So last night I posted a poll about the breaking news regarding John Edwards. You can view the results for yourself here.
Follow me over the fold for a brief summary of the results and an explanation as to why this story needed to break now.
So a basic summary of the results.
About 575 people participated. About 40% overall said that this issue DID NOT MATTER. But 60% said it did matter, with the largest % saying that they thought it posed a potential danger to the party's chances.
Again, go to the link above for more detailed results.
But now an explanation about why this story had to break at this point in time.
It is August. And one of the Golden Rules in national politics is don't do anything stupid in August or late December because there usually nothing else to report about at these times except for missing white women/school girls. Or politicins who get themselves in trouble.
A few quick examples off the top of my head: Oakland School board and Ebonics vote; and Trent Lott. Both stories caught fire largely b/c there was nothing else to report about at that time.
But I digress. This story was going to break at some point, and you can bet your sweet bippy that the GOP was just rubbing their greasy friggin hands together waiting to spring this on us. Probably the night before Obama's speach. Or maybe, the day of his VP announcement.
As much as I agree with the thousands of people on this website who absolutely hate the fact that we are talking about this story at all - the truth is that the Dems had to make sure that it happened under our terms.
- It had to happen now so that the story can play itself out before the convention.
- Hopefully this story gets quickly lost in all of those media prefab bios about olympiads with tragic/triumphant stories. Let's face it, the American media just loves to manufacture heroes during the Olympics - and it is likely that this story will get drowned out quickly by the next "Mary Lou Retton" or Phelps' quest to win 8 golds, etc.,
- One possible benefit for Dems is that this question may now come up later at one of the debates - setting Barack up to say 'no' and McCain to straight fuckin lie to the American people again.
Let me finish by restating that I could care less about this issue. I don't give a rats you know what about cheating spouses. It happens to most people, never mind most politicians. And it should be left as a personal matter between husbands and wives, partners, etc.,
But it does matter as far as the GOP is concerned though - because of their incessant instance about "Family Values" that makes this a fair question for them and justifies the scrutiny. If you are going to pretend that "Family Values" are #1, then you better be squeeky cleen.