a failed GOP attempt to smear him over a jacuzzi negligence suit, but this backfired for several reasons- especially once the details of the suit and the young Valerie Lakey's horrible injuries became more widely publicized.

Dick Armey's quote at the time: Edwards represents a "well-connected swarm of trial lawyers who twist our legal system to pillage the productive sector for personal gain."

Expect more the same.

[XOKCowboy]

14. The Repugs will be using so many "trial lawyers" in the next couple of years..

that it may render that argument moot. :)

[ReadTomPaine]

22. Actually, a prominent GOP politico retained Edwards himself in a trial case..

similar to the suit I mentioned above. It may have been either Dennis Hastert or Newt Gingrich, I don't recall. This of course didn't stop them from denoucing his profession or performance a few years later when he announced his run. Perhaps a fellow DUer can recall the details..

[Recursion]

15. When doctors were bleeding people with leeches...

...lawyers were writing the Constitution.

I always liked that line.

[ReadTomPaine]

26. As an aside - believe it or not leeches and maggots are back in medicine...

Check it out.. (and that's a great line, nevertheless!)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-07-07-leeches-maggots_x.htm

[Recursion]

39. I did know that, actually...

leeches were used on me when I had a tissue graft. They're some motivated little guys. But I never stop giving the Doc hell over it.

[Erika]

17. Dick Armey is seen as a joke much like DeLay

As is Ashcroft, Gonzales, and the rest of them. Edwards and his wife are seen as true Americans, not corporate hacks.

[justgamma]

13. I will tell you what they will

do. Expect to hear a bunch of commercials about him being a "greedy trial lawyer". They've been vilifying lawyers for a long time.

They ran anti-lawyer ads in Iowa the whole election season.

Currently, they are running ads in Illinois against lawsuits.

[Erika]

19. Ah, ask them to look at the GOP lawyers

Those who aren't running scared because they've been called on the Patriot Act, etc.

[Erika]

23. As if the GOP didn't stick in their lawyers

Get real.

[napi21]

16. I would guess they'll rehash all the cases he fought as a trial

attorney, and blow everything out of proportion, claiming "Just look at the kind of people hehad a clients!"

Of course no one knows what else might be out there somewhere. I believe ANYONE who manages to be elected a Senator, Governor, or any other high office, has SOME skeletons...we all do. Terrible ones? Probably not, but things we would prefer to keep in the past. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Erika]

20. John and Elizabeth Edwards have class

They've lost a 16 year old boy, and fought breast cancer
with courage, class, and dignity. One heck of a class act.

Newt deserted a wife when she had breast cancer, Rudi and Newt are known as womanizers.

[XOKCowboy]

25. Probably something like this???

And this is from 2004.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/a-populist-make-over/2034/

Edwards’ legislative record — what little there is of it — is hardly populist. In fact, Edwards is a classic, corporate-friendly, centrist New Democrat. In his five years as a freshman senator, Edwards on his own produced little legislation, much less than some other first-termers — although he was assigned by Tom Daschle to represent the Democrats in negotiations over a patients’ bill of rights, and so can boast he was a co-sponsor of the final, but aborted, bill.

However, there’s one highly significant chapter in his Senate career omitted from Edwards’ campaign Web site. Edwards, who comes from a state where banking is big business, played a critical role in brokering legislation to allow banks to sell mutual funds and insurance, and to engage in other speculative ventures. This law, worth hundreds of billions to the banks, blasted a gigantic hole in the Glass-Steagal banking law’s firewall of protections designed to prevent the kinds of bank collapses that marked the Great Depression of the ’30s — meaning that it put the money of Joe Six-Pack depositors at risk. Such a gigantic boon to the banking lobby can hardly be classed as a populist victory.

If there was real depth to Edwards’ rhetorical populism, one would expect to find it in “Real Solutions for America.” That’s the 60-page campaign booklet that Edwards refers to in his stump speech. But when one checks out these “real solutions” (available on his Web site), one finds a lot of nice-sounding hot air, some innocuous small-bore proposals — and few specific details. On a number of important matters — example: federal corporate welfare — the “solutions” Edwards’ speeches describe as “bold” involve . . . appointing a commission.

