by Andrew Young
It was about two o’clock when we got to the hotel. We went upstairs together, and as we split to go to our rooms we exchanged a victorious high five, like a couple of UNC ballplayers celebrating a three-pointer. The next day, the national press was reporting that John Kerry had conducted a secret meeting with the person leading the contest to join the ticket. Several commentators noted that since John Edwards was at Walt Disney World with his family, he was almost certainly out of the running. But one source, ABC’s The Note, offered a hint by posting the mileage from Washington, D.C., to Disney World. I never figured out how they knew and why they didn’t follow up on it.
Several days passed while Kerry made his final pick. The Youngs and the Edwardses went home to North Carolina, and at both houses the phones rang continuously. For four days, I couldn’t say anything as friends, colleagues, neighbors, and members of the press called to ask questions and share rumors, the most persistent being the idea that the only one on the Kerry team opposed to Edwards was Teresa Heinz Kerry. Gradually, her resistance was overcome (or set aside), and by the Fourth of July, Edwards seemed to be in the lead, according to everyone we spoke to.
On that day, I accompanied c I the senator on his annual “Beach Walk,” which was really just a stroll along the ocean with stops to talk to voters and their families. In private moments, we discussed where we might hold the first Kerry-Edwards rally in North Carolina and decided we could get the biggest crowd in Raleigh. Robbins was now way too small.
Two days later, in the early morning hours, deliverymen working from trucks that stopped at newsstands throughout the New York region hurled onto the sidewalk bound stacks of the day’s New York Post. On the cover was a big photo of Dick Gephardt and John Kerry below the headline KERRY’S CHOICE.
In Raleigh, my phone rang at about six A.M. A friend whose father was a bigwig in the national Republican Party practically shouted into the phone, “Congratulations!” He then explained that his father had received word that Edwards was on the ticket. The source was completely reliable, he said, and the New York Post was as wrong as the Chicago Daily Tribune had been with its DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN screamer in 1948. The Republicans must have had a very good line into the Kerry operation, because I called Senator Edwards immediately and heard that he was still waiting to hear the news.
I got off the phone with the senator in order to keep his line open and practically shook with anticipation. Although the senator was the focus of the decision, and no one outside my immediate circle even knew I would be affected, I felt as though the rest of my life depended on what John Kerry was thinking. Desperate for information, I called Fred Whitfield, a friend of mine who just happened to be Dick Gephardt’s neighbor in Washington. (A close friend of Michael Jordan’s, Whitfield was then an executive with the Washington Wizards basketball team.) Whitfield said that Gephardt was in town and some media folks were camped out by his door. But the mood in this crowd was not positive. This suggested that the Post was wrong and Edwards was in.
While I had talked with Fred, Kerry had finally phoned Edwards to ask him to be on the ticket. The match was made, and the senator immediately called the hotel where Elizabeth was staying. Ironically, she was in the washroom and didn’t get to the phone before it went to voice mail. I then got through to the senator, and he told me, “It’s good, Andrew, I’ll call you back in a second.” After he finally spoke to her, he dialed me right back and said, “We’re in, Andrew, and we’re going to win it.”
Mrs. Edwards flew home immediately, and the family called on me to come help them pack to leave for the Heinz farm outside Pittsburgh. The mood at their house was high, and while the senator and I talked in the library, he said, “Andrew, isn’t this great? We’re going to do it. We’re really going to do it.”
In an unguarded moment, I tried to joke with the senator by saying, “Yeah, but it’s too bad that Kerry is such an asshole.”
In an instant, the rapport between us disappeared. The senator called out to his wife, “Did you hear that, Elizabeth? Andrew thinks Kerry’s an asshole.” I was suddenly flushed with embarrassment, and though I couldn’t hear her reply, I’m sure it was a scolding remark. The senator went into another room, and although the chill soon thawed, I had been taught a lesson. Everyone in the Edwards camp now approved of John Kerry, and this would be our attitude for the foreseeable future.
