John Edwards for Civilian

Reason # 5 John Edwards Does Not Understand the Internet

2007-09-16T18:36:00.001-05:00

In a recent post, I was accused of "stealing" viewers from John Edwards. This is a good opportunity for me to explain how I got control of this website.

First of all, a domain name is a necessary part of any website. Whenever you type a web address into the browser bar, the "___.com" is the domain name. "JohnEdwards.org" was at one time the home of the campaign website for John Edwards when he ran for US Senate and President the first time. Individuals get to keep their domain names forever, as long as they pay about ten dollars per year to renew the registration. John Edwards did not renew "JohnEdwards.org" so I bought it in a public auction. This is very similar the kind of auction that happens when a piece of real estate has been vacant for a specified amount of time.

Neglecting control of "johnedwards.org" is a major blunder that represents complete ignorance of the Internet. This will go down in history as being at least as stupid as when Senator Stevens said that the Internet "is a series of tubes."

Reason #4 No Credibility on Poverty

2007-05-23T07:22:00.000-05:00

First it was $400 dollar haircuts and now we find out that John Edwards charged college students at UC Davis $55,000 to give a speech about poverty. These blunders can't be blamed on other people. John Edwards is responsible for who cuts his hair and how much he charges to give speeches because these are personal decisions, not campaign decisions. This is becoming a trend for John Edwards. He seems to be telling America to "do as I say, not as I do." He has no credibility on one his biggest campaign issues: poverty and the existence of "two Americas."

John Edwards is proof that there actually are two Americas. There is one America for people that get paid $55,000 for one speech and can afford $400 haircuts. The other America is for the rest of us.

Reason #3 Four-Hundred Dollar Haircuts

2007-04-28T09:41:00.000-05:00

John Edwards often talks about how there are two Americas in this country; one America for the privileged and another America for the rest of us. The $400 dollar haircuts do not jibe with this populist rhetoric. John Edwards campaigns about the horror of there being "two Americas" and then we find out that he is living the most unnecessarily lavish and excessive liefestyle.

Reason #2 YouTube Censorship

2007-04-20T09:32:00.000-05:00

This week, John Edwards is featured on the YouChoose section of YouTube.com. The point of this forum is for politicians to have an opportunity to directly speak to the YouTube community and the youth culture, it represents an incredible milestone for the Internet's role in political discourse. In his featured video, John Edwards makes a one minute speech asking the YouTube community to post responses to his video. John Edrwads claims to be is engaging the YouTube community in an honest discussion, when in reality the Edwards campaign screens every video response to make sure they conform to his political strategy. This is not about connecting with the youth, this about manipulating them. See for yourself:
Here is one response to the Edwards video that the Edwards campaign has refused to post:

It is dishonest that the Edwards campaign is pretending to use YouTube to create an open debate and listen to the youth culture. Instead, John Edwards is using YouTube to control debate and hide from hard questions.

Reason #1 Bad Judgment

2007-04-01T22:26:00.001-05:00

One cannot correct bad judgment post-facto--not even John Edwards. Despite his apology, the fact remains that John Edwards voted to authorize and support the war in Iraq (senate.gov). John Edwards' apology is nothing more than an acknowledgment that he got it wrong, that he had bad judgment in the first place. There is no reason to believe that his judgment has improved since this historically catastrophic mistake.

Now that the war in Iraq is unpolular, John Edwards supports an immediate withdrawal of at least 40,000 US troops and the rest within a year and a half (johnedwards.com). I believe that the kind of rushed bad judgment from John Edwards that got us into this mess is exactly the kind of judgment that we need to move away from. I fear that he will continue to cater to public opinion instead of making smart foreign policy decisions. John Edwards has shown that he has bad judgment, our troops and our nation can't afford any more bad judgment.