Edwards, Haircuts, Poverty, Memes, The Press and Hedge Funds
John Edwards is a rich guy, owns a big house, dresses nicely, got a $400 haircut, earned lots of money at a hedge fund, runs a poverty center and focuses his political energies on pushing the idea that poverty in America is a scandal and ought to be eradicated.
The volume of press coverage directed at proving that, yes, Edwards is a rich guy and invests his money like a rich guy suggests that the media senses hypocrisy. And that's a very, very dangerous sensation, so far as John Edwards is concerned. A large number of national and local editors and reporters -- think of the AP's Mike Glover in Iowa -- can't get enough of the story.
The truth is that the media seems to be confusing “hypocrisy” -- doing what one says one must not do -- with bad optics and a few cases of ill-considered judgment. (This Newsday headline: "Poverty Campaigner And Spouse Earned $29M") is pregnant with meaning, and yet logically suspect.)
The fact is, if you're in politics and you talk about poverty, extra attention will be paid to the manner in which you display your personal wealth -- whether, by dint of expensive haircuts and mammoth homes, you spend the money you earn and don't care about "what it looks like."
Edwards has been uncautiously ostentatious. That's the basic mistake. He's set himself up for questions about the work his poverty center did, the Cayman Islands, why he joined Fortress, Sudan holdings, etc, not because he held himself to a different moral standard, but because he didn't hold himself to a high enough political standard. The press reads this as arrogance.
Knowing he was going to focus on poverty, he probably should have dialed back his displays of wealth. The optics would look better. Roger Simon wrote that the problem with Edwards's $400 haircut was not the haircut itself; it was the fact that it slipped into his campaign finance report. Wrong. The problem was the haircut -- or, more precisely, the shrug of the shoulders that accompanied his decision to get it. The press pays attention to these things. It -- we -- have a fetish for the discrepant, the unseemly, the showy. You just don't get a $400 haircut during a campaign to eradicate poverty. Your credibility as a messenger suffers.
Think of what would happen if Rudy Giuliani profited off of 9/11. (Uh... that's for another post. We won't want Katie Levinson to get mad at us today.)
At the end of the day, the standards may not be fair. Who faults Bill Gates for having a tremendo-mungus home and a zillion cars? (The riposte might be: has Edwards actually helped the world's poor, yet?)
The good news for Edwards is that, per public polls and private polls done for Democrats, the haircut/hedge fund coverage hasn't cut into Edwards's lead in Iowa, the only state that really matters right now to that campaign. Unions still love him. He's still the only guy who's running on poverty. But a few more weeks of coverage like this might begin to do some damage. [MARC AMBINDER]
What a weak analysis. You seem to be confusing punditry with journalism.
The cost of the haircut was directly related to bringing the stylist out to where Edwards was on the campaign trail. And, you fail to note that Edwards reimbursed the campaign for the expense.
Knowing he was going to focus on poverty, he probably should have dialed back his displays of wealth.
Why? Just because you say so? What is he supposed to do? Hide his money and keep it from everyone else like a good conservative? you can't question is his devotion to fighting poverty. I don't care why you think he's doing it, at least he's doing it.
What are the Republican candidates doing to fight poverty? How about asking some of the GOP front runners and let us know what kind of answer you get--after they stop laughing.
There is a staggering indifference to the struggling families in this country that is considered acceptable. On the other hand, when John Edwards spends his time and money trying to help those same people, he gets heat for being rich while doing it.
"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." Luke 12:48
A question for you, Marc Ambinder.
How many people do you know of choose to work for a Hedge Fund company to "learn about poverty"? Can you count them? If you peel below the surface, there's a lot of truth to the hypocrisy charges against Edwards.
Think of what would happen if Rudy Giuliani profited off of 9/11.
Surely you're joking.
Think of what would happen if Rudy Giuliani profited off of 9/11.
How is this an apt analogy? Edwards isn't profiting from poverty. If he were a slum lord or profited from a pay-day loan operation, that would be one thing. But where does it say that only poor people can advocate for the poor? Edwards isn't advocating for making rich people poor, but to lift poor people out of poverty. I fail to see the logic of the hypocrisy charge.
Edwards' response to this line of attack is excellent, and don't be surprised to see him ramp it up: "Would it be better if I had done well and just didn't care about the less fortunate?"
In other words, maybe some people would prefer that Edwards was just like the Republicans, but he's not.
Make no mistake, the smears against Edwards will keep coming. His policy proposals, combined with his poll numbers, scare the S**T out of the corporate powers that be.
