On the drive in this morning, I flipped past C-SPAN on my XM radio. Brian Lamb was talking to a woman with a Southern accent. The conversation went like this (I paraphrase from memory):

Woman: They’re all just out for money.

Lamb: Who’s out for money?

Woman: Bush and Cheney and the corporations.

Lamb: And what do they plan to do with this money?

Woman: They’re putting in their bank accounts, so when they leave office they can leave the country and go to where we can’t get them back and put them in jail where they belong.

Uh-huh. I wonder what this lady would think of this story:

As a presidential candidate, Democrat John Edwards has regularly attacked subprime lenders, particularly those that have filed foreclosure suits against victims of Hurricane Katrina. But as an investor, Mr. Edwards has ties to lenders foreclosing on Katrina victims.

The Wall Street Journal has identified 34 New Orleans homes whose owners have faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress Investment Group LLC. Mr. Edwards has about $16 million invested in Fortress funds, according to a campaign aide who confirmed a more general Federal Election Commission report. Mr. Edwards worked for Fortress, a publicly held private-equity fund, from late 2005 through 2006.

I don’t much care what Edwards in. I’ve just always been amused that Edwards is somehow the champion of That Half Of The Two Americas Not Consisting Of Evil Greedy People Who Only Have What They Have Because They Stole It From The Other Half.

Betsy’s Page muses:

I still think that there is something suspect about this nothingburger of a job that Edwards had there at Fortress. He earned close to half a million dollars for a 15-month stint working at Fortress to study the relationship of capital and poverty, but seemed to miss the whole involvement of his employer with subprime lending.

Say Anything (a fellow NoDakian) quips:

Nice of him to find his principles ex post facto.

QandO talks about She Who Must Not Be Named:

A bit like attacking Hillary Clinton taking funds from a Rupert Murdoch corporation and then finding out that Edwards had made hundreds of thousands of dollars through the same organization.

At Real Clear Politics, Reid Wilson looks at the strategy of Edwards campaign:

After the 2004 race, Edwards practically made Iowa his second home. Since Edwards lost his bid to become vice president, he has made at least thirty trips to the state, far more than any other candidate. “He’s building on his strength, which is in Iowa, because he poured so much effort into it last time around,” said University of Iowa Professor Cary Covington.

That strategy seems to have thus far paid off. “Iowa’s a state where advertising has played second fiddle to personal contacts and personal connections. Edwards has developed that kind of capital in the state,” Covington said.

Edwards’ fundraising is better this year than it was his first time around. Through the second quarter of 2003, Edwards’ presidential coffers held $8.1 million in reserve. Through the second quarter of this year, his bank account swelled to $13.3 million.

Must be a lot of poor people contributing their two mites to Edwards.