Let the finger-wagging begin!

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/CNN_special_investigates_McCains_greatest_moral_0820.html

Ya know..I just couldn't vote for a guy who would cheat on his wife.

"McCain also wrote in his memoir that he had separated from Carol before he started dating Cindy. However, notes King, "his own divorce filing shows they dated for nine months while he was still living with Carol, and records show he applied for a marriage license in Arizona before his divorce was final."

So, those here who criticized Edwards: where are you now?

No one has been harsher on himself than McCain. John Edwards is only repentant because he got caught. Where were you when Slick Willie left a spot on an intern's blue dress, SFC?

Craig,

Adultery is adultery, granted, just as sin is sin. It's certainly true that everyone sins everyday, whether it is by bad things that we have done or good things that we have failed to do (hence our need for Jesus Christ to be our Savior, to stand in our place before God).

I see much more of that awareness from how McCain has handled his moral failure than from how Edwards has his. john says he has beaten himself up (so the press need not take the trouble). I find that an incredible claim to make given accusations of "tabloid trash" and running for President undaunted.

But on the subject of Edwards, Obama, McCain, Clinton, Sheik all being sinners and all in need of forgiveness, that is quite correct (although Sheik and perhaps Obama have never cheated on our wives).

SheikBen wrote:Craig,

Adultery is adultery, granted, just as sin is sin. It's certainly true that everyone sins everyday, whether it is by bad things that we have done or good things that we have failed to do (hence our need for Jesus Christ to be our Savior, to stand in our place before God).

I see much more of that awareness from how McCain has handled his moral failure than from how Edwards has his. john says he has beaten himself up (so the press need not take the trouble). I find that an incredible claim to make given accusations of "tabloid trash" and running for President undaunted.

But on the subject of Edwards, Obama, McCain, Clinton, Sheik all being sinners and all in need of forgiveness, that is quite correct (although Sheik and perhaps Obama have never cheated on our wives).

That's a good point. Craig, what will you say if an Obama adulterous affair surfaces? (Some men's sins go before--some men's follow after.)

I was being sarcastic. I said that it was between Edwards and his wife, and I believe this issue was between Mac and his current and ex-wife.

I do seem to recall some among us (Mike, maybe?), saying it indicates some sort of character flaw.

Which it does, but I don't expect them to be better than us.

John Edwards was cheating on his dying wife and then lied, as did she, to the nation time after time when ask about this while running for President of the United States. Had this been known before Iowa, it is more then safe to say that those results as well as those of the entire democratic nomination process would have been different.

But yeah, I can see your point. John McCain did EXACTLY the same thing.

Interesting opinion. What do you say about:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons

had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

Did he deceive the voters of a national election and alter the outcome of a Presidential primary with his outright lies and intentional deceit?

Aaron wrote:Did he deceive the voters of a national election and alter the outcome of a Presidential primary with his outright lies and intentional deceit?

Excellent point. He didn't alter anything, exactly. Remember that Clinton's poll numbers went up post-infidelity so who knows what effect this would have.

Those who should be angry with Edwards are the Democrats. He let his selfishness and ambition risk our chances at a victory in November.

(Technically it's not even a National Election. It is Party procedure. Also, neither party has a candidate even yet. They are chosen at the NOMINATING Convention)

If he comes clean before Iowa, when this first surfaced, he doesn't even make it to the second round in most caucus's and no way he comes in second. As his core supporters were closely tied to Hillary's, she would have received the vast majority of those who cast enough votes to give him second in the election and she would have won. But even if Obama had still won, she certainly wouldn't have been tagged with a third place vote, which was clearly devastating to her.

Of course if you think otherwise, we're building 4 and 5 BR condo's with ocean front and side views just east and south of Tucson, all at a steal. Interested?

Wow. His 8 point lead would have evaporated?

End Result
Obama 36
Edwards 3
Clinton 16


Seems like the Edwards vote was as much an anti-Hillary vote as anything. Especially since Edwards never stopped campaigning there; he should have won but Iowa did not prefer him. Therefore, you may be overestimating his appeal.

Your numbers are wrong.

The actual results are as follows.
Obama 38%
Edwards 30%
Clinton 29%

If Edwards support splits 2-1 in favor of Hillary (likely considering labor backed both over Obama) she wins by a landslide.

Nice try though.

The numbers are correct. 8 point lead by Obama, final delegate count in Iowa were what I listed:

http://abcnews.go.com/politics/elections/state?state=ia

Clinton lost by 9 from Obama. Even giving most of them to Clinton (which there would be no basis for: remember that Clinton was the "inevitable"), Obama still wins.

Edwards got the over $100K vote v. Clinton

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#IADEM

Clinton got the $15k-30k vote.

Edwards got the "Conservative" vote, but Obama and Clinton received almost the same.

You listed a final delegate count after everyone but Clinton, including Edwards dropped out. Edwards released his delegates to Obama because he didn't want Hillary to win. When the Iowa caucuses were over, the delegate count was 16 for Obama, 15 for Edwards and 14 Clinton.

My contention is that had Edwards and his wife come clean BEFORE he ever campaigned in Iowa, Hillary would have received at least 2/3rd's of his votes as they shared similar support, she would have won Iowa handily and the election would have been much different.

You can throw up all the delegate counts you want but it still doesn't change who supported who and where that support would have went.

You know, Craig, I wanted to sleep on this before I responded. I wanted to give it a chance to swirl around my brain a bit to see if my thoughts changed. You know, sometimes that happens. I'll mull something over and feel differently about it after a bit.

Not so here.

First of all, I think I have made it quite clear to everyone I do not want John McCain to be our next president. I don't want Obama either.

John McCain divorced one woman and married another. The ink wasn't dry on his divorce? So what. I filed for divorce from my exhusband and began dating Loyd 3 months later. We were still living in the same house because the judge handling our divorce refused to order one of us to leave. I was granted custody of our children and I wasn't about to move them from the only home they knew so their father could have the place to himself. He wouldn't move out because he thought if he did I would be more likely to get the house in the divorce settlement.

I didn't remarry immediately, although Loyd wanted to. We did begin living together 11 weeks after my divorce was granted, but 2 weeks before it was actually final. I never once felt I was being unfaithful. My marriage was over. I didn't just think it was over, I didn't just talk about it being over, I filed for divorce.

I went to court a few times and finally just gave my ex what he wanted, our house. He didn't want the kids, refused to take the dog, all he wanted was that house. After 9 months of back and forth and trying to negotiate a settlement, during which time I fell in love with somebody else, all I wanted was for it to be over with.

I don't know the details of their divorce. I don't know how long he may have stayed with her just for the sake of their children, or out of some sense of duty or obligation. I don't know and I don't particularly care, but it does appear he was very forthright about what he was doing when he was doing it. I don't know if he left his first wife for his second wife and I really don't think it matters. He didn't deceive either of them.

John Edwards is an entirely different story. He didn't leave his wife. He cheated on her. Elizabeth Edwards stood by his side through good times and bad. Together they endured the loss of a child. Together they campaigned for the White House. She gets cancer so he gets a mistress? He's a pig and I feel bad for Elizabeth Edwards and worse for her young children who, inevitably, will be raised by that pig.

Personally, I would prefer not to discuss her heartbreak and public humiliation any more. I believe Elizabeth Edwards and her children are entitled to a bit of privacy. That thing she is married to isn't in the race any more so there is really no reason to keep rehashing her tragedy, imho.