THE NATION: If the story is true, John Edwards is finished as a contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. The story is the National Enquirer cover piece — which will go on the racks at the supermarkets and drug stores of Iowa, New Hampshire and the other 48 states Wednesday morning — that claims the former senator from North Carolina is the father of a soon-to-be-born “love child.”
The article claims Edwards, who has long burnished an image as the consummate family man and whose wife Elizabeth is a key player in his campaign, had an 18-month affair with female staffer who traveled with the candidate during the current campaign. According to the Enquirer, which is indeed a supermarket tabloid but which has at least some history of breaking sordid political stories that turn out to have credibility, the staffer is now six-months pregnant and hiding from the media.Edwards and the staffer are reportedly denying the story. The Enquirer claims to have confirmations from friends of the woman who say she shared the details of the affair and the pregnancy with them. The weekly newspaper also claims to have emails that were purportedly sent by the woman and that appear to confirm an affair. MORE
NATIONAL ENQUIRER: The ENQUIRER has now confirmed not only that Rielle is expecting, but that she’s gone into hiding with the help of a former aide to Edwards. The visibly pregnant blonde has relocated from the New York area to Chapel Hill, N.C., where she is living in an upscale gated community near political operative Andrew Young, who’s been extremely close to Edwards for years and was a key official in his presidential campaign. And in a bizarre twist, Young — a 41-year-old married man with young children — now claims HE is the father of Rielle’s baby! But others are skeptical, wondering if Young’s paternity claim is a cover-up to protect Edwards.
ONLINE GAMING NEWS: Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards is listed with odds on winning the party nomination at 8/1 at the online sportsbook Bodog Sports. At this time remains questionable if the love child scandal will cut the odds. The last time the National Enquirer accused Edwards of having an affair there was no movement in the political betting odds reflecting the story.
FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:
A Word on John Edwards
The jumble of words pictured above is called a tag cloud. The words are the ones that respondents to a national survey most frequently used to describe the candidates. This cloud features respondents’ associations with former North Carolina senator John Edwards. It includes the top forty words mentioned, each of which was cited by 8 or more people. The size of each word represents the number of people who said it. So in this instance, the biggest word, “good,” represents 49 people, the next largest, “liberal,” represents 38, etc. More than 550 words were mentioned for Edwards by 56 percent of adults (34 percent expressed no opinion, 9 percent had never heard of him and 1 percent refused). MORE