# John Edwards is a very impressive Presidential candidate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017 "2007-02-06T00:47:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Caridwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Caridwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caridwen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/101 "2007-02-07T03:17:08Z")
Nope. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/102 "2007-02-07T06:17:15Z")
[QUOTE=Richard Parker] This implies that Edwards is the sort of trial attorney that takes meritless cases. Or did you not mean to imply that? If you did, what cases? [/QUOTE] Well, no. “Again the point is not that he is scum because he is a trial attorney. He is a phony for holding that UP as evidence of his fighting for the common man” implies that he was not a trial attorney in order to fight for the rights of the dispossessd and downtrodden; he was a trial attorney to make big bucks. And he did that well. Look at that case history kidly provided by **Captain Carrot** and tell me how that record shouts “defending the downtrodden”? If he was on a typical contigency he bagged about $10 million because a box acidently fell on someone. A quick $300K because some teen aged girl got seriously hurt by stupidly diving into the shallow end of the pool and no one “adequately” protected her from her own stupidity. (hmmm, an under million dollar settlement. Does that mean more likely without merit according to your studies?) Multiple millions on cerebral palsy cases. Now I know not the details of any of these cases nor am I interested in evaluating or debating each of their merits, but verdicts of this magnitude are generally not in the service of encouraging better medicine. They are motivated by avarice and enabled by being able to manipulate the emotions of a jury and wow them with enough hired hand “experts”. They are not evidence of his working for the good of the powerless. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/103 "2007-02-07T13:43:07Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] Now I know not the details of any of these cases nor am I interested in evaluating or debating each of their merits, but verdicts of this magnitude are generally not in the service of encouraging better medicine. . [/QUOTE] This is GD, not IMHO. Admitting that you know nothing of the facts or merit of the cases and then concluding that they were not helping the downtrodden or in the service of medicine is not fighting ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/104 "2007-02-07T13:50:22Z")
The merits of the case as to if it was negligence _or not_ has no bearing on whether the case was fighting for the downtrodden. Please support the case that these cases and their huge verdicts, with 1/3 to 1/2 going to him, show his record of being a knight in shining armor for the poor and oppressed. ---
**Author:** ![Furious\_Marmot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dfb087/32.png) [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/105 "2007-02-07T13:54:09Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] Wait. So anyone who owns a beachfront house can’t be President now? [/QUOTE] If that’s the impression I gave, then I did not make my point well, allow me to clarify. In my opinion, people who build/own structures on certain types of beaches display a willful or ignorant disregard for a large body of scientific work. In doing so, they take large risks with their own property (which is their choice) and they damage an ecosystem (which has implications for many people). I do not trust such a person to make decisions which will affect my property or the lands held in common by the federal government. Can an ignorant/arrogant/self-deluding person be president? I’d suggest we have one now; but the next one will not get the statistically insignificant help of my vote. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/106 "2007-02-07T13:55:18Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] The merits of the case as to if it was negligence _or not_ has no bearing on whether the case was fighting for the downtrodden. Please support the case that these cases and their huge verdicts, with 1/3 to 1/2 going to him, show his record of being a knight in shining armor for the poor and oppressed. [/QUOTE] I’m generally sympathetic to your position here, regarding jury awards in general, but if 1/3 is unacceptable, what level of compensation would be appropriate for the attorney? How do you justify setting that level? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/107 "2007-02-07T14:17:41Z")
[QUOTE=DSeid] The merits of the case as to if it was negligence _or not_ has no bearing on whether the case was fighting for the downtrodden. Please support the case that these cases and their huge verdicts, with 1/3 to 1/2 going to him, show his record of being a knight in shining armor for the poor and oppressed. [/QUOTE] [New thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8233875#post8233875) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/108 "2007-02-07T14:59:11Z")
There’s a controversy brewing right now over the hiring of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan by the Edwards campaign as part of an Internet outreach effort. Both women are bloggers, and they have posted some very controversial things in the past. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is calling for their firing because of a perceived anti-religious bias. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/109 "2007-02-07T14:59:47Z")
There is no doubt that edward’s (successful) clients were helped-they receievd large cash compensation. the issue: are people in the aggegate helped (or harmed) by his activities? The only way to analyze this would to be to plot the cost of medical care, and the availability of medical care, pre and post Edwards. It could be argued that Edward’s activities have made doctors more conscientious-this may mean: ordering more tests, delaying treatment, reluctance to used unproven methods of treatment. This might result in higher costs, and MORE patient deaths than would otherwise be the case. My overall impression: lawyers like Edwards think that complex issues of medical cause and effect can be solved in a courtroom. this may or may not be true. However, it is true that medical care is getting more expensive. I suspect that malpractice insurance premiums have been rising at a rate that exceeds inflation. in some medical specialties, it is not even obtainable. Another interesting fact: many American are eschewing medical care in the USA entirely:one can have heart surgery done in India, at a fraction of the cost in the USA-is this a good trend for the USA? But the lawyers have all the answers-its "greedy insurance companies’-not the activities of tort lawyers. Somehow, I don’t think this explanation is correct. ---
