John Edwards: "You'll Never See Me On The Cover Of Fortune, Just The NYT Magazine's 'Money' Issue And Men's Vogue"

John Edwards said something perplexing last night during the AFL-CIO debate, wherein the Democratic candidates strove to prove their labor bona fides. Edwards, not an unwealthy guy, took it a step further, and said this: "You will never see a picture of me on the front of Fortune magazine saying 'I am the candidate that big corporate America is betting on''" — a not-so-subtle swipe at Hillary Clinton who recently appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine with the headline "Business Loves Hillary!" Edwards apparently wanted to distance himself from big business interests, and in the same breath define Hillary by the magazine on which she appeared — perhaps not the most strategic move for someone who recently appeared on the cover of Men's Vogue, a magazine described at launch by its editor as appealing to men with an interest in, inter alia, "high-end art framers, Swiss bank accounts, a $1.5 million wristwatch and English hunting," and whose readership has a median household income of $182,548. Not exactly playing to the proletariat.

Edwards, too, appeared on the cover of the New York Times magazine's 'Money' issue — though this was specifically regarding his poverty platform and closing the income gap. Still, this is the closest the Fortune article got to describing Hillary's policy regarding labor:

Deriding the country's "highest concentration of wealth ... since 1929," she declared,"Let's start holding corporate America responsible, make them pay their fair share again. Enough with the corporate welfare! Enough with the golden parachutes! And enough with the tax incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas. We have to make sure there is not a single benefit they would get for doing that."

This was an address to a group of "grass-roots activists," true; elsewhere in the article she invoked "balance" and "shared prosperity" and was described by a supporter as making "tradeoffs...for a pragmatic policy." Still, it is the same kind of nuance that is evidenced by Edwards' appearance in a suit on the cover of a green-hued Money issue...talking about poverty. Or the same kind of nuance that might be lost by referring to the Men's Vogue coverboy as "John Edwards, the candidate most likely to help sell you a Rolex." We're just sayin'.

Related:
Edwards Slams Hillary For 'Fortune' Cover, But Spoke At 'Fortune Global Forum' In 2002 [HuffPo]