The 'hypocrisy' storyline is idiotic. Its says that you would be better to be a rich, selfish Scrooge billionaire than to help poor people.
The toolish so-called liberal media is running with the GOP talking points, as always.
I hope you and your colleagues are as skeptical and critical of Hillary's ignorance of Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair as you are of everything John Edwards does. Somehow, I doubt it, given Chris Matthews' adoration of Howard Wolfson after the debate and the political journalists coronation of Hillary.
As you say, the press is demonstrating a real inability to grasp even the simplest definition of hypocrisy. And it becomes a self-regenerating meme as the press fails to think critically about what it is doing. ("Denise" even suggests that Edwards claimed he joined a hedge fund "to 'learn about poverty,'" which certainly sounds ridiculous but given the lack of attribution is hard to believe.)
So reporters continue to investigate the wealth of politicians who advocate on behalf of the poor, and thereby they imply hypocrisy. But they do not investigate the wealth of politicians who advocate on behalf of the rich - for example, through massive tax cuts for the wealthy, or the abolition of the estate tax for multimillion-dollar estates - even though, by the same reasoning employed against Edwards, those positions are clouded by a conflict of interest.
How much would each of the Republican candidates gain if, as they variously advocate, the estate tax were to be repealed, the Bush tax cuts extended, and so forth?
How much do they personally gain in their stock holdings because they oppose universal health insurance?
How much do they personally gain in their stock holdings because they support free trade deals?
To be clear, I think that it would be unfair to question a politician's position merely because they would gain in some general way because of that position. So I don't think these would ordinarily be fair questions. But if they go after fake "hypocrisy" stories, then they should go after fake "conflict of interest" stories, too.
seriously. report the news. no one crowned ambinder "the conventional wisdom setter". it doesn't play to his strengths anyway.
I'm still not sure what the media expects from Edwards on this count-- it strikes me as pretty odd to demand someone who fights against poverty be poor (or not "too" rich) and yet Bush-Cheney can work for energy folks and start an Oil War, etc. The hypocrisy would be in pretending he's not rich in order to get votes from the poor.
The only reason the media is able to do this is because John Edwards has chosen an actual issue to fight for and discuss. If his main issue was healthcare, we'd ba talking about Elizabeth's PPO or something along those lines. It's absurd and an attempt to avoid solutions.
You guys can't go after Romney and his mega-millions because Mitt's all for the rich. You can't go after Rudy and his millions for the same reason.
I'd rather have a rich guy telling me to join him in fighting poverty than join him in fighting for tax cuts for the wealthy.
This whole coverage by Hotline and AP is insane. They simply don't get it. According to Hotline: As a self made millionaire Edwards is supposed to either shutup and not talk about poverty OR should not live in a large house. What a logic! When republicans can't fight on real issues they "develop" some meme.
I wonder why is Hotline not covering the richest man of the field Romney who has 350 million fortune. Do they claim that they will cover it only of Romney talks about poverty?
Also, where is Hotline's coverage of the current news which reflects real hypocricy on following issues?
** According to Army Times, Bush administration is opposing the 3.5% military raise for next year. Bush budget officials said the administration "strongly opposes" both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases "unnecessary." So republicans think its ok to send young kids to the meat grinder called Iraq but its "unnecessary" to give them any pay raises.
** McCain missed more than 40 votes in Senate. If he can't be a good senator how can he become a president?
Hotline, when can we see your coverage on these things?
John Edwards did not "GET" two $400 hair cuts in the way that the media want to portray this non-story.
They make it sound as if John Edwards was out strolling around and said, "hey, you know what? I'm so rich and care so little about money, why don't I just blow $400 of campaign cash on a hair cut."
The campaign ARRANGED FOR John Edwards to get two hair cuts to save time in between campaign stops. John Edwards did not make a CONSCIOUS decision to spend $400 on a hair cut! In fact, he didn't even find out how much the hair cuts cost until after the bill had been paid, PROBABLY WHEN THE REST OF US FOUND OUT. John Edwards is campaigning for President. He doesn't handle the campaign's bills!
The stylist sent the bill to the campaign, and the campaign staff paid the bill. And the cost included travel to Edwards hotel to cut his hair on two separate campaign trips to California.
The media are outright lying about these hair cuts, and swiftboating John Edwards just like the RNC vets did to Kerry in 2004, and this is just further proof of the lazy, pitiful state of journalism in the United States these days.
