2008 US Presidential Election.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Former Sen. John Edwards jabbed gently at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in the first all-candidates forum of the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, saying her refusal to disavow a 2002 vote on Iraq was “between her and her conscience.”

“It’s not for me to judge,” said Edwards, who — like Clinton — voted in 2002 to authorize the invasion of Iraq, but unlike her, has since apologized for his vote.

The event format did not permit Clinton to respond to Edwards’ swipe, which stood out on an afternoon in which Democrats launched serial attacks on President Bush’s war policies.

Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said Thursday he was personally offended by the provocative messages two of his campaign bloggers wrote criticizing the Catholic Church, but he’s not going to fire them.

Edwards issued a statement and answered questions about the fate of Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, two days after the head of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights demanded they be fired for messages they wrote before working on the campaign.

“I talked personally to the two women who were involved. They gave me their word they, under no circumstances, intended to denigrate any church or anybody’s religion and offered their apologies for anything that indicated otherwise. I took them at their word,” Edwards told reporters during a campaign stop in Charleston, S.C.

Yahoo! News

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Two homes, two images, one candidate.

Democrat John Edwards, who has made an anti-poverty message the theme of his 2008 presidential campaign, is taking heat for the lavish home he has constructed in Orange County, N.C.

In December, Edwards chose the modest backyard of a New Orleans woman who had lost her home to Hurricane Katrina as the image that best underscored his campaign theme.

Now voters are seeing another, sharply contrasting image of Edwards: his own home.

Yahoo! News

I haven’t had the chance to truly parse John Edwards’ universal health care plan, (PDF) except to note that its yearly pricetag is less than half the $235 billion “supplemental” that George Bush tacked on to his budget to fund the Iraq war.

The details are less important than the framing of the issue: For less money than we’re currently spending to lose the Iraq war, we could cover every uninsured man, woman and child in America.

We’re waging war in a foreign land without wrecking our economy. Clearly we could provide quality health care for every one of our countrymen and still be prosperous.

RollingStone National Affairs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Monday proposed spending up to $120 billion a year to fix a “dysfunctional” health care system by requiring health insurance for all Americans and helping to make it more affordable.

Edwards said his health care plan, the first offered by a 2008 White House candidate, was designed to force private companies, government and individuals to share responsibility for insurance coverage.

The price tag would be covered by eliminating President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year and by cracking down on unpaid taxes, he said.

Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards called for a tax increase to ensure health care coverage for all as part of a plan that also would require businesses to provide insurance.

The 2004 vice presidential nominee said the tax increase would pay for the plan’s cost of up to $120 billion a year.

“The time has come for a universal health care reform that covers everyone, cuts costs, and provides better care,” said the plan that Edwards posted Monday on his Web site.

Edwards’ plan is the first detailed health care plan to be offered by a Democrat seeking the White House in 2008. Several others are expected to offer competing ideas to help at least some of the 47 million people who are uninsured.

Yahoo! News

HANOVER, N.H.—Contrary to President Bush’s arguments in New York yesterday that the economy is going strong, the administration’s economic policies have been a big failure for millions of Americans, says Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. “They’re not working,” the former senator from North Carolina told U.S. News Edwards, interviewed while he was campaigning yesterday in New Hampshire, admitted that there has been economic growth but said there is also a “fundamental problem. The positive fruits of growth are not being shared by the American people at large.” He said that the benefits of Bush’s policies have mostly gone to “those with capital and a high level of education.” As for those who don’t have those two assets, “you struggle,” Edwards said. His prescription includes reducing the benefits in the tax structure for the wealthy, increasing benefits for the middle class and overhauling the nation’s “dysfunctional” healthcare system, which he said imposes huge costs on everyday Americans. “We want real opportunity for everybody,” Edwards said.

Yahoo! News

‘Last Monday, people began lining up outside of the All Saints Church in Pasadena, California at 1:30 PM to see John Edwards — who wasn’t scheduled to appear until the evening. When the church couldn’t fit all 700 audience members into the same room as Edwards, guests willingly watched telecasts that were set up in two other rooms. “It had the feeling of a campaign event,” Parish Administrator Christina Honchell told me. “There was a feeling of celebration in the air because of the change in Congress.”

‘That evening, Edwards appeared at ease wearing jeans and an open-collared shirt. After speaking briefly about his new book, Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives, Edwards opened the floor for questions, which ranged from the economy to health care to, inevitably, the war in Iraq. The crowd reached a fever pitch when Susan Russell, an All Saints priest, asked what hope there could be for parents who preach peace in wartime but whose children are fighting in Iraq. (Russell’s own son is currently serving in Tikrit.) Edwards’ response was notable. As he has for a while now, he blamed himself explicitly for having voted to authorize the war, and emphasized his proposal to decrease the number of troops significantly and immediately through redeployment, to be followed eventually by a complete withdrawal from the country.’

American Prospect article