Imagine if...

4 years, 8 years, it doesn't matter how many years pass. John Edwards is running for office. It's unbelievably close. The only way for someone mounting a campaign against him to be successful is one final blow in the closing week of the campaign. Think of this commercial:

Screen to black with white writing (small, but not illegible) stating "Paid for by Mike the Candidate"

"I'm Mike the Candidate, and I approved this message"

Full black screen.

Full screen shot of John Edwards saying speaking to reports:

"...if you go to the polls in November and elect anyone other than us, and another terrorist attack occurs, then it's your fault..."

Screen freezes, rewinds, and repeats slowed.

Screen freezes, rewinds, and repeats very drawn out.

Voice over: Do you want un-American threats like this from your -insert office-?

Unfair? Definitely. Taken out of context? It is not only taken out of context, but context exists on a different plane for this, but... You could successfully run a smear campaign on John Edwards in the last week of a campaign with that statement. Here's the full text of what he said according to CNN:

Edwards told reporters that "Dick Cheney's scare tactics crossed the line."

"What he said to the American people was that if you go to the polls in November and elect anyone other than us, and another terrorist attack occurs, then it's your fault," Edwards said during a stop in Chillicothe, Ohio.

You'll notice I left out the part about him talking about Dick Cheney, but so would anyone else who would use this tactic. In my opinion, John Edwards just showed that he truly is a freshman Senator. How in the world could he give the Republicans that soundbyte? And it plays perfect as a stand alone sentence. "If you go to the polls in November and elect anyone other than us, and another terrorist attack occurs, then it's your fault!" I caught that much of it on the news last night and had to find the whole quote for myself. It sounded just like he was saying "If you don't vote for John 1 and John 2, you got what you deserve." How could his advisors let him say anything closely resembling that.