John Edwards Still a Lightweight
March 18, 2005The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that:
John Edwards declined to say Thursday whether he ever promised to stay out of the campaign for president in 2008 if his former running mate, Sen. John Kerry, seeks the party’s nomination again.
“Personal, confidential conversations between Sen. Kerry and myself are going to stay personal and confidential,” Edwards said in an interview with The Chronicle following a Thursday speech to the San Francisco Bar Association.
Does anyone see the humor in this?
How about just asking Edwards in the present: John, are you going to run for president if John Kerry does? What difference does it make what he told Kerry? In other words, he could answer the question without revealing his confidential conversation with Kerry. Further, it is not like he’s protecting Kerry. It’s not what Kerry said or didn’t say that he’s unwilling to share. It’s what he told Kerry. But I guess if he shares that with us he will have breached his own trust and would have to sue himself. It would be like me robbing a bank (or Democratic headquarters) and telling a close friend about it, then when someone asks me whether I did it I respond: “I really can’t share with you what I told my friend. It would be violating our sacred trust.”
Anyway, the bottom line is that no one cares much anyway. I can’t see either of them as serious contenders against Hillary. But for the record, I do not believe that John Edwards would defer to John Kerry in 2008. He didn’t in 2004 during the primaries, where he went after Kerry quite a bit. And after campaigning closely with Kerry he surely realizes the futility of subordinating his own political career to this guy. I think each of these two is interested in himself — period. Each will do what they believe they have to do to advance their self-interests. Unlike Joe Lieberman, Edwards wouldn’t even consider deferring to Kerry, in my opinion.
