The Edwards Fallout

I'll admit it: I fell for John Edwards. I believed in him. In a field of strong Democratic candidates, I chose JRE.

I made my first political contribution to the Edwards campaign. I taped an Edwards rally sign to my wall. Even though JRE was basically a lost cause by that point, I mailed in my absentee ballot for the CT Democratic primary with the bubble next to Edwards' name filled in. (Of course, Edwards dropped out several days after I mailed the ballot, and I was one of only 7 Edwards voters in Middlebury.)

Although he fell well short of winning the nomination, Edwards shaped the agenda of the 2008 presidential election. The Nation:

Obama's rhetoric has grown more powerful and effective as he has borrowed Edwards's policies as well as his populist phrasing. And when Clinton tells urban audiences she is campaigning to help Americans "lift yourself and your family out of poverty," it is impossible to miss the Edwards echo. Even Republicans like Mike Huckabee sounded like they'd been reading Edwards's position papers on trade policy.

When he withdrew, I had been in the Edwards camp for almost a year. We mourned. This diary over on DailyKos made me tear up a little when I read it last February:

I was a disillusioned Dem, a former Nader voter who couldn't get excited about a party that had become almost as plutocratic and corporatized as the GOP. Senator Edwards, you made me proud to be a Democrat. You inspired me. And of course I'm not alone. I belong to a mass of activists who are proud to call themselves Edwards Democrats. We will work to create the kind of populist movement that can sustain the next Edwards or Edwards-like campaign. Senator Edwards, your fight is our fight and it carries on.

In retrospect, I was naive. Why would Edwards have transformed so quickly from the sunny centrist of 2004 into the progressive activist of 2008? Did the wealthy trial lawyer really mean everything he said about poverty? With the groups who should have formed Edwards' base (progressives, young people, unions) flocking to Obama, did he really have a chance? (In my three months of conducting polls at Quinnipiac in the summer of 2007, I talked to one person who said he planned to vote for Edwards.)

When the scandal broke last summer, I was devastated. Forget the morality aspect; how could Edwards have jeopardized his party's chances in this way? If he had won the nomination, and this scandal had broken over the summer, then we would be a little over 100 days in the McCain presidency.

Edwards is back in the news. Edwards is being investigated for having perhaps steered campaign funds to the woman with whom he'd had the affair. We're learning that most of his top staff members for the 2004 run didn't return for 2008 because they knew about the affair and didn't want to work for him. Some encouraged him to not run.

His wife, Elizabeth, just released a book in which she reveals that she, too, tried to prevent her husband from running. From the looks of things, his campaign was more of an ego trip than Chris Dodd's adventures in Iowa. It was irresponsible and deceitful of Edwards to run, and it's led to nothing but disillusionmnent for former supporters like me.

This whole ordeal has helped nudge me away from politics. I'm looking towards law, and not campaigns, as a possible future. Two years ago, I would have said that my dream job would be to manage a campaign. Now, it might be to work for the Federal Elections Commission. But who knows. Maybe someone else will come along and inspire me.