Edwards' nest is grist for critics

Advocate for poor lives in $6 million mansion

CHAPEL HILL -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who toured the country last fall talking about other people's homes, is now fielding questions about his own $6 million estate outside Chapel Hill.

Edwards had hit the talk show circuit to plug his book "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives," which describes the childhood homes of various more-or-less famous people, including his own modest mill village houses.

But since he announced his second run for the presidency in December, Edwards has been more likely to be asked whether there is any contradiction between his 29,000-square-foot Orange County estate and his pledge to reduce poverty and help the working poor.

The questions underscore how everything about a presidential candidate -- including lifestyle decisions -- becomes fair game in a political campaign.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004, was not available for comment last week. But he told CNN last month that he didn't think the house presented him with an image problem.

"I came from a very different place," he said. "And I have been lucky enough to -- to have everything you could ever have in this country. And I feel a responsibility to help people help themselves. It's for you and the American people to judge whether they think that's real and authentic. I believe it is, but that's not my judgment to make."

It is not unusual for presidential candidates to be men of wealth -- Franklin Roosevelt to John Kerry to George W. Bush. Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, noted that Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is rich, has been a major supporter of raising the minimum wage.

"I think it is a greater testimony to Teddy, Sen. Kennedy, that he has taken on that cause that doesn't have an effect on his life," she said in a telephone interview Friday.

The criticism of John Edwards' wealth is not new. He was attacked during his 2004 presidential campaign for living in a Georgetown mansion at the time he was stressing inequalities of "the two Americas."

But his more intense emphasis on fighting poverty in his current campaign, which was announced from a hurricane-ravaged neighborhood in New Orleans, is likely to invite greater scrutiny.

"It might well cause problems," said Andy Taylor, a political science professor at N.C. State University. "We have a crowded field for the Democratic nomination. Candidates' voting records, things they said on the stump and their lifestyle will be used. There will be Democrats who say, 'You clearly are not practicing what you preach here.' Some may see some inconsistency."

The Edwards house has already become grist for his critics, who have called it a plantation or "Uncle John's Cabin."

Conservative New York Post columnist Ian Bishop wrote that Edwards "is playing to the poorest people in America to propel his presidential bid while living in the lap of luxury on a North Carolina estate that makes the famed Kennedy compound look like a seaside cottage."

Humble beginning

Unlike former President John F. Kennedy, Edwards did not inherit his wealth. His parents started as textile mill workers, and his father eventually became a manager with a middle-class lifestyle. His tiny mill village house in Seneca, S.C., became one of the major images of his 2004 presidential run, and photographs of the house were used in a campaign TV commercial.

Edwards made millions as a Raleigh trial lawyer, and the family has moved into increasingly expensive homes. During the last presidential campaign, Edwards listed assets valued between $19 million and $69 million.