I was willing to go along, but I was unable to stop noticing the things about the Kerrys that struck me as odd. For example, when the Kerry and Edwards families got together for their first photo op at the Heinz family farm, Teresa took it upon herself to reach over and try to pull little Jack’s thumb out of his mouth. Of course, this was the moment when the photographers started clicking and it was the picture published in many leading papers. Soon enough, commentators in the Times and on National Public Radio were asking, What business was it of hers to handle a nervous four-year-old who was someone else’s kid?
The family summit at the ninety-acre farm was followed by a four-day campaign swing that would end on Saturday in Raleigh. They traveled on a Boeing 757 that was decorated with the Kerry-Edwards logo and were met by big crowds in four states. (The senator had come a long way from the days when I drove him around the state with a Velcro-backed U.S. Senate seal.) While they rallied the faithful, I raced around the Edwards home to prepare it for a crew from the CBS News program 60 Minutes (they were going to tape interviews in the living room) and for the Kerrys to stay overnight.
The Edwardses were not meticulous housekeepers, and I was hard-pressed to chase down all the dust bunnies, empty Diet Coke cans, and throw out old newspapers and magazines that cluttered the place. Once again I had to move furniture out so that TV cameras and lights could be positioned, and I had to make sure that the balky air-conditioning system was in good order and the kitchen was stocked for both families and the media crews.
Just like many VIPs I had worked with, the Kerrys sent their preferences ahead. According to the list, Teresa would eat either grilled salmon with steamed vegetables or one of two types of salad: Cobb or chicken Caesar. John Kerry wanted Boost energy drinks (strawberry or vanilla) and a dinner of roast chicken, meat loaf, or pot roast. They both requested chocolate cake and only one kind of wine-Kendall Jackson Sauvignon Blanc. I made sure every item on the list-including peanut butter and strawberry preserves-was in the kitchen. Following Mrs. Edwards’s orders, I also hired a chef to stand by and prepare whatever anyone wanted.
The main event for the North Carolina visit was an afternoon rally at North Carolina State University that drew more than twenty-five thousand people. It was to be the largest political rally the state had ever seen and would raise the hope that Edwards might actually give the Democrats a chance to win North Carolina for the first time since 1976. While en route, the senator called to ask me to send a sport coat to the airport. I ignored the request because it was ninety-plus degrees and I was extremely busy.
“ 3” face=“Times New Roman”›The rally became a love fest, with Edwards shouting, “He’s with me!” and Kerry asking if the Tar Heels would mind lending the nation Edwards’s services for eight or maybe sixteen years. At many points in the rally, the huge crowd roared its approval. One of these moments arrived when Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” rang out of the sound system. After the song, Teresa Heinz Kerry took the microphone and assured folks that “these Johnnies will be good if Elizabeth and I have anything to do with it.” Later, she explained that she and Mrs. Edwards would protect their husbands from those who would “inflate their egos or try to destroy them.”
I know about what happened at the rally only because I saw bits of it on television. I was at the senator’s house, making sure all would be ready when they arrived to talk with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. I thought I had considered every potential problem when I called an air-conditioning guy to make sure the balky cooling system would hold up. Then I started to hear a noise that sounded like chirping in t
he chimney for the living room fireplace. A bird had somehow found its way inside. After I made a racket and the bird stayed put, I placed a frantic call to an exterminator-the company was called Critter Gitter-who agreed that it was an emergency and came right over.
With a strong flashlight, the exterminator spotted a nest of baby birds and then gave me the bad news. They were members of an endangered species. This meant he had to follow specific procedures to ensure the birds’ safety. I believed what he said, but as politically incorrect as it may sound, I didn’t care what he did to get rid of this feathered nuisance. “Just get them out of there as fast as you can,” I told him, and then I left the room so I wouldn’t have to watch. To this day, I can’t tell you what he did, but it worked. And fast.
