John Edwards Makes My Day

The Edwards campaign might want to tweak their phrasing a bit:

Edwards ad touts him as a tough guy

CONCORD, N.H. - Elizabeth Edwards tells voters her husband, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, is a tough guy "who can stare the worst in the face and not blink" in an ad set to start airing Wednesday in New Hampshire.

Groan.  John Edwards stared unblinkingly into the face of a special type of danger in this immortal video.

And is having the devoted wife rave about your toughness really how John Wayne and Clint Eastwood established their macho cred?  Was that McCain's secret, or Giuliani's?

I can see the bumper sticker: John Edwards, Tough but Tender.  Kill me now.  With kindness, of course.

Comments

[hit and run]

Have you ever had one of those nail technicians come after your cuticles with an emory board?

Then you haven't faced danger.

[Jane]

I find the Edwards campaign a constant source of amusement. I also think they chose the wrong spouse to run.

[clarice]

The man behind the skirt.

Isn't it embarrassing when his chief sore point is that he's not manly that his wife is his attack dog?

[hit and run]

Well...

Invoking RFK a 'delicate operation' for Edwards

by Christi Parsons

MARKS, Miss. — As former Sen. John Edwards was touring this Mississippi Delta town the other day, a woman mistook him for a member of the Kennedy clan.

A little while later, the local mayor referred to the Democratic presidential candidate as "Sen. Kennedy" while presenting him a key to the city. Even a man giving Edwards a tour of his neighborhood kept pointing out a certain resemblance.

"The last person who came here seeking national office," the man told Edwards solemnly, "was Bobby Kennedy."
...
Poverty is a different kind of problem than it was in the 1960s, and people have a different view of it now, said John Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College who has written about Kennedy.
...
At the same time, Edwards has the added challenge of invoking historical legacy, Pitney said, which is "a delicate operation."

Delicate, you say? By golly, if any of the candidates can pull off delicate, my money's on Edwards.

[kim]

You know, folks, this gal's gonna get him a lot more votes than he's gonna get himself. She wants them more.
===========================

[bio mom]

Right you are Kim. Elizabeth Edwards is a vicious partisan, not the sweet, afflicted wife of media lore. And her husband has always given me the creeps. To me he is one of the biggest phonies out there: an ambulance chasing, silver tongued shyster. ANYBODY but Edwards as the next president, please!!

[Paul Zrimsek]

Elizabeth Edwards tells voters her husband, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, is a tough guy "who can stare the worst in the face and not blink"

Fess up: You expected her to continue with "a lesser man would have put a bag over my head," didn't you?

[Jane]

Kim. Elizabeth Edwards is a vicious partisan, not the sweet, afflicted wife of media lore

That's okay with me. I believe nothing she believes but I like her style. She takes no prisoners.

[JM Hanes]

What I love is the idea of Hillary!, Obama! and John Edwards colluding to boot the other candidates off the stage. [Note to future candidates: at least one of your names needs to look good with an exclamation point]. We're deep into puppets and puppet master territory now.

Has anybody else noticed that Hill hasn't gone after Edwards in a big way yet? She may be angling for the KosKids (the Wilson ploy was pure brilliance), but she doesn't actually have to win them over, she just has to undercut any unified support for someone else on the left. Other than that, Edwards is a campaign twofer for Hillary for the moment: a perfect foil who cuts into the Obama vote, not hers. And really, speaking of twofers, who ya gonna call? Edwards & Edwards or Clinton & Clinton?

The guy who said we wouldn't be hearing about experience in this campaign was out of his frakkin' mind. You've got two junior Senators, with nary a completed term in national office between them -- and then you've got Hillary. Even on a good day, the Clinton campaign couldn't have dreamed this competition up. Picture the post-purge debate: Unless they draw straws, Hillary will occupy center stage, with a young, inexperienced, pretty boy idealist on either side. É voilá! The lady here is the warhouse, not the wuss.

