In July John Edwards criticized Clinton and Obama for feuding with each other:
“We’ve had two good people Democratic candidates for president who spent their time attacking each other instead of attacking the problems that this country is facing,” Edwards said to a mixture of groans and applause.
I’ve repeatedly provided examples of Edwards violating this himself, both before and after his call for Democrats not to attack other Democrats. Edwards has escalated this further in forming a web site to attack Hillary Clinton, making him look increasingly desperate. From Washington Wire:
Former North Carolina Sen. and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards launched a Web site today that takes a cloaked strike at front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Called “America Belongs to Us,” the site is essentially a petition seeking one million voters who promise to withhold their vote for any candidate who “accepts campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists’’ and lobbyist political action committees. The target is clear: Of the three leading Democrats — Edwards, Clinton and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — only Clinton has refused to turn down special-interest money.
In keeping with Edwards’s increasingly strident (some would say angry) stump rhetoric, the site includes an “outrage of the day.” The debut outrage takes on credit-card companies, which the former North Carolina senator all but accuses of usury by deliberately making credit contracts opaque and confusing to the average consumer. The site says credit-card companies and banks have spent nearly $750 million on political contributions and lobbying since 1998.
Edwards’ hypocrisy is seen when his own record is compared. A tremendous percentage of Edwards’ contributions come from a single source–trial lawyers. Edwards also didn’t come out too well when The Washington Post looked at how pure the candidates were on campaign finance issues. Edwards was the most secretive with regards to revealing the identities of his big fund raisers:
Edwards is no less tainted by the trial-lawyer money he scoops up by the bucketful than he would be by lobbyist contributions…
Indeed, who takes money from lobbyists is the wrong question about an essential subject. Instead, voters who care — and I think voters should care — ought to ask: What is the candidate’s history on campaign finance reform, lobbying and ethics rules, and open government generally? How transparent is the candidate about campaign and personal finances? What steps will he or she take to limit the influence of money during the current campaign?
On these, there are revealing differences among the Democratic front-runners.
Edwards was part of the legislative team working to pass the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, but lobbying and campaign reform were nowhere near the top of his agenda in the Senate.
During the 2004 campaign, Edwards gave a useful speech outlining his plan to limit lobbyists’ influence. But, unlike the other Democratic candidates, he refused requests to reveal the identities of his big fundraisers. This time around, after considerable prodding, Edwards agreed to release the names of fundraisers — all his fundraisers, with no specifics about how much they had collected. His campaign argues vehemently that it should be praised for this avalanche of information, not faulted. But the candidate knows who has reeled in $1,000 and who raised $100,000. Why shouldn’t voters?
In concentrating his attacks on Hillary Clinton, Edwards risks repeating the mistakes made by Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt in 2004. Not only might this lead to a victory for Obama, but it might open up the possibility for a second tier candidate such as Bill Richardson moving ahead of Edwards, as David Yepsen recently suggested.
