One Person Who Won't Be Serving In An Edwards Administration

is one of the architects of his sharper populism, Joe Trippi.

Edwards says that anyone who's ever served as a lobbyist for a foreign country or agent would be forbidden from serving as a political appointee in his administration.

Trippi worked for a guy who was paid $200,000 by then Nigerian vice president Atiku Abubakar for help creating a telephone-based get-out-the-vote system in the country's 2006 elections. Trippi was duly registered with the State Department.

(Note: Trippi never lobbied on behalf of a foreign government...)

Incidentally, Trippi tells me he's thinking of working with the Nigerians on a text-messaging campaign to distribute information about HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases... which is a good thing.