Obama aide revealed Edwards' $400 haircuts

The infamous $400 haircuts that undercut John Edwards' presidential message of reducing poverty started with a tip from the campaign of then-candidate Barack Obama.

Reporters don't like to talk about where they get their stories. But Dome isn't giving away a big secret by revealing that during pitched campaign battles, campaigns will feed bad news about the other guy to reporters.

That's how the nation learned that Edwards, running on a platform of reducing the gap between rich and poor, billed his campaign $400 each for two haircuts.

Politico's Ben Smith wrote a brief item on the haircut, which became a big national story and a running joke on late-night TV. Smith's brief began with a tip from Obama's campaign, according to a new book by Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

"We did much less of this [opposition research] than other campaigns did," Plouffe writes, "but there were times we indulged -- it was our researchers who found John Edwards' infamous $400 hair cut expenditures."

Smith confirms it on his blog:

"It's maddening when people assume political reporting is driven by opposition research when you've actually dug up something yourself, but in this case, I'm in no position to contradict Plouffe's account," Smith wrote.

Hagan nixes amendment

In last weekend's House health reform vote, three of North Carolina's conservative Democrats opposed the bill, despite an anti-abortion amendment designed to curry favor among Democrats who oppose abortion rights.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan declined Tuesday to say how she would have voted on the House bill.

"Our bill is going to be quite different from that bill," said Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat. "I would rather support what's coming out of the Senate and see what we can get from a compromise position."

The House Democrats who voted against the bill were Reps. Heath Shuler of Waynesville, Mike McIntyre of Lumberton and Larry Kissell of Biscoe.

Hagan said she does not favor the anti-abortion amendment, which would have restricted health insurance companies' ability to pay for abortions if they compete for federal subsidies. Women seeking coverage would have to purchase their own insurance riders.

Hagan espoused the position that other moderate Democrats have favored, that health reform ought to keep the status quo regulations, which now prohibit federal funding of abortion.

"My preference would be not to change anything from the standpoint of the way we currently handle any sort of federal regulation," Hagan said. "We don't need to make any other changes."

Kissell's enigmatic vote

U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell's vote against health care reform legislation ranked as one of the toughest votes in the House, and also one of the most bizarre, according to Washington Post blogger Chris "The Fix" Cillizza.

Cillizza gamed out the five toughest votes for the bill and the same ranking among the votes against it. Kissell, a freshman from Biscoe, was second in the latter category.

"As for Kissell, his 'no' vote is close to inexplicable given the heavy black population in his district [28 percent]," Cillizza wrote, "and the fact that the president carried it by five points last November."

Kissell represents one of the few truly competitive congressional districts.

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