Let the Games Begin

Found this story on Drudge:

Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat and 2004 presidential hopeful, is four months delinquent in paying the property taxes on his Georgetown mansion and owes the cash-strapped District more than $11,000, city records show.

Mr. Edwards is worth somewhere between $12 million and $30 million after a successful career as a personal injury lawyer, according to his financial disclosure forms. He bought the eight-bedroom, 6,672-square-foot home in the tony neighborhood for $3.8 million in September.

In February, the city sent Mr. Edwards a tax bill for $9,562.46, which he was supposed to have paid by March 31, according to tax records. As of 3:30 p.m. yesterday, Mr. Edwards owed $11,092.46 with interest and penalties, according to the city’s tax collection office.

As I said before, for political junkies, all the fun the next year or so will be on the Democratic side. This kind of story is exactly what we live for.

Really, how does Edwards recover from something like this? His primary-race poll numbers are nothing great, and he’s already seen as something of a “Clinton Lite.” This ain’t no Whitewater, but that’s what makes the story even more deadly.

Whitewater was just too damn complicated for most people to understand. Hell, I could never wrap my brain around it, and I love that sort of thing. Here, however, is a story every single homeowner can understand.

If you or I don’t pay our property taxes, we eventually lose our homes. In the unlikely event that we don’t pay, we usually have a pretty damn good reason — unemployment, death, or something else catastrophic. Edwards is a guy worth at least 12 million bucks, and he can’t remember to write a check for ten grand?

Not only is that easy to grasp, it’s even easier to form an opinion. And the opinion most people will form is: Why that cheap bastard! And he’s a lawyer, too.

I’ll say it now — Edwards is toast.