Of course, one can read all sorts of significance into John Edwards' $400 haircuts if one so desires.  For example, comedians have been taking this as an indication of Edwards' vanity.  He can be imagined to have far too much concern about his appearance.  Your critique is a bit deeper.  He has lots of money to throw around, yet he would like to be the spokesman for the proletariat of America.  Still, political campaigns are expensive, and wealth seems to be a necessity for those who seek high political office.  Why criticize Edwards for being part of the wealthy class when every other serious contender for the Presidency is also wealthy?  And some are much wealthier than Edwards.  George W. Bush could legitimately be called a plutocrat, being a man of immense inherited wealth, elected by means of a grotesquely expensive campaign; Edwards is not in the same class.

What other concerns could be raised by a $400 haircut?  Well, it would be nice to have a President who is not inclined to waste money.  It may be that those who spend their own money extravagantly will commit similar extravagances with public funds, when they are in office.

Still, all things considered, Edwards' expensive haircuts do not alarm me.  As political failings go, this one is very minor.

Why criticize Edwards for being part of the wealthy class..?

I don't. I criticize him for being a hypocrite.

George W. Bush could legitimately be called a plutocrat, being a man of immense inherited wealth, elected by means of a grotesquely expensive campaign; Edwards is not in the same class

George Bush doesn't try to portray himself as a champion of the poor while offering naught but increased alms from the government.

Even if Bush has not explicitly presented himself as the champion of the poor, neither does he claim to be the champion of the rich (although, of course, that's what he is).  All Presidents present themselves as champions of America and of all Americans, rich or poor.  That's how politics is done in a democracy.  Poor people collectively have a lot of votes, no Presidential campaign can succeed without them.  And Bush, with his folksy image, might easily seem to some voters to be closer to the common man than Edwards, who is relatively polished.  Bush in some ways reminds me of Ross Perot; tremendously wealthy yet strangely unsophisticated.

And honestly, I don't know that Edwards is truly a hypocrite as you claim (although I can't say for certain that he isn't).  You don't actually have to be poor to care about poverty.  It may be that Edwards, if elected President, really WOULD work on behalf of the poor and make their lives better.  Why not?  There are historical precedents.  Earlier champions of the poor such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were themselves wealthy people.    

All Presidents present themselves as champions of America and of all Americans, rich or poor.  That's how politics is done in a democracy

Not by John Edwards, apparently.

Poor people collectively have a lot of votes, no Presidential campaign can succeed without them

Um, no they don't, and yes they can.

There are ~36 million poor in the US. At least 1/3 of those are under 18 and therefore cannot vote. A further 4 million are non-citizens and also cannot vote. Less than half the remaining poor vote, and half of those are African-Americans, who consistently vote 9:1 for Democrats in the general election and are therefore politically irrelevant.

Edwards is not trying to get the poor vote, he's playing to liberal guilt and pandering to those on the left who still think welfare is the way to make everyone prosperous.

Earlier champions of the poor such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson were themselves wealthy people

Were Roosevelt and Johnson decrying jobs lost to internationalization and the scourge of predatory mortgage lenders while advising a company about their international investments even as that same company was making money from subprime mortgages? No, I think John Edwards is just about as cynical and hypocritical as they come these days. All of a sudden he's concerned about the poor? He spent six years in the US Senate, never once authored a bill, and not one of the 203 bills he co-sponsored mentioned poverty. (One of those 203 mentioned "welfare" but it was an amendment to the Animal Welfare Act that would have made it ilegal to transport birds between states for the purposes of fighting. Yeah.)

My mistake, I should have said that poor people in Venezuela collectively have a lot of votes, and no Venezuelan Presidential campaign can succeed without them.  Sometimes I forget which country I am talking about.

Joking aside, you do make an excellent case for John Edwards' indifference to the poor of America.  I do wonder, though, whether Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama really have anything more to offer to the poor than Edwards does.  I guess that at least they are not claiming to be common people, as Edwards does.

things such as the idea that hunger is widespread in the US (and growing!)

Absolutely, Z...everyone is so darned full in this country that all of those lying chicken liberal

food banks should be shut down.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

That the liberals who believe that there is a growing hunger problem in the US are encouraged in their beliefs by lazy and stupid journalists is unfortunate, but it doesn't make the underlying beliefs any less false. (Extending the comparison to Christian fundamentalists, the fact that creationists are encouraged in their beliefs by ignorant, superstitious preachers doesn't make evolution any less true.) Also, that some people are unable to read an apparently accurate local news story and assume that it is appropriate to extrapolate what is reported as if it were true on a national basis lends no credibility to their arguments.

Actually...kind of a lot of "local" news stories.  You're right though...hunger is just local, and maybe anecdotal.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

"If anyone was offended..."

Maybe it hasn't always meant this but I feel like "If anyone was offended..." gives a wink and not to the vast majority of people who weren't offended in most cases were that apology is required. It's akin to a pc defense mechanism.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

gives a wink and not to the vast majority of people who weren't offended

The trouble is, that's a slap in the face of the people who were offended, as it underscores how little regard the (non-) apologizer has for them. It also presumes the "vast majority" bit, which may not be the case.

Yeah, I couldn't quite how to figure out how to add in there that 99% of the time I hear that used, there's only like 3 people who actually gave a shit in the first place.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

The thing is that western culture strikes me as a bit more brash so the level of circumlocution required to achieve the phrase really makes it stands out

Yes, I suppose there's something to that. In Japan (or China or Korea) circumlocution is seen as good manners whereas in the west, and particularly in the US, bluntness is often a virtue.