[BumperStickerist]

Remember this, folks:

It takes a tough man to eat two lunches in one afternoon.
_______________________

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/Archive/KerryEdwards_menu-31Jul04.htm

While Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, and their families were having a “lite” lunch at Wendy’s in the Town of Newburgh Friday, drumming up local support right after the national convention in Boston, their real lunches were waiting on their bus.

A member of the Kerry advance team called Nikola’s Restaurant at the Newburgh Yacht Club the night before and ordered 19 five-star lunches to go that would be picked up at noon Friday. Management at the restaurant, which is operated by CIA graduate chef Michael Dederick, was told the meals would be for the Kerry and Edwards families and actor Ben Affleck who was with them on the tour.

The gourmet meals to go included shrimp vindallo, grilled diver sea scallops, prosciutto, wrapped stuffed chicken, and steak salad.
_____________________________

John Edwards - Man Enough to Eat Lunch in Each America

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I'm pretty sure he's afraid of Ann Coulter.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

I'm pretty sure he's afraid of Ann Coulter.

[hit and run]

JMH:
What I love is the idea of Hillary!, Obama! and John Edwards colluding to boot the other candidates off the stage.

Geraghty points us to this...

(CNN) — Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich remains hospitalized Wednesday in Ohio after aides say he suffered a severe case of food poisoning.

Coincidence?

Uh huh.

[clarice]

THWACK!!!!!!!!

[cathyf]

Don't reward him clarice. It just makes him even more insufferable...

[Ralph L]

"The lady here is the warhouse, not the wuss"
I assume you mean "warhorse", but they have finer ankles. Obama is the warehouse, a big empty vessel in which Dems put stuff.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Why don't we ever get any of the good politicians?

[hit and run]

Don Surber (via instapundit) on the Girls of the '08 Race.

First I thought it was in order of attractiveness...crush on barack, hot4hill, so far so good, then hot crush 4 John Edwards, huh? well, maybe, ok, but then when Jeri Thompson was next, I realized I was wrong.

[VIMH: You just gonna let the thwacking and insufferability comments go?]
No. I am going to hold them in my heart forever and cherish them deeply.

[PeterUK]

This man cannot possibly lose

[PeterUK]

This man cannot possibly lose

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

John Edwards on Hardball last night:

MATTHEWS: What‘s it feel like? I‘ve never been poor. You have. I‘m not talking about the haircuts and all the nonsense. I‘m talking about your own personal experience as a human being. You know what it is like to be poor. Tell the people watching right now who have not been what it is like.

EDWARDS: Well, you go into a restaurant with your family and you sit down, and everybody—especially when you‘re young—that is the only time I was poor, Chris. And you sit down, and then you start to order something, and your father says, we have to leave, because we can‘t pay for this. And you get up and leave, and it is humiliating. It feels humiliating when you are young. And it is particularly humiliating to see your mother and father have to go through that.

So we do not want anybody to be treated without dignity and respect in this country, which is what is part of what motivates me to this cause.

Just breaks your heart, doesn't it.

[clarice]

I heard that same story 1,000 times from this guy.

Is it time to mention that when I was little we never ate in a restaurant at all. In fact, it was a rare treat for most American families if my recollection doesn't fail me.

[hit and run]

Same ol' story, same ol' song and dance...here's Steyn way back during the 04 election...

According to Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton-stain-mopper-turned-Guardian-columnist, "He bears the memory of his father taking the family to a local restaurant after church only to leave when he realised he could not afford anything on the menu."

Really? Robbins was a town of just over 1,000 people, so presumably it was, if not the only restaurant, one of only two or three. In small towns, folks generally know what the local eateries charge. And, while the Edwards family was poor by comparison with John Kerry, dad was in fact the mill's production manager (though the son tends to leave that bit out). So, in a mill town, at a restaurant presumably priced to cater for mill workers, the management of the mill couldn't afford to eat?

[windansea]

but they have finer ankles.

that is just mean

[EH]

Interesting. Still no comment on Romney's makeup.

