Edwards seeks volunteers to help New Orleans--for a fee

Presidential campaigns are wonderfully creative in terms of seeking to make links with voters -- and obtain their names and e-mail addresses for future fund appeals. Remember how you could help pick Hillary Clinton's official campaign song? Barack Obama's campaign has invited a few donors of small amounts to have dinner with the candidate in Washington. John McCain will send you a copy of his new book for a campaign contribution.

But John Edwards may want to rethink his newest such gimmick. He wants five people to join him next month for a day or two of hard labor helping to rebuild a poor New Orleans neighborhood still struggling with the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina. Proactive community involvement since the government has been so slow at reconstruction.

But it'll cost you. The catch is, in order to do this volunteer work in that neighborhood, you have to pay him something for the privilege.

"Help John rebuild New Orleans with a [campaign] contribution today," says an e-mail sent out this morning by David Bonior, campaign manager. Exactly how paying money to John Edwards will help the troubled New Orleans neighborhood is not explained. But Bonior adds, "By giving between now and the end of the quarter on Sunday, September 30, you -- and four other supporters -- could have the opportunity to work alongside John."

Edwards, of course, has paid particular attention to New Orleans, working in a devastated neighborhood in 2006, announcing his campaign there and visiting several times to call attention "to the continued incompetence of the Bush administration."

"This campaign is about creating big, bold change on the issues that matter -- so we're not offering you gimmicks," the Bonior e-mail continues. "We're not offering you a fancy dinner. And we're not offering you the chance to hobnob with celebrities and former presidents."

Just the chance to buy a chance to sweep and hammer with a former senator.

A smaller line of type just like this at the end of the Edwards e-mail says, "No purchase or contribution necessary to enter."

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Stephen Cassidy]

I wonder if any of the home will be ones the company Edwards worked for last year is foreclosing upon?

The LA Times and other papers should call on Edwards to cash out his $16M from the Fortress hedge fund. The champion of the poor has his family fortune tied to a hedge fund that holds billions in subprime mortgages and is foreclosing on families nationwide. I bet there are some in Southern California.

From South Carolina's leading paper on Sept. 9th:

"From October 2005 through 2006, Edwards worked for Fortress Investment Group, a hedge fund. Its subprime lending subsidiaries, Green Tree Financial and Nationstar, foreclosed on 34 homes owned by victims of Hurricane Katrina, The Wall Street Journal reported in August. In response, Edwards promised to personally provide financial assistance to the New Orleans residents who faced foreclosure or had lost their homes. In South Carolina, Green Tree has foreclosed on or is in the process of foreclosing on at least 132 homes since Edwards first went to work for Fortress. Edwards was paid nearly $500,000 for part-time work for the company, according to The Wall Street Journal."

[Wallace in Chicago]

How about this? I'll pay John Edwards some money and in exchange he gets the opportunity to come over to my house and mow my lawn.

No, wait. I already have a kid who does that ...

[Madison]

I think Edwards needs to think before he just says yes to his hired help.