Full disclosure…

I am sitting in an airport in Houston. I see a lot of people are wondering who is paying for the trip. I wasn’t supposed to announce what I was doing until I got to New Orleans, but since news schedules have been moved up (John Edwards announced he’s running for President today) I’m sure the campaign won’t mind.

PodTech will pick up my travel expenses to and from, and my hotel and meal expenses. At least that’s the current plan. If that changes, I will let you know. Again, if I sell my soul, I’ll do it in full public view so you know all my biases and conflicts of interest.

I am covering this trip as a journalist for ScobleShow.com. I am not being paid or compensated by the Edwards’ campaign. They are paying for a plane to fly us around, though, and I’m not sure if that’s something that PodTech can compensate for, so let’s just say that’s being covered by the Edwards’ campaign.

More to come tomorrow after I get in, figure out what’s up, and all that.

Are there any restrictions as to what I can write or shoot? Not that I know of. None have been communicated yet.

Why me? I don’t yet know that. Other than Edwards was at Gnomedex and Ryan Montoya, one of his campaign guys, was on a panel discussion there with me, and then later Maryam and me met (and presented to) Elizabeth Edwards, John’s wife.

I have no idea what I’m going to be doing there. The first emails were basically “would you like to come along while John Edwards announces he’s running for President?”

Oh, and Maryam is working hard to keep my ego down. I’ll forever be known as “Maryam’s husband” now.

And I agree with Dave Winer that Edwards should go attend to matters of state. I’ll be very disappointed if Edwards decides to announce some other day (this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for me), but I’ll understand. UPDATE: he already announced, a day early, Google News reports, due to a slipup where his campaign staff accidentally opened up the Web site a day early.

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