[PeterUK]

He ha the hot4hill vote sewn up

"And you sit down, and then you start to order something, and your father says, we have to leave, because we can‘t pay for this. And you get up and leave, and it is humiliating.

So we do not want anybody to be treated without dignity and respect in this country, which is what is part of what motivates me to this cause."

So we are going to enact legislation compelling all restaurants,cafes and diners etc to post the menu outside giving the prices.

[Soylent Red]

it was a rare treat for most American families if my recollection doesn't fail me.

Your recollection doesn't fail you Clarice. It was that way when I was a kid too, and I'm way younger than Mr. Beautiful. So that condition extends at least into the early 1970s.

And as far as knowing what restaurants charge, etc.- is Edwards trying to make the case that his dad was an idiot?

I could buy, maybe, that a person might not know exact prices. But anyone with a thimble full of personal finance savvy should have an idea if he could take his family to Sunday lunch.

Just a shyster ambulance chaser repackaging himself into a Faulkner character.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Speaking of Hardball, Judy Miller was on today. If you can sit through the whole segment and want to see a pair of world class weasels, click on the Al Qaeda threatens another attack video.

It comes at the very end.

[clarice]

PUK, In D.C. (as in France) menus are posted outside restaurants with prives. It's actually a rather nice thing.

[clarice]

**priCes***

[PeterUK]

Clarice,
"PUK, In D.C. (as in France) menus are posted outside restaurants with prices".

Same here,even greasy spoons.I think Edwards was highlighting adult literacy problems.
It could be though, that as a child he was posing little git and his family left in embarrassment.

[Ralph L]

Clarice, I hear they pee on the sidewalk in France. No privies needed.

Mr. Edwards forgot his wallet one Sunday, and little Johnny was traumatized for life.

[Barney Frank]

dad was in fact the mill's production manager

Holy smokes. I never paid enough attention to the little twerp to find this out before. When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies in a very rural California county my uncle was the yard manager of the local sawmill. We all envied them because we thought of them as upper, upper middle class. In those days, for those of us in the middle class, a restaurant was the local drive in. The actual poor couldn't even afford that.
Does every politician think they have to come up with some patently false childhood story to moisten our eyes and explain away their gawdawful naked ambition?

[PeterUK]

Trouble is Barney,politic is now a branch of showbusiness,attracting much the same kind of people.In Hollywood they can pretend to be a character for the time it takes to make a movie,politicians do it for life.
Glad to see all is well with you and yours.

[Jane]

Is it time to mention that when I was little we never ate in a restaurant at all.

My mother used to say she could pay for college for what it would cost to eat out once a week.

(And I suspect I've reiterated that little ditty as many times as Edwards has spoken his.)

[JM Hanes]

I'm sorry, but when you're actually poor, you don't even go into the restaurant. Looks to me like kid Edwards wasn't embarassed to be poor, he was embarassed that folks might think he was poor.

[hoosierhoops]

it was a rare treat for most American families if my recollection doesn't fail me.

Your recollection doesn't fail you Clarice. It was that way when I was a kid too, and I'm way younger than Mr. Beautiful. So that condition extends at least into the early 1970s.

And as far as knowing what restaurants charge, etc.- is Edwards trying to make the case that his dad was an idiot?

How many more retarted stories can Edwards come up with?
I invented the internet is already taken..
I mean really when you think about it..2007 is going to be a really fun time with John Boy..It just doesn't get any better than this...

[Sue]

In fact, it was a rare treat for most American families if my recollection doesn't fail me.

Thank God for Dairy Queen, otherwise, I would have never known what eating "out" meant.

[JM Hanes]

RalphL:

And to think that I almost posted a correction:)

[Sue]

Actually, we did that just a few years ago. On vacation in Florida with our 2 daughters and 3 of their friends. 7 of us that we were footing the bill for. We went to a restaurant that looked simple enough and while we were waiting to be seated one of the kids got a menu to see what they wanted. We looked at the prices and nothing was cheaper than $25, and that was a salad. We laughed all the way to Joe's Crab Shack! My kids (both teenagers at the time) thought it was the funniest thing in the world that they would be calling for ***** party of 7...

