"If we can do the work that we can do in this country – the work we will do when John Kerry is president – people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
John Edwards, October 10, 2004, campaign event in Iowa''
"I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing. And there are millions of parents like that who love their children, who want their children to be happy."
John Edwards, Vice Presidential debate
"If you want someone who voted for tax hikes 98 times, send in John Kerry. If you think trial lawyers need more money, our economy needs more law suits, and malpractice costs should go even higher, then send in John Edwards with him."
The Edwards family now live in a 28,200 square feet mansion on a secluded 102 acre estate in rural/suburban Orange County, in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill metro area, in North Carolina. The mansion is the county's largest and includes an indoor basketball court, a squash court, two stages, an indoor swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated "John's Lounge." 1 The home is worth about a million dollars more than any other home in the county according to tax records.
Before entering politics, Edwards was a personal injury trial attorney. He specialized in corporate negligence and medical malpractice claims.
Edwards was criticized for paying himself mostly through subchapter S corporate dividends, rather than a salary, to take advantage of a tax-law loophole that allowed him to avoid paying $591,000 in Medicare taxes.
In 1985, Edwards obtained a $5.75 million settlement in a cerebral palsy case for medical malpractice during childbirth, representing Jennifer Campbell, a five-year-old cerebral palsy patient. This established the North Carolina precedent of physician and hospital liability for failing to determine if the patient understood risks of a particular procedure.5 During the trial, it has been argued that Edwards relied more on his verbal skills as a trial lawyer than on actual science. While delivering his summary, Edwards said that "I have to tell you right now – I didn't plan to talk about this – right now I feel her Jennifer, I feel her presence...Jennifer's inside me and she's talking to you."
During President Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial in the Senate, Edwards was responsible for the deposition of witnesses Monica Lewinsky and fellow Democrat Vernon Jordan.
In November 2000, People magazine named Edwards as its choice for the "sexiest politician alive."
Edwards largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004 debate in New York, where he attempted to put Kerry on the defensive by characterizing the front-runner as a "Washington insider" and by mocking Kerry's plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.
John Edwards Feeling Pretty
On January 30, 2007 Edwards hired Amanda Marcotte, who also runs the liberal daily weblog Pandagon, to be the new “Blogmaster” on Edwards’ presidential weblog .49 However, on February 7, Salon.com reported that Marcotte and blogger Melissa McEwan had both been fired from the campaign due to pressure from William Donohue of the Catholic League.
On Feb. 5, 2007, Edwards unveiled his plan for universal health care, which would require higher taxes and cost up to $120 billion per year.
"The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons."
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