Obama-Edwards Feud Brewing?

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As we near the Iowa caucuses, Senator Obama and former Senator Edwards have taken a break from bashing Senator Clinton to bash one another just a bit. (Making this scenario a little less likely.)

Obama had this to say about Edwards:

“The reason now that I raise this issue of the special interests is because everybody now in the campaign talks about how I am going to fight for you. Like Sen. Edwards, who is a good guy—he’s been talking a lot about, ‘I am going to fight the lobbyists and the special interests in Washington.’ Well the question you have to ask is: Were you fighting for ’em when you were in the Senate. What did you do?”

I was at Edwards events all day today, so I found an opportunity to get the candidate’s thoughts while at Coe College in Cedar Rapids. Here’s what he said in response to Obama’s comments.

“I spent 20 years fighting these powerful corporations in courtrooms and winning over and over again. In public life, I’ve carried on the same cause. One of the most obvious examples is I co-authored the patients’ bill of rights, one of the biggest pieces of legislation taken on by the Democrats after we took over the United States Senate. I, Senator Kennedy, and Senator McCain were the cosponsors of it. We beat back the insurance companies and the HMOs and got the patients’ bill of rights passed in the United States senate.”

Edwards declined to go negative, as you can see. We’ll see where this goes. I’ll have more on Edwards in the next day or so.

My crude photographic representation of this situation after the jump.

obama_edwards_broken_heart.jpg

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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