::grin::

[hit and run]

Mr. Edwards forgot his wallet one Sunday

When I was dating mrs hit and run in college we went out one night for Wendy's. After ordering I pulled up to the window and reached for my wallet ... and ... nothing.

Apologized to the nice lady and drove off.

The next night ... since we didn't have it the night before, we went back. After ordering I start toward the window and mrs hit and run jokingly says, "you do have your wallet, don't you".

I didn't stop at the window...

[Sue]

My husband will take us to http://www.ruthschris.com/reservations/?Pubid=370&3 Cris Steakhouse or http://www.3forks.com/>Three Forks and never bat an eye. I can't drag him into http://www.olivegarden.com/default_f.asp>The Olive Garden because they charge $10 for a plate of spaghetti. Go figure.

[Pofarmer]

Isn't the whole problem with Edwards Schtick the fact that his story proves that someone with motivation can be successful in America? Now, I'm not rich, but I know the steps I could take to become rich. However, I am happy, and maybe I can make my current path work just as well.

[Sue]

I should have previewed. The first was Ruth's Cris Steakhouse. Sorry.

[Sue]

Isn't the whole problem with Edwards Schtick the fact that his story proves that someone with motivation can be successful in America?

My problem with Edwards isn't that he is successful and can afford everything he has. My problem is the hypocrisy he displays in the 2 Americas meme. Even if he taxes the rich to umptenth of the umptenth there will still be 2 Americas. We'll all just be poorer.

[BarbaraS]

When I was a kid (and I am probably older than all of you) my father and I would take the streetcar (cost 14 cents round trip (I rode free) 5 miles to downtown Birmingham, Ala. to get four Chinese chow mein take-outs (only two Chinese restaurants in town). Cost $1.50. This was our "entertainment" once a month until we got a television, then no more takeouts. We were poor but not destitute. We owned a house, had food on the table, clothes on our backs and toys to play with. But then, everybody was in our situation. This was the 40s. If John Edwards' father was a mill manager, he wasn't even poor much less destitute.

[maryerose]

I am one of seven children so going out to eat as a family wasn't really a viable option. My mom was an excellent Slovenian cook so dinners were always tasty if you could move fast enough to get some food. On payday nights we would have pop[soda to everyone else} and chips. It was considered a real treat.Later on in our lives all the girls and my mom would go out to eat for our birthdays, sisters-in-law included. My mom always looked forward to those dinners.

[hoosierhoops]

I have enclosed a flashback to the last time we talked about Edwards..
Remember when he worked at a hedge fund to learn about poor people?
I thought he already knew what it was like..
********************************************
Clarice,
"Nowhere in the dispatch does Edwards explain what his hedge-fund work taught him about poverty."

Poverty,something that money can't buy.

Posted by: PeterUK. | May 09, 2007 at 06:15 PM

Someone, probably instapundit was saying that there are hedge funds out there that commit to certain causes, like education or alleviating poverty and stuff like that. The Hedge fund Edwards went to school on is not tied to any cause except making as much money as possible.

I think you can feel pretty comfortable calling him a liar at this point.

Posted by: Jane | May 09, 2007 at 06:39 PM

Thank you, Jane.(Remember he was heading up the Poverty Center at the time he was "consulting" for this Cayman Island tax-sheltered hedge fund. A liar, a posuer and a hyporcrite. Hedgehog.

Posted by: clarice | May 09, 2007 at 06:52 PM

[hoosierhoops]

When I was dating mrs hit and run in college we went out one night for Wendy's. After ordering I pulled up to the window and reached for my wallet ... and ... nothing.
************
You're funny Hit and run.. You could just call her your wife..:)
( TIP: remember to always say 'smoking hot wife' in case she reads your postings when you are at work)

[Sue]

You could just call her your wife

He could, but then he would be just like everyone else. And because he isn't like anyone else, he calls her Mrs. Hit and Run. And that's all I've got to say about that. ::grin::

[RichatUF]

JM Hanes;

Has anybody else noticed that Hill hasn't gone after Edwards in a big way yet?

