Everyone is talking about John Edwards, his girl friend, and is her baby his or not. While this does reflect on his ability to lead, and has probably knocked him completely out of the vice presidential race as well as any other office, there is a more important issue and that is the videos his campaign paid his “companion” for and never used.

This story broke back in December of last year when the videos made an appearance on You Tube. Lets face it, if every politician who shall we say was unfaithful to his or her spouse was put out of politics because of it, there will be a lot of empty seats on all levels of government. We expect our elected officials to be paragons of virtue and they are not. While this will affect what we think of them, it is a matter for them to deal with on a family level. That is as long as there was no public money used to pay for the tryst, or to compensate the other party for work not performed or for anything that can look like it.

This is where the videos come into play. Rielle Hunter, the other woman in the story, was paid $100,000 by Edwards’ campaign for four videos that were never used. Of course, in order to make her videos, she had to follow him all over the country, flying with him on his personal plane. I have seen the videos and while I am not a video expert, I sure would not have paid $100,000 for them. They are totally unforgettable. You get to watch him on his plane, showing his own diagram of his plans and see him walking though an air port. You also see him smiling a lot.

People contributed to his campaign figuring the money would be put to good use helping elect someone they truly believed in. Those who did contribute have the right to know why some of their money was spent on videos that turned out to be a big waste of money. If they were top notch, they would have been used and used early on. The fact that they were not, leads us to believe that the people running the Edwards’ campaign did not think them worthy of air time. And in my business experience, and a political campaign is a business, if you do not like the product, then you do not pay for it. That is unless you have another reason for wanting the party in question to have the money. If they make an appearance again, you will be told about them and you can make up your own mind as to whether or not they are worth $100,000.

Popularity: 34% [?]