Presidential politics is outside the usual scope of this blog, but Democratic candidate John Edwards is a lawyer and was so underwhelming as the 2004 Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate that he became a fairly regular topic with his frequent gaffes. Well, along those lines, in this article in this week’s Time magazine, former Kerry campaign advisor Bob Shrum new book is previewed and here’s some of what Shrum has to say about Kerry’s first meeting with John Edwards when he was considering him as the VP candidate:

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone elseóthat after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two beforeóand with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling . . . [. . .]
Kerry also wanted a specific reassurance. He asked Edwards for a commitment that if he was chosen and the ticket lost, Edwards wouldn’t run against him in 2008. Edwards agreed “absolutely,” as Kerry recalled him saying. If Kerry had shared this at the time, I would have told him what I did later: it was naive to think he could rely on a promise like that.

Shrum also alleges that Edwards told him that wanted to vote against the Iraq War, but didn’t do so because he thought it would hurt his career.
Now, Shrum has not been the most successful political advisor, so perhaps these allegations should be taken with a grain of salt as the sour grapes of a bitter man with an ax to grind. But much of it sure seems consistent with what was revealed about Edwards during the 2004 campaign. Given his lackluster performance during the 2004 campaign, and now with a former prominent Democratic Party advisor throwing him under the campaign bus, how does Edwards remain a serious political candidate?
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in this development.