"The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the
taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe
Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed
Monday.
That amount -- which comes to about $31 a person in the audience --
included Edwards' travel and airfare, and was the highest speaking fee in the
nine appearances he made before colleges and universities last year, according
to his financial records."
This matters because if you are honestly speaking about addressing an issue like poverty why would you charge such a large fee to talk about it. There are two reasons why you would want to offer your services for free, one being that the fee itself could be better used to help the poor. The other is that by asking the college to pay you a fee, the college has to charge for tickets to cover the fee. If you want to address the world on something you care about, why not do it for free. Have a free meeting, where anyone and everyone can attend, and ask for a donation to your cause. The problem in the long run for Edwards is how this is becoming a part of a larger image of him as being disconnected from the people he is talking to, and not really concerned.
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