Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney


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June 17, 2009

Edwards Speaks

In a 90 minute interview with the Washington Post -- his first extended conversation with a reporter since confirming he had an extramarital affair -- John Edwards refused to talk about his former mistress, her baby's paternity, his wife's memoir, or the investigation in his campaign finance.

However, he did say "that for all the trauma that came of the 2008 campaign, he is not ready to declare that it had been a mistake to run, calling that a 'very complex question.' He believed, he said, that he had pushed Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in a more progressive direction on issues including health care -- Edwards was the first to propose an individual insurance mandate -- and that the value of his having run will be determined partly by what Obama achieves on these fronts."

Said Edwards: "Did it make sense to run and stay in the race? Time will tell."

Edwards "says he has no plans to make a push to restore his name, along the lines of what former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has embarked on... But he did not rule out a return to politics. He said it was too early to say what the future held -- though an Al Gore-style advocacy role was more likely than elected office, given the scandal. He thinks 'every day' about what form his future role in activism or public life could take, but 'right now, a lot of that is unanswerable.'"

Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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