Sometimes, the pamphlet contradicts Edwards’ reality. Example: “Some tax lawyers make millions through flimsy letters telling clients how to shelter their income. Edwards will stop these abuses,” it claims. But in 1995, Edwards — already a multimillionaire — set up a professional corporation to shelter at least $10 million in legal earnings from having to pay Medicare taxes on them, saving himself some $290,000, according to the News and Observer, which quoted a top specialist from the American Institute of CPAs as labeling this trick “gaming the system.” Populist hypocrisy?

[babylonsister]

27. Nothing to do with Scaife, but my dad lived in NC way back when,

he's an astute Dem, and he never liked Edwards. I don't know, but I trust Dad's instincts. And as I recall, NCers didn't like him either.

[1932]

30. "Way back when" Edwards wasn't in politics. Maybe your dad's thinking about

John Edward?

[babylonsister]

32. As in John and Elizabeth Edwards? Yes, that's the guy. It wasn't

that long ago, about 4 years, Dad didn't like John Edwards. I'll have to ask him again. And yes, I'm talking about John Edwards from NC. Perhaps he's too 'political' and always has been. Grasping for the holy grail can be/get ugly.

[1932]

33. He didn't like him when he was beating a Republican in his first race for

office?

[babylonsister]

34. He didn't like him at all, Dem or not. The run-up to the prez run, the

v.p. run, he was not trusted by my dad. He thought Edwards was a failure in NC, which I imagine colored his thinking. They are both wiser and older now, whatever that might count for.

[1932]

37. I watched his farewell tour of NC on C-Span

A lot of people stood up and thanked him for bringing projects to their small towns.

I listened to Elizabeth Edwards interviewed on her book tour on the net a couple weeks ago. A woman said that she wished John had done more for her town. Elizabeth then listed projects that he supported in her community (one was financing a room in the local library). The woman who made the comment said she had no idea and said that she would go back and make sure everyone knew what he'd done.

Some people seem to know the facts. Some people seem to believe what's printed in their right wing NC newspapers.

[babylonsister]

38. And some people believe what they want to believe.

It's all good, and may the best man or woman survive and win.

[1932]

40. And some people rely on facts.

[babylonsister]

41. Get off your high horse. It's too early for it. I like John and

Elizabeth Edwards, I happen to like Senator John Kerry more. If you don't, I don't really want to hear about it.
I was relaying what my dad, who lived in NC, thought about him.

[1932]

43. It's also too early for the hearsay bs.

Way back when in '98 wasn't that long ago. And I like reading about hearsay opinions just as much as the next person here at DU, but I like to know what facts are informing them. Check with your dad and ask him what's informing his opinion and let us know. That might actually help people here make decisions about who to support.

[1932]

28. Mann Coulter said he had soft hands, which is funny because she

meant it as a feminizing insult. But Edwards played wide receiver at Clemson before transferring to NC State when he didn't get an athletic scholarship after freshman year, and "soft hands" is a compliment for a wide receiver. So Mann's an idiot.

[ReadTomPaine]

31. She should talk - her hands look like feet.

Which would make her face an ass, come to think of it.

[question everything]

36. It does not matter what they can "dig" or "fabricate"

what is important is to get James Carville on board to pounce back at any attack - real or imaginary - the way Clinton did in 1992.

[babylonsister]

42. Jeeze. Where've you been? If you want Hil, Carville's your man.

He totally dissed Dr. Dean who enabled this winning election to happen. Carville is a HC tool; if you like the way he's being worked, then that will make you happy.

[MOB]

45. If Anything, It would have been Found Already

If Anything, It would have been Found during the '03 / '04 race. All they seem to have on him is that he used to be a trial lawyer.

[gauguin57]

46. Repugs I talk to all wanna tell me he was an "ambulance chaser"

An evil, moneygrubbing attorney, back in the day.

So, that will, of course, be beaten to death on Fox News. AGAIN.