Is Rielle Hunter forcing John Edwards to claim paternity? [Updated]

Just when it seemed the John Edwards saga couldn't get any more sordid, new revelations come that the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator wants to acknowledge he is the father of a child born to a mistress, but that his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, has "yet to be brought around."

According to the New York Times, Mrs. Edwards, struggling with cancer, has been resisting her husband's instinct that it's time to step up in the case involving Rielle Hunter and her toddler daughter.

Maybe past time, since his once-loyal aide Andrew Young is writing a book and someone leaked the book proposal to the New York Times, with a lot of unsavory details. Among them: The onetime darling of the populist set asked the aide to cover for the senator and claim he was the father of the baby. Oh and the senator promised to marry Hunter as soon as Elizabeth Edwards died -- in a rooftop ceremony, accompanied by the Dave Matthews Band.

If that weren't enough, a federal grand jury is looking into the unique question of whether payments that Hunter got from two Edwards supporters -- Fred Baron, a wealthy Dallas trial lawyer, now deceased, and Bunny Mellon, the 99-year-old heiress to the Mellon fortune -- constitute a crime.

[Updated 2:41 p.m.: The New York Times also reports that Ms. Hunter may soon move to the Wilmington area, where the Edwards family has a secluded island estate.]

Aside from the question of how close this man came to being one heartbeat away from the presidency comes an inquiry about why Edwards' mistress keeps using her 19-month-old daughter like an shield -- even bringing her, as seen above, before a federal grand jury investigating campaign finance laws. We wonder if she is trying to remind the former senator of his affair.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Jim R. Bounds / Associated Press

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Weekly remarks: Sue Myrick on healthcare costs, options; Obama on financial reforms

Weekly remarks by President Obama, as provided by the White House

Leaders of the world’s largest economies will gather next week in Pittsburgh for the second time this year.  The first meeting of the G-20 nations in April came at the height of the global financial crisis – a crisis that required unprecedented international cooperation to jumpstart the world’s economies and help break the downward spiral that enveloped all our nations.

At next week’s summit, we’ll have, in effect, a five-month checkup to review the steps each nation has taken – separately and together – to break the back of this economic crisis. And the good news is that we’ve made real progress since last time we met – here at home and around the world.

In February, we enacted a Recovery Act, providing relief to Americans who need it, preventing layoffs, and putting Americans back to work. We’ve worked to unlock frozen credit markets, spurring lending to Americans looking to buy homes or cars, take out student loans, or finance small businesses. And we’ve challenged other nations to join us not only to spur global demand, but to address the underlying problems that caused such a deep global recession in the first place.

Because of the steps taken by our nation and all nations, we can now say that we have stopped our economic freefall. But we also know that stopping the bleeding isn’t....

John Edwards emerges to not talk about you-know-what and who

Speaking of Republican Sen. John Ensign's just-admitted extramarital affair, another John is back.

Democrat John Edwards of the my-wife's-cancer-was-in-remission-when-I-did-it televised confession has ended his public silence. He says he's not interested in the kind of reputation rehab that other philandering pols try over time. (Think Democrats ex-Pres. Bill Who's-Its and ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.)

Which no doubt is why Edwards suddenly granted an interview to the Washington Post's Alec MacGillis. With, however, just a couple of caveats:

No questions about his mistress Rielle Hunter (background on right).

No questions about her baby and whether he is the father.

No questions about terminally ill wife Elizabeth Edwards' recent memoir that prompted so much public attention and sent the ex-senator off to Central America to do good things out of sight.

And no questions about the federal investigation into whether the Edwards presidential campaign illegally spent political funds on Hunter.

Other than that, fire away.

Edwards claims there are only two reasons for him to be on the planet now: to take care of "the people I love" and to "take care of people who cannot take care of themselves." Edwards says he spends time in their mansion with his wife and two younger children and will return to El Salvador next month to volunteer.

He says he takes pride in pushing both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to talk more about poverty issues and declined to call his presidential race a mistake despite its high-wire counting on the volatile sexual affair not coming out. Unlike many observers, Edwards does not rule out a return to politics, if only as a policy advocate a la Al Gore without the melting glacier slides.

And he dismisses cynicism about his failed campaign. "It was real, 100 percent real," Edwards says. "I want them to be proud of what I stood for, and of what the campaign stood for. The stands were honest and sincere and idealistic. They were what America needed then and needs now." 

MacGillis also talks to others for their views of Edwards and his anti-poverty follow-throughs or lack thereof.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Associated Press (John and Elizabeth Edwards campaigning) (top).

