The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Why I Miss John Edwards

You're so right to point out that we shouldn't feel sorry for "Joe the Plumber's" tax burden—he's about to buy a company and makes more money than most Americans ever will. Tonight's battle for Joe made me think of Swing Vote, the recent movie where the fate of an election hinges on one man: Kevin Costner. It also made me miss, of all people, John Edwards. Sure, he was annoyingly folksy on the campaign trail, but he also regularly made use of an important word that I haven't heard Obama or McCain mention in any of the debates. It begins with P, but it isn't plumber—it's poverty. When Obama and McCain talk about "average Joes," they mean middle-class Joes. At least John Edwards, for all his many sins, realized our problems go deeper, or lower, than the plight of small-business owners.

Wait, *Why* Should I Care About Edwards' Affair??

I am incredibly annoyed that we have to waste any air, print, or pixel time on this. Why do I care about some dude's marriage and marital problems—unless he did something that in any way abuses public power? Comstockery, as I wrote in CJR once upon a time. Celebtainment and domestic voyeurism disguised as politics.

I just don't care what politicians do with their zippers, so long as their policies and votes are in order. By nature, national politicians are people who want power and want to be admired, even adored, to an absurd degree. (Not my fabulous mom, the township trustee and former Beavercreek, Ohio, mayor! But small-town politics—zoning, sewage, 32,000 citizens—is quite different from national politics.) Really, what emotionally healthy person would run for president of the United States? You have to have some ego issues to even imagine it might be possible.

Some large proportion of them will mess around. I. Do. Not. Care.

Was there any abuse of power—sexual harassment, assault, coercion? Did anyone get pinned up against the wall and groped against her or his will? Any abuse of public funds? Any manipulation to get a lover or family member a public job? Any payment to use someone else's body, which I find more and more appalling the more I learn about the sex trade? Then I have the emotional energy to be outraged.

But private dalliances, seductions, and oversize sexual appetites? Eh. Not my problem. Leave the poor family alone.

There Is Hypocrisy and There Is Hypocrisy!

No, I don't mean cancer should be kept under wraps. I just meant that for a prospective first lady, Elizabeth Edwards behaved more like a 24-year-old blogger. (Here's the link, which someone just sent me). I meant this admiringly; I deeply respect people who repeatedly, compulsively overshare, especially in public. And the voters loved it as well. And I have to say, I don't think your son's question is such a hard one. I mean, I'm not sure how much you divulge to a preteen, because I don't have one of those yet. But we are all complicated people. Edwards' concern for poverty seems to me to have nothing to do with his affair. Whereas how priests behave with children entrusted to their care has everything to do with their pastoral fitness. Ditto with Larry Craig, and his anti-gay votes. We can make distinctions here. Having an affair says something about a person—maybe a lot about a person. But it does not devalue their entire public career.