10th district leaders with Edwards in New Hampshire

At an historic mill in downtown Manchester, former Cleveland County Chair Betsy Wells and former District Chair Judy Gilbert greet their former Senator.

McHenry calls for president to oust Gonzales

At the Gaston County town hall Thursday night, Patrick McHenry called on President George W. Bush to remove Attorney General Alberto Gonzales from office.

According to long-time Democratic leader Betsy Wells, McHenry was asked by a resident what can be done to punish two leaders who disgraced their offices. The man referred to Duke prosecutor Mike Niphong and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. McHenry said that the Niphong case was a state matter. About Gonzales, McHenry said the President should have removed him, that he should not longer be the Attorney General.

Beth Sibley also contributed to a review of the entire meeting which will be posted later today.

questions...questions

CNN will host the next Democratic Presidential Debate on July 23rd. The network is urging viewers to submit video questions via YouTube. A blogger for Slate Magazine is blasting CNN for ruining the best part of the YouTube experience...the freedom of expression. Most YouTube videos gain their popularity by popular vote, but the debate questions will be screened by the CNN producers. The Slate blogger argues that the debate would be better if the videos were taken as a whole and not filtered. Question...would you rather see a debate (like we usually do) where the questions are pretty well known and rehearsed in advance or one where the public can introduce new and different topics (with the fear that the questions will turn into a series of questions about which only 3 people in this country care about the answer)? Is there a better option in the middle?

Title Match

Everybody on TV is talking about the showdown between Elizabeth Edwards and Ann Coulter on MSNBC last night. I think Elizabeth did a great job while showing that you can have class and still participate in the political process. For years, I have been waiting for someone to tell Ann Coulter that what she does is not called for or journalistic. Hopefully, the message will get across this time.

The whole thing got me thinking about the role of political spouses. The Democratic spouses seem to be more and more involved every cycle. This year the big spouse stories have been: Elizabeth Edwards' cancer, Michelle Obama giving up her high-powered job, and of course, the possibility of a first gentleman. The question for me is how much should/does a political spouse affect the voters' decisions?

As an aside, Ann Coulter was in Charlotte just a few months ago for the Southern Evangelical Seminary program. I cannot imagine what she added to the spiritual discussion.

Cross posted at BlueNC.

Editor's note: I changed the post time on this for editorial reasons.

The News that Isn't

So, the big presidential campaign news this week is that John Edwards used his role at in several non-profit anti-poverty agencies to further his political career. Somebody stop the presses, because this is news…Well not exactly.

When the one-term Senator left office in 2005 he was faced with a challenge…what to do with his life. Most people believed from that time that Edwards was going to be a presidential contender in 2008. He needed to do something in those years that would show that he is worthy of being our President. Instead of taking a stint on “Law and Order” Edwards worked to establish issue oriented agencies to take a leadership role in stopping the thing that he believes is the true scourge of our society…POVERTY.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way: John Edwards did travel at the expense of the organization. He has declined to disclose the identity of the donors (most non-profits do this to protect the privacy of the donor, an idea foreign to the world of politics). The NYTimes quotes former IRS sources stating that Edwards did not break any laws. None of the allegations constitute crimes or even abnormal behavior.

Now the positives:

"All of this was an effort to try to deal with the issue of poverty in America, which is the cause of my life," he said. "What I've been doing is not only significant and there's nothing wrong with it, it's something I'm very proud of. Everything we did was not only completely legal but we did a lot of good."

Edwards traveled to 10 college campuses helping to organize “Opportunity Rocks” chapters on those campuses. The chapters were to bring together students who wanted a chance to make a difference in their communities and facilitate those opportunities. The Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation has given away $300,000 in scholarships and on track for $500,000 more. The CPO and Opportunity Rocks also recruited and helped fund trips for college students to help out the STILL Katrina ravaged New Orleans.

A few years ago I applied for a job with a non-profit. During the course of the interview the director explained that they were re-organizing the agency to comply with tax laws. They were previously only a 501(c)3, but they were also adding a 501(c)4 and a 527 so that they could accomplish all of their goals, but were run by the same person. As complicated as the tax code is, it is often true that many organizations must be created to reach one goal.

No one, least of me, would say that John Edwards was not running for President starting from the end of his Vice-Presidential bid. It’s just that, in the meantime, he “walked the walk” and worked to end poverty.

Cross posted at BlueNC.