Dome decided to enter the Magic Eight Ball in the Office Pool on the caucuses just now.

We decided to use a rock-paper-scissors process of elimination. We'd start by asking if John Edwards would win the Iowa caucuses.

Its answer: Concentrate and ask again.

We hummed a few bars of "This is Our Country" and asked once more.

Its answer: Concentrate and ask again.

We pictured John and Elizabeth and Emma Claire and Jack and millworkers and Breck shampoo and "John's Room" and Carla Babb and universal health care and UNC-Chapel Hill and hedge funds and the Lower Ninth Ward and ...

Its answer: Cannot predict now.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards earned nearly a half million dollars while working as a part-time adviser for a New York-based hedge fund.

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, reported in a campaign filing today that he earned $479,512 as a senior adviser to Fortress Investment Group LLC last year, Rob Christensen reports.

Edwards also earned $333,334 in royalties from his book on boyhood homes that was published by HarperCollins Publishers. He donated the money to charity.

Edwards reported that he earned $40,000 from his position as director of UNC-Chapel Hill's Center on Poverty Work and Opportunity.

He also reported earning $415,000 in speaking fees, mainly to universities. He typically charged $32,000 to $40,000 per speech.

Presidential candidate John Edwards took some modest swipes at the frontrunners last night.

In the the first debate of the 2008 campaign season, Edwards was asked whether he was criticizing U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton when he said Americans want a leader whose not afraid to admit a mistake. His response:

"I mean, Sen. Clinton and anyone else who voted for this war has to search themselves and decide whether they believe they've voted the right way; if so, they can support their vote," Edwards said. "If they believe they didn't, I think it's important to be straightforward and honest." (McClatchy)

The 90-minute debate at a historically black college in South Carolina was a "surprisingly sedate affair," with Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama trying to stay above the fray, while Edwards tried to politely criticize them. (NYT)

Edwards was also asked about that haircut and his work as a hedge fund consultant. He acknowledged that he lives comfortably:

"If the question is . . . whether I live a privileged and blessed lifestyle now, the answer to that's 'yes,' " he said. "A lot of us do. But it's not where I come from. And I've not forgotten where I come from." (WP)

John Edwards has ties to a hedge fund that raises money for wealthy insiders.

In 2005 and 2006, Edwards was a consultant for the Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based investment firm that works mainly in hedge funds, the Washington Post reports.

Hedge funds typically handle big money accounts for small groups of investors and take bigger risks than retail mutual funds like the one in your 401(k) plan.

The work has attracted attention because Fortress has used offshore tax shelters in the past.

The company, which has more than $30 billion in assets, incorporated its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands to allow partners to avoid or defer paying U.S. taxes. An Edwards spokeswoman said it ended the practice around the time he left the company.

Edwards was criticized during his 1995 Senate run for using a personal tax shelter. He's also criticized them in his campaigns.

On the trail in 2003, he spoke out against "tax-free tax shelters for millionaires that are bigger than most American's paychecks for an entire year."