Rethinking John Edwards….what if?

Word of John Edwards’ affair with Rielle Hunter began leaking out in August 2007; he admitted the affair in August 2008.

Then add the wife battling cancer, the baby of unknown provenance, and the potential money irregularities.

Now let’s play…what if?

If it hadn’t been for outright election fraud by the Republicans in Ohio in 2004, Kerry and Edwards would have won in 2004.

What if Edwards’ rise to the Vice Presidency had brought greater scrutiny, and the affair had been exposed much earlier, in 2006, in time for the Republican Congress to impeach him? In fact, with a bombshell like that, the Republicans might have kept Congress in 2006, so they would have been able to impeach in 2007 or 2008 (and actually the Republicans really lost Congress because Bush dragged the party down, which might not have happened if Bush had lost in 2004, but I digress…).

Contrariwise, supposed Edwards had used the power of the Vice Presidency to cover his tracks more carefully, and the truth was NOT discovered as quickly….and then he runs for President, and wins, and THEN the affair is exposed…?

And if the exposure had followed the original timetable: would Edwards have fessed up to Kerry in 2007, and quit the ticket quietly? Or would Kerry and Edwards have accepted their renominations in the summer of 2008, only to have the affair hit the newspapers afterward? Would Edwards have been bounced from the ticket with only a couple of months left in the election campaign?

Or if the Iowa caucus of 2008 had gone as everyone expected – Edwards, and not Obama, being the Democratic candidate to successfully challenge Hillary in Iowa, and then using Iowa as a springboard to win the 2008 Presidential nomination?


I used to be a big fan of Edwards, but when you add up what he did to his wife, his family, Hunter, possibly the baby, and then add in all the jeopardy he could have put Kerry, his party and his country into, in the middle of an election race and two wars abroad….

Yes, yes, I know it’s unusual to hear me banging on Democrats, but seriously, this guy was a potential threat to my party. Yeesh. Clinton’s weewee damaged the party some, but nothing like Edwards could have done.



PS -- here's another one: what if he really did get the Attorney General's job? Chief law enforcement officer in the land, one of the highest positions of trust in the U.S. Government?