During my days at DailyKos, I opposed John Edwards candidacy because there were two better candidates (one of whom was elected President), but also because Edwards DailyKos-supported candidacy would have perpetuated what was then a 43-term white male monopoly of the Democratic Party nomination and of the US Presidency.

This didn't go over well at the 96% white DailyKos.  (See Quantcast DailyKos demographic data in right sidebar.)  I attacked Edwards from every conceivable (to me) angle and many other DailyKos participants resented that.  How could I insist, day after day, that the next US President ought not necessarily be a white man, when everyone knew that ALL US presidents had been white men?

As we all know now, the Democrats would certainly have lost the election in 2008 had John Edwards been nominated, as a plurality at DailyKos preferred.  John Edwards, it turned out, was a selfish, shameless philanderer, while his wife was an knowingly enabling, manipulative and exceedingly ambitious woman, who hid all she knew about John's clear unfitness for the nomination.

Today, CNN reports that:

Edwards is charged with six felony and misdemeanor counts related to donations to and payments from his failed 2008 presidential campaign. He is accused of conspiracy, issuing false statements and violating campaign contribution laws. He denies any wrongdoing.

Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer in December 2010. The couple had separated that year, shortly after Edwards admitted that he had fathered a daughter with Rielle Hunter, who was hired to make documentary videos for his campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Had either or both of John and Elizabeth Edwards succeeded in their nomination ambitions, they would have destroyed the Democratic Party's hopes for regaining the presidency, because lying John Edwards' General Election campaign would have been embarrassingly over before it could begin in earnest.  So, I now hold John Edwards in very low esteem.

When John Edwards is in Federal prison, mumbling to Elizabeth Edwards, who earned her place in Hell, then both of them will have gotten their due for the harm they knowingly and intentionally tried to do to the Democratic Party, simply for their own personal gain.  It is no longer possible to assert that Edwards wanted to help the poor or anyone else through his candidacy, because the only way he could have helped would have been to get out of the race, given what would soon become known about him.

I am proud to be able to write this at at Truth About Kos blog, which provides the truth about the DailyKos community, it's owner, and its (right-wing, CIA-driven?) politics.