Helping Others By Helping Himself?
By Ed Morrissey on 2008
Captain's Quarters
It looks like John Edwards believes that charity begins at home after all, even when home is a 28,000-square-foot mansion. Edwards' Two Americas rhetoric has given him a reputation as a voice for the poor, but the New York Times reports that his non-profit for fighting poverty mostly benefitted the vote-poor John Edwards:
<<< John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.
Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.
A spokesman for Mr. Edwards defended the center yesterday as a legitimate tool against poverty.
The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.
While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations. >>>
First, it seems significant that the New York Times broke this story. Given their proximity to Hillary Clinton, one cannot help but wonder about the provenance for this article.
Regardless, it's a good piece of reporting by Leslie Wayne. Edwards used the poor as a Trojan horse to rake in an untold amount of money away from the prying eyes of the FEC. Instead of spening it on those he champions from the stump, he spent it on foreign-policy retreats. That has the obvious intention of bolstering his gravitas for another presidential run -- and doing so in a sneaky, underhanded manner.
Not only did he do that, but he also used the organization to keep his political team together between elections. The Center for Promise and Opportunity apparently employed a number of Edwards' campaign staffers in the time since his last run for the presidency. That allows him to make sure they remain available for this campaign, using his front organization to pay their salaries while not having to report the expenses as part of his campaign.
Too bad the BCRA didn't address this kind of abuse of electoral processes.
UPDATE: Some readers didn't pick up the irony of that last sentence, thinking somehow that I had forgotten when Edwards' tactic got used in the past. I have not forgotten that John McCain did much the same thing in sheltering his campaigners at the Reform Institute. I wrote about that in March 2005, noting the hypocrisy inherent in using a campaign-finance organization to keep campaign staffers on the payroll. The Reform Institute played a major part in getting the BCRA passed.
This seems a little more egregious, though. Edwards formed the non-profit ostensibly to help the poverty-stricken Americans on whose backs he campaigns for President. Instead of assisting them, he's exploiting them as a campaign funds dodge.
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