Hillary in a huff
Hillary Clinton is not happy. The selection of John Edwards as the Democratic candidate for the vice-presidency has upset her plans to run for the White House in 2008. If the Kerry-Edwards ticket wins this year, they will naturally run again in 2008. If they fail, then Edwards becomes the party's likely candidate next time around. At the least, it means that Hillary faces a bruising and costly battle in the primaries against a younger and well entrenched heir presumptive. What makes matters rather more personal is that John and Elizabeth Edwards are two lawyers who have formed a strong political partnership, just like the Clintons - and in both cases the real steel in the relationship is to be found on the female side. To say that Hillary and Elizabeth do not get on would be an understatement. By contrast, Kerry's wife Teresa Heinz thinks Elizabeth is "just wonderful." At Kerry's world record ($7.5m) fundraiser with New York celebrities, Teresa gushed that her fellow Mrs Running Mate is "a mother earth figure who has also got a huge brain, only to compete with a very big heart and a sense of humour." Expect to see a lot of Elizabeth Edwards in her native state of Florida, a must-win for the Democrats.
John Edwards's secret weapon
For anyone wondering how Elizabeth Edwards, aged 55, managed to produce two tots aged four and six, the answer is fertility treatment. After the death in a car crash of the Edwards's first son, Wade, at the age of 16, the couple decided to have more children. But we shall all be heartily sick of the Edwards infants by the end of this campaign, particularly the impossibly cute little Jack (aged four). Jack is already weirdly comfortable around the cameras and his soundbites are glutinous. When Kerry rang Edwards in Washington on the morning of 8th July to say that he was the one, the family called Elizabeth, who was home in North Carolina. "Mommy, Senator Kerry picked daddy," said six-year-old Emma Claire. Young Jack then grabbed the phone to say "Mommy, Mommy, I can swim with my head out of the water." The story was told by Kerry, who wrapped up the cute vote by adding for the cameras, "Now, Jack's got his priorities wired, don't he?" Kerry also revealed that Jack had already terrified everyone in the Kerry swimming pool with his skill at cannonball plunges. In return, little Jack revealed that Kerry could make animal-shaped pancakes. The next day, it got worse. "Wanna know what I'm thinking about now?" young Jack asked the assembled hacks when the families gathered at Kerry's Pittsburgh mansion. "I'm thinking about how much I love Oreos," he revealed. (An Oreo is a very American biscuit, with a slice of white cream sandwiched between two chocolate-flavoured rounds. It last made a political appearance in the Black Panther days of the late 1960s, when the old sneer of black radicals against their more moderate elders as "Uncle Toms" gave way to the "Oreos" black on the outside and white within.)
A cautionary tale for Kerry
There's a little twinge of nervousness troubling the Kerry campaign, because of what happened to Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan. He deemed it wise to withdraw from the race after the Chicago Tribune went to court to get Ryan's divorce records unsealed, and found the juicy tale of Ryan taking his ex-wife to a sex club and asking her to perform with him in public. Ryan thought that by sealing the records he'd be safe. But California superior court judge Robert Schnider ruled that the files could be made public because, "The openness of court files must be maintained so that the public can be assured that there is no favouritism shown to the rich and the powerful. Protection from embarrassment cannot be a basis for keeping from the public what is put in public courts." Kerry long ago sealed the records of his own divorce case, but pro-Republican hacks are already scouting for a complaisant judge.
Nader's embarrassing bankrollers
It did not take loyal Republicans long to work out that a very useful place to send their campaign funds was the Ralph Nader campaign. A carefully researched piece in the San Francisco Chronicle has established that one in ten of Nader's major donors (those giving over $1,000) had earlier given money to the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. And guess who is publishing Nader's new book The Good Fight: Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap and financing a ten-state publicity tour for the third party candidate? None other than that fervent Bush supporter, Rupert Murdoch.
Fortress Nantucket
Gordon Brown might find his summer holiday on Cape Cod to be a little fraught this year. His usual host, Democratic campaign strategist Bob Shrum, is preoccupied with the Kerry campaign. And Brown's regular trip to Nantucket island will be tricky. The secret service has brought in the US coastguard to help secure Kerry's $9m beachfront summer home on plush Hulbert Avenue, overlooking the main access channel to Nantucket harbour. So Kerry can forget the votes of wealthy yacht-owners, since the channel will be sealed whenever Kerry is home.