As for John Edwards' "big house." What do you want him to live in, a 3 bedroom single family unit? That might be kind of difficult to do if he was to become President and need space for CAMPAIGN STAFF AND SECRET SERVICE!!! when he's outside of DC, don't you think? What about foreign heads of state? You don't think Edwards would need a huge house on a lot of acreage, just for security reasons? The people criticizing Edwards over his house are as narrowminded as can be. The guy built a house that is large, but energy efficient, and has the space that he would need should the Democrats wake up and realize that the only reason the corporate media is going after Edwards so hard is because he's the only top-tier Democrat with a prayer of winning a General Election.
If they get Edwards out of the way, the Democrats are toast. The Republicans and their corporate cronies in the media, know it.
You don't hear anything from them about Hillary Clinton paying $2,500 for two hairdos last year, do you? And you won't either, because they could care less about her getting the nomination with her 51% unfavorability ratings.
I had hoped the author would stay neutral or be objective on the candidates, but it's clear he is out and trying to hit Edwards with a baseball bat. He's obviously not a journalist: just another hatchet job by someone who cannot write criticism of the candidate's issues.
Oh, give me a break. The press is focused on the haircut and the hedge fund instead of Edwards's impressive platform because the press is largely controlled by wealthy people who benefit from Bush's tax cuts. Face it. You guys are are afraid Edwards might actually implement his many proposals to help the little guy.
The press and the pundits are the ones who have made a "scandal" of these non-issues. John Edwards is the guy who will help the people out of the morass of bad policy we find ourselves in. He's probably the only guy in the race that actually gives a damn.
This can be illustrated by the fact that he gave at least 28% ($350,000) of his (rather measly when you're talking rich guys) $1.25M income from last year to charities like Habitat for Humanity and the International Rescue Committee. Note that Rudy Giuliani made over $16M in income last year, but you guys never complain about him being rich.
Oh yeah, and Edwards has gone around the country for the last few years helping workers to organize and helping to raise the minimum wage in several states.
You know why I will fight every day to get Edwards elected president. Because HE will fight every day, as long as he is breathing, as he's said, to help people rise up out of poverty.
John might not be a saint, but he's the closest thing we've got running for president of the United States right now.
Has it every occured to you to report the policy proposals that Edwards has brought forth? The reason this BS hasn't cut into his lead in Iowa, is because Iowans are smart enough to read in between the lines, knowing that Edwards is our best hope in turning this country around.
Why don't you take a look at his UHC plan for starters?
Marc:
As a journalist, you should know that "media" is plural and takes a plural verb.
Wrong: " ... media senses."
Correct: " ... media sense hypocrisy."
I'm sure that pisses you off, but better you know it and not repeat the mistake. The media consider that a big mistake.
Edwards is the only candidate to be serious enough about Universal Health Care to have a detailed plan AND an honest way to pay for it.
Hillary can't be bothered to have Universal health care in a theoretical first term and yet all you guys talk about is Obama's freshness and Haircuts.
No wonder we are falling so far behind the world in Math and Science. Pretty soon the only jobs left will be service sector and prostitution "journalism"
It amazes me that so many on the left can't see this argument for what it is. Edwards is a chickenhawk on poverty. He delivers his campaign schtick about two Americas and offshoring jobs and how he's a millworker's son, but in his personal life me makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off of a hedge fund that hides some of its assets offshore, organizes his business so as to avoid paying Medicaid taxes, and builds a $6M house large enough to house the other America. And then compounds this with disingenous explanations about getting paid 10x the average American's annual salary in order that he can learn about poverty. And THEN he gets $400 haircuts and berates his next-door neighbor for keeping his house "slummy." Huey Long this guy ain't.
This guy doesn't care about the average American any other filthy rich dude; he just sees a way to become President on it and then tax the bejeezus out of people who want to become as wealthy as him.
You don't have to be impoverished to care about the poor, but if this is really such a great moral crusade he's on, one wonders whether he couldn't have bought, say, a 14,000 square foot house and used the money he saved to do something worthwhile, like say endow a scholarship that would pay in-state tuition for 100 kids every year at UNC (yes, that's what $3mil earning 10% a year could do). I'm sure he could come up with better ideas. As it stands, he's on the same moral plane as people who say that the War in Iraq is the most serious problem of our time, but who don't evince much desire to sacrifice in their personal lives to fight it.
Edwards is a hypocrite because he's asking average Americans to pay more in taxes to fund his socialist programs, but isn't willing to sacrifice himself. A good leader leads by example. Edwards is a horrible leader, needless to say. It pisses me off that he can go live in his mansion, pay hundreds of dollars for haircuts, and then expect me to pay more taxes just because I make $200,000. I used to hate Hillary, but I now realize there is a more dangerous candidate in the field and I plan on actively campaigning against Edwards from now on.