John Edwards is like a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an expensive haircut.
The former vice presidential candidate took a great deal of heat a short while ago after it was revealed that he had paid for a few $400 haircuts out of his campaign coffers. The Edwards campaign howled that the media were ignoring the real issues by focusing on the haircuts, and then sent out a fundraising email specifically referencing the haircut flap. “Last time they attacked his hair; this time it’s his haircut. But it’s the same sad game. And this time, we can beat it,” wrote Edwards campaign aide Jonathan Prince in the email.
It’s totally cool for Edwards’ own people to reference his haircut fiasco, but heaven forbid anybody else dare mention it. Last week, the Washington Post secured an interview with Joseph Torrenueva, Edwards’ hair stylist, who revealed that one of his campaign cuts actually cost Edwards’ $1,250, an increase required since Torrenueva had to fly to Atlanta and close his own shop for a few days to cut Edwards’ silky locks. When asked about the story, the Edwards campaign deflected, preferring to chastise the media for ignoring bigger stories like Scooter Libby or WMDs in Iraq.
The Edwards’ campaign doesn’t seem to realize that their candidate is running for president, and that everything is fair game. The story is by no means that he paid so much for his haircuts: Plenty of people pay way too much money for stupid things all the time. Rather, it’s that Edwards is using his campaign funds, funds raised largely from his everyday supporters, to finance his lavish lifestyle. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the nation’s most prominent liberal blogger and the leader of Daily Kos, even found time to chastise Edwards for his foolish spending. He is a very rich man, said Zuniga, though his supporters are not. “Yet given the choice between taking out his own checkbook or having his campaign pay for the $400 the haircut cost, someone made the choice to put this on the contributors. More than anything, it’s this that offends me about this incident. People expect their money to be well spent by campaigns, not used as personal slush funds for whatever luxuries they may want,” he wrote after the first haircut report.
The hits just keep on coming for Edwards, whose campaign has displayed all of the political acumen of an infant. One of the great themes of Edwards’ campaign is the idea of “two Americas,” one for the privileged and one for the poor. Edwards claims to identify with the poor, yet lives in the most luxurious home in the state of North Carolina (and gets $1,250 haircuts, don’t forget.). His stump speech on poverty cost one California college $55,000 to hear it. He accepted $1.7 million in fees for his work with a hedge fund, not exactly the kind of thing run-of-the-mill Democrats want to learn about their so-called populist presidential candidate. His wife, Elizabeth, went on TV to attack Ann Coulter for lowering the tone of debate in this country, certainly a commendable charge. But Elizabeth Edwards played a considerable role in the campaign’s hiring of two bloggers who had posted some extremely offensive, anti-Catholic screeds, notably describing the Immaculate Conception as when God filled the Virgin Mary “with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit.” How did that elevate the debate?
And then there’s Wal-Mart. Edwards has spent considerable time over the past few years assailing the nation’s largest retailer for its alleged unfair treatment of workers and ruthless trade tactics, all red meat to his party’s liberal base. Last week, Edwards hired staffers from Wake Up Wal-Mart, the leading anti-company advocacy group, to help revitalize his campaign. You can probably expect more vocal assaults on the retailer from Edwards in the future, but remember that Edwards, so far, is the only candidate on the Democratic side to have been caught shopping in a Wal-Mart while criticizing the company’s business practices (Hillary Clinton served on the company’s board while first lady of Arkansas).
At the launch of the PlayStation 3 in November, an Edwards staffer dropped the candidate’s name in an effort to get a PS3 for Edwards’ kids. Edwards apologized for the mistake, blaming the staffer, but Wal-Mart jumped all over it as proof of Edwards’ hypocritical ways. In all likelihood, Edwards believes everything he says about poverty, and these are just campaign gaffes. But these gaffes would be embarrassing if he was running for dogcatcher. In the big leagues, he’s toast.