**Author:** ![Caridwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Caridwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caridwen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/110 "2007-02-07T16:07:31Z")
[QUOTE=Furious\_Marmot] If that’s the impression I gave, then I did not make my point well, allow me to clarify. In my opinion, people who build/own structures on certain types of beaches display a willful or ignorant disregard for a large body of scientific work. In doing so, they take large risks with their own property (which is their choice) and they damage an ecosystem (which has implications for many people). I do not trust such a person to make decisions which will affect my property or the lands held in common by the federal government. Can an ignorant/arrogant/self-deluding person be president? I’d suggest we have one now; but the next one will not get the statistically insignificant help of my vote. [/QUOTE] That and because Edwards believes there is a rich, poor and middle-class I guess. > [@](#): > > 2a. He indicates that America is divided into poor, rich, and middle-class, which is absurdly reductionist; how can three bullet-point categories adequately sum up the variety of economic and social circumstances found in the nation? > > 2b. He has not (to my knowledge, please correct me) defined poor, rich, and middle-class in any concrete terms. I understand that in rhetorical terms, Poor=people who need our help, Rich=people who have more than they need, and Middle-Class=us. But without real definitions, I foresee Rich=whoever we are screwing this week and Middle-Class=nonexistent. I didn’t know he invented the terms, I thought H&HS defined poverty based on income. > [@](#): > > There’s a controversy brewing right now over the hiring of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan by the Edwards campaign as part of an Internet outreach effort. Both women are bloggers, and they have posted some very controversial things in the past. > > Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is calling for their firing because of a perceived anti-religious bias. **Mr Moto** , can you explain why it’s controversial for a Democrat to hire bloggers that are admittedly left of center because they have pro-choice views? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/111 "2007-02-07T16:25:19Z")
The controversy is over some posts that are quite profane, and others that describe Christians and Catholics in uncomplimentary terms. Edwards will have to woo Catholic and Christian voters to have any hope of winning, you know. Here is a sample of Marcotte’s writing, from a Google cache. She’s trying to sanitize her blog right now: > [@](#): > > As I’m sure y’all already know, a lot of young women don’t have hymens the first time they have sexual intercourse—generally because they were active kids, big on bicycles and just general physical activity. Generally speaking, I’ve always thought it a good thing for women not to have one, because my friends who did have one when they first had sex report it being both messy and unpleasant. Of course, if you’re a perverted religious nut, the blood and the pain of “cherry”-breaking is probably a de riguer part of a woman’s life, both to give the man a cheap thrill of actual blood while enacting the sex-as-violent-possession construction that is part of virginity fetishization and to remind the woman of her religious teaching that womanhood is suffering (see: Genesis). ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/112 "2007-02-07T16:32:44Z")
I knew I wouldn’t vote for him as soon as I heard him say that he would raise taxes in order to pay for a ‘universal health care’ plan. So much for the people in that other thread who told me that if we had ‘universal health care’, I’d be paying **less** in taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/113 "2007-02-07T16:41:24Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] The controversy is over some posts that are quite profane, and others that describe Christians and Catholics in uncomplimentary terms. Edwards will have to woo Catholic and Christian voters to have any hope of winning, you know. Here is a sample of Marcotte’s writing, from a Google cache. She’s trying to sanitize her blog right now: [/QUOTE] Here’s another, also removed from her blog, as well as response to it. This was posted just last week, well after the rape charges had been dropped. > [@](#): > > In the meantime, I’ve been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. > > Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/114 "2007-02-07T16:49:01Z")
I don’t think hiring these bloggers was a good move. There have to be hundreds of other people just as qualified and far less controversial that could have done the job. That’s a sign of a campaign that isn’t getting the basic work done right, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/115 "2007-02-07T17:08:50Z")
You know, I’d really like to vote for John Edwards, but I could never bring myself to vote for someone who [has hired bloggers who have said some controversial things before they worked for him]. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/116 "2007-02-07T17:15:06Z")
Yeah, say what you will, but when you alienate voters you ought to be wooing, and when you’re hiring people without vetting then first (as obviously happened here), then you’re just inviting trouble. And Edwards is only in a primary fight right now. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/117 "2007-02-07T17:18:52Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] You know, I’d really like to vote for John Edwards, but I could never bring myself to vote for someone who [has hired bloggers who have said some controversial things before they worked for him]. [/QUOTE] It is certainly not the **only** reason to be cautious with your vote. But I suspect you knew that, and were just being deliberately obtuse in order to score a rhetorical point. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/118 "2007-02-07T17:21:42Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] I don’t think hiring these bloggers was a good move. [/QUOTE] You weren’t going to vote for him anyway, so what, really, does your opinion tell us? ---
**Author:** ![Caridwen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c89c15/32.png) [@Caridwen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caridwen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/119 "2007-02-07T17:26:20Z")
[QUOTE=catsix] I knew I wouldn’t vote for him as soon as I heard him say that he would raise taxes in order to pay for a ‘universal health care’ plan. So much for the people in that other thread who told me that if we had ‘universal health care’, I’d be paying **less** in taxes. [/QUOTE] But you’d support a party that is spending a trillion dollars on a war? How much do you think that’s costing you? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017/120 "2007-02-07T17:26:35Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] You weren’t going to vote for him anyway, so what, really, does your opinion tell us? [/QUOTE] Hypothetically, is it not possible to dislike a candidate form perfectly valid reasons? Given that, shouldn’t those reasons be given due consideration? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-edwards-is-a-very-impressive-presidential-candidate/391017.md?page=7)