Elizabeth Edwards answers the real questions so many have

We've had our fun here at the Ticket these past couple of years with good old Larry King. (No, he's not really old enough to have interviewed Stonewall Jackson after the Second Battle of Manassas.)

But today we have to hand it to the veteran talker. Yes, yes, it seems like every other night he's interviewing show biz cronies who died long ago. And we don't really care about families that have walked off the set of "Cops" and put on shirts for CNN. But that's King's bookers' fault.

His most recent show had Elizabeth Edwards. Now, this is not her first broadcast appearance pushing her new book, "Resilience." But it was by far her best, thanks to the suspendered one.

In his old overnight radio days, King used to tell guests that he never read their books because he wanted to ask the questions real people would ask. Last night, he seemed to have read at least part of Edwards' book about coping with adversity.

He was curious, wondering, politely pressing. He asked the questions many spectators of her husband's marital betrayal, confession, her illness and now her promotional tour would ask.

Such as, why in the world are you doing this? How are you coping with this and with a terminal illness? Aren't you worried what the children will see/think? Have you forgiven him? Are the children angry? Do you want to meet the other woman?

People watching politics often make judgments about public figures. It is, after all, a whole lot ...

Ticket Replay: A double O moment -- Oprah and Obama at the same inaugural

The Ticket is republishing this weekend some of our favorite items from recent campaign months. This one looking toward the Obama inauguration on Jan. 20 originally appeared in this space on Dec. 5, 2008:

Shortly before the Nov. 4 presidential voting closed, noted Obama-backer Oprah Winfrey announced that she'd already picked out her inaugural ball gown, a sign of overconfidence that she did not have to pay for in the end.

Now that Barack Obama's inauguration is virtually certain (unless the Supreme Court's ponderings lead it to get involved), Oprah has announced she's taking her Chicago talk show to Washington, which is also famous for lotsa talk. (And that'll allow her to write off the gown cost as a business expense.)

She's rented the 2,300-seat Kennedy Center to do two shows there right around Jan. 20.

You may remember Oprah came out early for her fellow Chicagoan. She held a huge celebrity fundraiser for him at her Montecito house.

And she emceed giant primary rallies for him in Iowa and North Carolina, which he won, and New Hampshire, which he lost to Hillary Clinton, the first serious female presidential candidate who many former Oprah fans thought she should support. Winfrey's ratings took a hit.

We don't want to let anything out of the bag and spoil the screaming.

But wouldn't it just be a perfect television moment if, while Oprah is talking to the excited Kennedy Center audience in January at inauguration time, a certain someone who's about to become president and maybe his wife too walked out on the stage behind the show host?

Everyone would cry, except those execs watching the ratings.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Oprah.com

A double O moment: Oprah and Obama together in D.C.

Shortly before the Nov. 4 presidential voting closed, noted Obama-backer Oprah Winfrey announced that she'd already picked out her inaugural ball gown, a sign of overconfidence that she did not have to pay for in the end.

Now that Barack Obama's inauguration is virtually certain (unless the Supreme Court's ponderings lead it to get involved), Oprah has announced she's taking her Chicago talk show to Washington, which is also famous for lotsa talk. (And that'll allow her to write off the gown cost as a business expense.)

She's rented the 2,300-seat Kennedy Center to do two shows there right around Jan. 20.

You may remember Oprah came out early for her fellow Chicagoan. She held a huge celebrity fundraiser for him at her Montecito house.

And she emceed giant primary rallies for him in Iowa and North Carolina, which he won, and New Hampshire, which he lost to Hillary Clinton, the first serious female presidential candidate who many former Oprah fans thought she should support. Winfrey's ratings took a hit.

We don't want to let anything out of the bag and spoil the screaming.

But wouldn't it just be a perfect television moment if, while Oprah is talking to the excited Kennedy Center audience in January, a certain someone who's about to become president and maybe his wife too walked out on the stage behind the show host?

Everyone would cry, except those execs watching the ratings.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Oprah.com

Final Rove electoral map sees large Obama win over McCain

Well, the final day before the official presidential voting and the final version of Karl Rove's exclusive national electoral map sees a strong victory for Barack Obama, gaining the most electoral votes since Bill Clinton's lopsided win over Bob Dole in 1996.

According to the research of compiled state polls by Karl Rove & Co., the hypothetical electoral college numbers suggest an Obama win over the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin of 338 electoral votes to 200.

For the final report, Rove has allocated each state to the candidate leading there in state polls today.

According to these calculations, Obama takes hard-fought Florida. But McCain edges ahead in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and North Carolina.

