The specter of former Sen. John Edwards and his famous "Two Americas" campaign is hanging over the 2016 presidential election, according to David Swerdlick, an assistant editor at The Washington Post.
Swerdlick said Sunday's Post will run an article that reveals everybody who has officially jumped into the 2016 race for the White House seems to be channeling Edwards.
"You're going to see the name John Edwards … [in] the Sunday Outlook section in The Washington Post. This ties into all the 2016 candidates," Swerdlick said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"Jim Tankersley [who covers economic policy for the the Post] is making the case that on one level or another, embedded in the message of all the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle, is this John Edwards message."
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Edwards, a North Carolina Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for president twice, in 2004 and 2008. He highlighted financial inequities among Americans and said the United States was actually "Two Americas."
In a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Edwards said: "The truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas.... One, for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. It doesn't have to be that way...."
"The 'Two Americas point'.... It wasn't a winning message for him, but everybody's trying to go [with it]," Swerdlick told Malzberg.
After his failed presidential bids, Edwards, who was the Democratic nominee in 2004 for vice president, faced campaign corruption charges, but in 2012, a jury acquitted him on one count and failed to reach a verdict on five others.
Edwards was accused of illegally using nearly $1 million in campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, during his 2008 presidential bid — while his own wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was battling terminal cancer.
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