Free Republic

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - When John Edwards pursued his crusade against poverty in 2005, he created a nonprofit center that allowed him to maintain a high profile - and avoid the legal scrutiny of presidential candidates. Not that Edwards was running for the White House at that point. Fresh from his loss as Democratic nominee John Kerry's running mate in 2004, he would not declare himself a candidate for president until late in 2006. However, the nonprofit Center for Promise and Opportunity offered distinct advantages to Edwards, its honorary chairman. The center's five officers all had worked for his previous...

John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff. Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was...