John Edwards has an example to teach University of California at Davis students how to avoid poverty — charge $55,000 for a speech. That's how much the 2008 Democratic presidential candidate negotiated for his fee to speak to 1,787 people at the taxpayer-funded school in January 2006, according to financial disclosures. According to Joe Martin, the public relations officer for UC Davis' Mondavi Center, the fee for a speech entitled, "Poverty, the Great Moral issue Facing America," was worth it to school officials. Martin told The San Francisco Chronicle that the center paid Edwards because at the time "he wasn't a (presidential) candidate and from our point of view, he was a speaker of interest that people in the community were clearly interested in ... we feel it's our mission to present those speakers." Click here to read The San Francisco Chronicle report on Edwards' speaking fees. The speaking fee, which amounts to about $31 per audience member, was the highest Edwards earned in nine appearances last year at colleges and universities. In all, he earned $285,000 for the nine speeches. (Story continues below)

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
- Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate
1940, 1944 and 1948