Though I like John Edwards, this isn't just about Edwards or your comments about him. He's just an example.

The fact is, we are ruled by wealthy oligarchs. No one else can afford to run for the Senate and certainly not the presidency. The current candidates are mainly wealthy people. At least John Edwards earned his.

I don't understand why you say “negligence lawyer” as if it's a bad thing. I realize that there are some dodgy lawyers, but I've certainly never heard that about Edwards, who seems to have been hard-working as well as successful. I don't understand why saying someone is a lawyer—i.e., someone capable of understanding the law—is meant to be a bad thing.

As for the hedge fund (and I'm sort of hazy about his connection to that, even after rereading what I could find on it).

Show me one candidate without something questionable in his or her background that at some time or another made someone raise their eyebrows, rightly or wrongly. McCain: Keating 5. Clinton: Whitewater. Obama: that businessman in Chicago. I'll leave it there.

iTo get elected, you've got to lie down with the dogs, and you're always going to pick up a few fleas here and there. I don't think any of them is completely clean.

The question is, would John Edwards have tried to make changes that would ultimately have made life better for me and people I know (hard working, but in professions that aren't particularly lucrative)?

I think he would have tried. Maybe he couldn't have succeeded and maybe some of the ideas wouldn't have worked the way they were meant to, but that's true of all the candidates.

But I don't understand why you compare him to a vulture and imply he is more shady than the other candidates. I see you don't like him. I don't like or dislike him from a personal standpoint. He's pretty, but so is Obama. So, for that matter, is Romney.

For that matter, I'll vote for a candidate I DON'T like if I think it will serve my interests. Why should I have to like him/her? I ask myself why more people don't choose the candidate who can do the most for them instead of choosing them based on allegations about their secret beliefs and motivations, the quality of their laugh, or anything else unconnected to their commitment (?)

John Edwards is rich all right. But as someone who isn't I am thankful that there are a few rich people who are sufficiently concerned for the less rich to want to do something for them. Or put it another way: who think it might be a good political angle to offer to represent those people. Better that sort of rich guy than the other sort. And no one who ISN'T rich has a hope in hell of ever getting elected.

I recognize that reasonable people disagree about Edwards. But it's so weird how people (everywhere, including sometimes me) are speculating so much about character? Isn't that how we ended up with W—people liked him? I don't give a damn what these guys think in secret as long as the ones I vote for make a reasonable effort to do what they said….(?)