Just to be contrarian -- can I assume that had this not happened, and instead some Republican had brought the people who write Little Green Footballs or the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler onboard, you think that the left shouldn't have brought up their writings?
It is informative to check out who is doing the most crying about this.
More wingnut projection. Nothing to see here.
No one is questioning Edwards' right to hire strongly opinionated bloggers to front his campaign, only his judgement in doing so.
Just as these women have the constitutionally protected right to be offensive, the constituents, whose votes Edwards is courting, have the right to be offended, even by the non-campaign-related writings that these bloggers have offered in the past.
For good or for ill, the people hired by a candidate's campaign represent him to the public. Edwards had to choose between alienating the netroots united behind the bloggers and alienating the large Catholic contingent in his party. It was a dilemma to be sure, and a cautionary tale reminding candidates to thoroughly vet their p.r. workers before hiring.
In the end, it's the voters who decide how a campaign is affected by the past words and behaviors of those associated with it. And we are a fickle, inconsistent bunch.
Well, everyone has the right to feel however they want for any reason at all.
That doesn't make it any less stupid to get bent out of shape about comments that low-level campaign staffers made on their private blogs before the campaign hired them.
If you knew how campaign workers actually live and behave on a day-to-day basis, and you enforced your prudery consistently, you'd just renounce your vote and be done with it. I don't care if you're a Republican, a Democrat, or what. Everyone's like that, including those nice little old ladies who offer to drive you to the polls on e-day. Seriously. I've been working with campaigns since I was 16 and I know how this goes.
Believe me, Amanda and Shakes are tame compared to the folks working in your ward!
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