That piece on Fortress Investments was pretty good and what a why to sell it-"I was studying poverty"

Anyway, Hillary! might want to keep the Edwards machine on life support as a secondary funding vehicle, and as a shell to destrory the political fortunes of Obama

[clarice]

Until "family" restaurants and women joined the work force, most middle class families did not eat out in restaurants except on rare occasions .Maybe a diner or sandwich shop, but not a restaurant with the exception of inexpensive Chinese chow mein type spots.

[clarice]

*******Until there were "family restaurants"**********

[Elliott]

JMH:

Other than that, Edwards is a campaign twofer for Hillary for the moment: a perfect foil who cuts into the Obama vote, not hers.

RichatUF:

Anyway, Hillary! might want to keep the Edwards machine on life support as a secondary funding vehicle, and as a shell to destrory the political fortunes of Obama.

I agree. I think Clinton supporters should be most concerned about holding off Obama in Iowa. For Edwards, a victory in the caucuses won't propel him to the nomination, but, for Obama, it probably would.

[Ralph L]

"If John Edwards' father was a mill manager, he wasn't even poor much less destitute."
He may have blown all their money at the beauty shop, as they were called in NC.

Edwards can also attack Obama, without Hillary! risking the black vote. I think we'll hear a lot more about the African (not African-American) Obama, Sr., and Punaho, Jr's prep school.

[Sara]

HILLARY CLINTON: A CRIMINAL CAUGHT ON VIDEOTAPE

By Reliapundit

SHE SUBORNED PERJURY, OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE, AND BROKE SEVERAL CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS; SHE COMMITTED THE LARGEST CAMPAIGN FINACE FRAUD OF ALL TIME.

SHE SHOULD BE BEHIND BARS, NOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

NEED PROOF?

WATCH THE VIDEO.

SHE'S JUST LIKE HER HUBBY: SCUM. LYING SCUM.

[hit and run]

hoosier:
You could just call her your wife

Sue:
He could, but then he would be just like everyone else. And because he isn't like anyone else, he calls her Mrs. Hit and Run.

Well, honestly it's just a habit that I fell into. Called her that once or twice (and hit and run jr and princess hit and run for my kids) and then just became stubborn in the usage to be consistent.

Now, I have no delusions that I was the first to use this formula -- and I have no grandiose notion that it is even all that creative. And I certainly would never claim that anyone else refering to his wife in this way actually got it from me ... but ... from Geraghty at his Campaign Spot blog on NRO yesterday:

A Theory on Fred Thompson and a September Start

From Mrs. Campaignspot, a theory on why we're hearing Thompson is in starting in September

[Ralph L]

Geraghty used to be married to Mrs. Kerryspot; I hadn't heard they'd divorced. Who got custody of the Kerrypinpoints?

[hit and run]

Yeah, Mrs. Kerryspot.

And don't forget the brief nuptials with Mrs. Hillaryspot.

I trust his political judgement tremendously.

And while it may be unfair to judge a wife by her name, I have my doubts about his choice in wives...

[MarkD]

Maryerose,

Oldest of 9. I remember eating in a restaurant once. Coming back from vacation in the Adirondaks. It was a burger joint, but it was the first, last, and only time.

Trips in those days were quite the thrill - up to 11 people jammed into a station wagon. Seat belt laws had yet to put in an appearance. This was the early 60's.

I remember turning 16 and being allowed to stay home while the family went on vacation. First privacy I ever knew. Best vacation ever.

[Ralph L]

Even in affluent northern Virginia, besides Hot Shoppes, there were very few non-fast food restaurants until liquor-by-the-drink laws. Lower-income people could afford to live inside the Beltway in non-subsidized housing. There were massage parlors (whore houses) on King Street in downtown Alexandria, now a high-rent business/retail/tourist district.