Rove notes that Obama and McCain are in dead heats in North Carolina and Missouri, but the most recent polls over the weekend show a trend toward the Republican ticket. "Florida, too, could end up in McCain’s column," Rove adds, "since he’s benefited from recent movement in the state." But it's not enough for the Arizona senator to capture the necessary 270.

For an explanation of the research methodology and for a chart showing the study's movements week by week since July 1, click on the Read more line below. The Ticket's appreciation to Rove & Co. for its permission to publish these polls simultaneously throughout the recent hotly contested months.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Lindsey Graham keeps the quips coming as John McCain's sidekick

We watched Lindsey Graham almost a decade ago when, as a House member from South Carolina, he helped prosecute the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton in the Senate. His skills as a lawyer impressed, and we were not surprised when he won his own Senate seat a few years later.

What HAS surprised us is the comedic role he's been playing as he warms up audiences for good friend John McCain on the presidential campaign trail.

Earlier this week, he worked Olympian Michael Phelps into a jest as he sought to assure North Carolinans that their state would remain in the GOP column on Tuesday (and implored them not to let him down).

Today, as he introduced McCain in Ohio, his humor was edgier -- he targeted ACORN, the group that works to empower low-income Americans and has been under fire for turning in fraudulent voter registrations.

The venue for the McCain rally was the lawn of a junior high school and, The Times' Maeve Reston reports, the crowd included lots of school children. Perhaps with that in mind, Graham cracked: “Thanks to ACORN, 13-year-olds are the fastest-growing voting demographic in the country. So turn out. Sign 'em up.”

Both Graham and McCain poked fun at Obama’s program-length, nationally televised ad Wednesday night.

“Anybody see the infomercial last night? Thank God for cable,” Graham said laughing. “If we’d played that at a prison camp it would have violated the Geneva Convention.”

McCain, as he had before the commercial aired, scoffed at as an Obama "address to the nation before the election.” He also spotlighted his rival's remarks in an ABC interview Wednesday night.

“Last night Sen. Obama said if he lost, he would return to the Senate and try again in four years with a second act. That sounds like a great idea to me,” McCain said gleefully. “Let’s help him make it happen.”

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Agence France-Presse/ Getty images

Barack Obama has his own 'Joe the Plumber' riff

Credit John McCain and his message-makers with this -- when they decided two weeks ago to make "Joe the Plumber" the personification of their negative critique of Barack Obama's economic policies, they introduced a rhetorical device with staying power.

McCain rallies, as often as not, now are billed as "Joe the Plumber" events, and attendees oblige with signs offering themselves as variations of the working-class stiff from Ohio.

The plumber himself -- Samuel J. Wurzelbacher -- has hit the trail for the Republican ticket. And Sarah Palin was joined this week by another embodiment of blue-collar America, "Tito the Builder."

But here's the surest sign that the schtick has stuck -- Obama, who takes great personal care in crafting the words he speaks, has incorporated it into his stump speeches.

Here's an alliterative sound bite from his remarks to a crowd in Raleigh, N.C., as passed along by The Times' Michael Finnegan:

Whether you are Suzy the Student, or Nancy the Nurse, or Tina the Teacher or Carl the Construction worker –- if my opponent is elected, you will be worse off four years from now than you are today.

Obama also offered a quotable retort to the McCain's suggestions that his policies veer toward socialism. “By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten,” Obama joked. “I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds was at the ready with a response: “No one cares what Barack Obama does with his toys, but Americans do care that he wants to raise taxes, add a trillion dollars in new spending and redistribute your hard-earned paycheck as he sees fit.”

-- Don Frederick

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Lindsey Graham colorfully predicts a John McCain win in N.C.

We're at that point in the presidential campaign season when the underdog -- that would be John McCain in this race -- and his true-blue allies stress the positive and assure their crowds that all will turn out well.

McCain, for instance, on Tuesday confidently told a crowd in Hershey, Pa. -- where polls persist in showing Barack Obama comfortably ahead -- that he would "fool the pundits" and carry the state next week.

But later in the day, his frequent traveling companion, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, did him one better in the guarantee department.

Graham, as part of helping warm up an audience for McCain in Fayetteville, N.C., promised his listeners that although polls have shown a deadlock in the traditionally Republican state, McCain would win it.

“He fits North Carolina like a glove,” Graham said. “I’ll beat [Olympic gold medalist] Michael Phelps in swimming before Barack Obama wins North Carolina."

Graham added: "Don’t let me down, because I can’t swim.”

-- Don Frederick