John Dickerson needs to read my husband's book, Four Trials. In it, he will read the stories of four families uprooted by tragedy or accident who leaned, in their worst moments, on John Edwards. He was but a young man when he represented a former salesman, E.G. Sawyer, who, because a doctor prescribed an excessive amount of a pharmaceutical, was confined to a sliver of life in squalor. Without John's strength, intelligence and voice, he would have died that same way. Dickerson would not have to have read Four Trials to know the story of Valerie, whom John represented after a pump connected to a kiddie pool drain with a faulty cover sucked most of her intestines from her little body. And there are hundreds of E.G.s and Valeries over a twenty year career, hundreds of stories too hard to hear and certainly too hard to tell. But John heard them, and told them, and lived beside these families until their lives were righted. He is doing a broader version of the same work today. His Road to One America tour was high-lighting what he has seen as he has worked on poverty issues: people in need: in need of housing and health care and jobs, surely, and in need of dignity and respect, and in need of a voice. He, again, is their voice. Yes, he has faced death and disease in our family, but the measure of his strength is the fights he has -- for his entire adult life -- voluntarily taken on, not just those that fate would not permit him to avoid.

Cross-posted at http://blog.johnedwards.com/

John Edwards would make a more believeable champion of the poor if he gave some of the money he made suing doctors to scholarships for some med students.

Meanwhile, literature is wine, it improves with age. Anyone who suggests someone else "needs" to read a book written by someone who is still alive must be suspected of a commercial motive, when there's surely so much more better literature written by those who are already dead.

In these times, Orwell and Sun Tzu should be taken off the shelf and re-read. They are available at any quality library, and that way, no rich people living it up in "the other america"(there's two, or so I'm told) will make a dime off your reading habits.

What an asinine response.

Elizabeth was saying Dickerson "needs" to read the book to put the commercial in context. In other words, unlike the entirety of yoru comment, it was relevant to Dickerson's original article. It was not a literary recommendation. But hey, at least it gave you a chance to namedrop Sun Tzu and Orwell. Color me impressed.

Do you know anything about what John Edwards has given, or not given, to scholarship funds and other charities? I suspect you don't. I don't either. But I know he's done more for poor people than every Republican candidate combined. And I'm certain he's done far more than you have, by orders of magnitude.

Look for John Edwards' books in your local library; if your local library doesn't own it you can ask them to interlibrary loan it from another library. You can read any book for free without the "rich people" (which most authors are not) getting your dimes. Don't shut your mind off to ideas just because of the author's current financial status.

By the way you don't have to be poor to care about poverty.

Reading the book is all good and well, if Dickerson was just reviewing Edwards as a candidate. The thing is, he's reviewing a campaign commercial. Not everyone who will be viewing the commercial has read Edwards' book -- in fact, I'd be willing to bet most people who see this commercial do not know that Edwards wrote a book. Like Dikerson, most viewers will relate to the ad in terms of what they do know -- just like he pointed out in his article.

"But I know he's done more for poor people than every Republican candidate combined."

Perhaps you didn't catch the implication. Let me spell it out for you: by suing doctors, and making millions off of them, Edwards has done more harm than good.

You might disagree with me. But, many do not, and, the challenge before Edwards is to convince a couple million voters that didn't vote democrat in 2004 that suing doctors was a good thing to do. I doubt that will happen.

Meanwhile, a further note on Orwell. In 1984, society was in a 3-tiered system. If I recall, it was the proles(poor), the outer party(middle class), and the inner party(rich). It struck me that three tiers is a gross oversimplication, even for such a brutal, rigidly class-based regime as depicted in 1984.

After reading 1984, John Edwards talking about two Americas just sounds so incredibly false. It's a gross oversimplification, the kind of thing I'd expect from Bush, or someone even more simple than Bush.

I'd rather vote for Guiliani or Obama. I'll vote third-party before voting for Edwards, at this point, and I've done it before. I'm a swing voter, in a swing state.

Regarding Mrs. Edwards' comment, I can see how the situations she describes were trials for the victims, but how were they trials for Mr. Edwards? He was a lawyer doing his job, building his reputation, making a fortune, laying the groundwork for a political career. It's not as if HE had most of his intestines sucked out and had to live the rest of his life that way. No, he just represented the girl who did. Does that take any particular strength or courage? I'd make the same point about his "Road to One America" tour. He's to be commended for trying to revive what has been a moribund issue, but how does this indicate anything about his character? I suppose he's metaphorically "staring the worst in the face" but raising this issue, but he's certainly not living it himself. He gets to retire to a nice hotel room every evening.

If the fights he has taken on somehow required a meaningful personal sacrifice, Mrs. Edwards' response would make a lot more sense.

I thought Elizabeth Edwards would be bringing up John Edwards' career as a trial attorney in this context.

And that's fine and legitimate. Dickerson should have known the reference to his trial lawyer career his autobiography, but the ad still doesn't seem very clear.

And that is a problem for Edwards.

I was in Prestonsburg, KY yesterday for John Edwards' speech and it wasn't bad.

But it was also not what John Edwards needed.

Edwards spoke on the plight of the working poor and his proposals for addressing issues of poverty were reasonable if overly modest.

But Edwards did not speak at all about those responsible for the enormous class divide in American society. There was nothing about how leveraged buy-out artists, corporate downsizers, health insurance corporations, and pharaceutical companies rake in mega-profits while cutting jobs and making life enormously expensive for the working poor.

Likewise, Edwards barely said a word about the political allies of predatory business. He barely criticized Bush and didn't say anything at all about the collaboration of the Clintons, the DLC, and the rest of the Washington elite in concentrating wealth and cutting off opportunity.

Why the reticence? Why not attack the class system as well as testify to the problems of the poor? Edwards is at 12-13% in the national polls. What's he got to lose?

Right now, I'm supporting Hillary because I see her as a fighter. Too bad I can't say the same for Edwards.

best of wishes to you and your family. Whether or not I agree with your husband's politics, I do hope you and yours are able to withstand the abuse a political campaign inflicts, seemingly without mercy at times.

Mr. Dickerson, you start out with "I think, but I'm not sure". How lame is that! But you go on with your article acting like you know what your talking about.

I'm sure John Edwards doesn't expect us to vote for him out of sympathy for his wife. He is trying to stay the course despite what is happening in his family. It is heartening to see his wife want him to go on despite her illness. He is there for us more than any other politician would ever be.

George Bush didn't want his "vacation" interuped despite the disastter in Louisiana. At least John Edwards puts us above everything despite the tradgedy in his life.

We need a strong decisive President. Will John Edwars be the next one? Only the voters know for sure.

"By the way you don't have to be poor to care about poverty."

Even if that is true(and I'm not sure it is), Edwards has overwhelmingly failed to convince me he cares about poverty.

Madai, I think you're overlooking the fact that most tort lawyers (such as Edwards) only receive (at most) 30% of any given case settlement, the rest going to help out the people whose lives were either lost or destroyed by whatever negligent doctor, faulty machine, etc. Given the amount of work and skill required to win such a high-profile case (example: Edwards had to learn a good deal about internal medicine to competently cross-examine the doctor-expert witnesses in the pool pump case), it's hardly an unwarranted fee. Edwards worked hard throughout his career, was a real wonk when it came to knowing his profession, and doesn't deserve to be penalized for simply being good at what he did--regardless of how you feel about civil lawsuit settlements.

Your analysis of Orwell's 1984 is oversimplified to a fault. The outer party was far from a middle-class. Further, given that the book portrayed a dystopia in which the controlling powers-that-be wouldn't even have conceded the NEED for change, the analogy doesn't carry over to the typical presidential election, in which the powers-that-would-be talk of nothing else BUT the need for change. To quote you, "It's a gross oversimplification."

Further, I'd invite you to actually mount a challenge to Edward's argument that there are two Americas. The middle class is rapidly eroding, the poor of America are becoming poorer, and it's not stretch to find an economist who will tell you an increasing amount of America's wealth is in a decreasing number of hands. He's calling out the elephant in the room, and God bless him for it.

And I write all of this as an Obama supporter...

for gracing us with your presence.

I am by no means a supporter of your husband in this race, but I wholly agree with all of your arguments regarding the fallaciousness of the arguments associated with the ways and means he acquired his wealth and stature, and the positions he assumes today. It's like some of these clowns thin the only way you can legitimastely care about the poor is to follow Mother Teresa'a path. Why aren't they on it, is the question I ask.

IMHO the shallowness and integrity challenged nature of those arguments, is a product of one of the greatest challenges this country faces today--- the continued propagation and belief in the myth of a "liberal" media, that is belied by a simple comparison between the depth and breadth of its coverage, between his haircuts and Romney's "make-up" bill. It has long been clear to me, as it has to many media observers, that this lapdog, "liberal" media, cannot possibly exist, or Bush would no longer be in office--- unless the "liberal" lapdog has no interest in biting the hand that feeds it, which hardly puts them on your side either.

I would also like to extend best wishes to you and your family over the personal issues you currently battle as well.

Oh, Madai, what will it take to convince you that John Edwards cares about poverty? My guess is, there isn't anything that will be able to break through the "trial lawyers are evil" talking point. But, seriously, do you have a hypothetical, because it's hardly worth arguing the point if you don't (other fraysters, what do you want to bet the term "frivolous lawsuits" appears in the first sentence!)

But, more to the point, I'd like to hear why you think someone has to be poor to care about poverty. Heck, since you are fond of pseudo-philosophical discussions, does a person have to be a member of any group to be credible in supporting that group? Is sympathy inherently hypocritical, and only those with empathy need apply?

Or, to put it another way, does the fact that I am marrying a woman (I'm a guy) mean that I am a hypocrite for supporting gay marriage?

Sorry for the tangent, everyone, and thanks for your response, Mrs. Edwards. I gain a greater appreciation for the Edwards campaign every time I hear about you engaging the online activists!

May I strongly suggest you include this story in the ad then? Why is it omitted? Admirable as these stories may be, no one in America knows about them, we just know John Edwards was a trial lawyer, and without any specific information, naturally conclude this "the worst" is either your illness (My sympathies to you as one who has experienced cancer as well as lost a sister to it, both in our teenage years) or your son, because these are the only real "worst" events that the media has deemed fit to inform us of. If this is really the thrust of the advertisment why not mention it?