As the exterminator was leaving, the Secret Service came through the house to make one last security sweep. I forgot to tell them the AC guy was in the crawl space. He jumped out of his skin when he saw the bomb dogs and had to explain why he was there. The Secret Service declared the house safe even though they were not happy with the condition of the chef. While I was running around, he had downed a couple of beers.
When the candidates arrived, the Kerrys looked at the house with obvious disdain. Though the plan had called for them to spend the night, they made it clear they would not. Senator Edwards, obviously in a bad mood, complained to me that I had forgotten to send his sport coat to the big rally, which meant he couldn’t make a show of peeling it off in front of the crowd and saying, “It’s great to be back home.” Kerry found everything the cook had made inedible, and the Secret Service drove his body man to a Boston Market store for replacement food. Teresa, who was nervous about the 60 Minutes appearance, drank a glass of wine. Loosened up, she then paced around the house and clomped up and down the wooden staircase, making so much noise that the field producer had to holler, “Cut!” several times during Stahl’s interview of the candidates in the next room.
Seated side by side, Kerry and Edwards grinned like a couple of guys who were having fun, and I believed they were. The hostility they may have f cheyelt seemed to have been submerged in their pursuit of a mutual goal, and they insisted that they were comfortable with their roles and their agenda. When Stahl pressed him with questions about their relationship, Senator Edwards reduced the issue to a matter of commitment. “At the end of the day, all the words in the world will not make up for one thing,” he said. “You have to have trust. I trust him.”
After a break to get people arranged, the candidates’ wives joined the interview. As I watched from the back of the room, I marveled at how far Mrs. Edwards had come. I knew she was uncomfortable, but she looked composed and she spoke without hesitating. Stahl was most interested in how these women saw their roles, and Mrs. Edwards accurately described herself as the person who would tell her husband the truth when others would not, and would provide a sort of ballast to keep him stable. To have someone who will play this role is “a very good thing,” she said.
Like Mrs. Edwards, who had always tried, in her way, to help her husband maintain his balance, I would be assuming a role similar to the one I had played since I volunteered for his campaign. I tried to make things run smoothly for the senator and to fix problems as soon as they arose. My immediate concern was the upcoming national convention in Boston. The senator asked me to be responsible for the care of his family and friends. While other people might get frazzled by logistics and dealing with emergencies, it came easily to me.
At the convention, Mrs. Edwards gave me a tough problem to solve when she left a dozen or so messages on my cell phone explaining that she had left the outfit she intended to wear when her husband accepted his nomination at a dry cleaner’s back in Raleigh. I knew that the last flight to Boston left Raleigh- Durham International Airport in less than an hour. With a few quick calls, I managed to get someone to race to the cleaner’s, pick up the outfit, and take it to the airport, where my contact with American Airlines got it on the flight. Mrs. Edwards was thrilled when her clothes arrived just a few hours after she’d informed me they were missing. (She also insisted I remove two women from a list of VIP guests from North Carolina, though I wasn’t told why they had to be cut.)
The following day, I had to get the senator’s friend and former law partner David Kirby from his law office in Raleigh to the arena where the convention was held in just over three hours. (He was stuck in an arbitration and feared he was going to miss his best friend’s nomination.) This task involved pulling strings with friends at the airline, who parked his car for him and held the flight. When he landed at the airport, he saw himself on TV in an interview I had set up the day before. The police escorted him from Logan International Airport to the Fleet Center arena. Kirby arrived grinning and flabbergasted. “Damn, the only person you need to know in this world is Andrew Young,” he told people in the senator’s box. “Fuck John Edwards. It’s Andrew who gets things done.”
I appreciated Kirby’s praise, but for me the real reward came in just attending a historic politica ctorl event where future leaders emerged. This was where Barack Obama gave the speech that made him famous. The speech was electrifying, and minutes after Obama left the podium, I brought Kirby’s daughter to take a picture with him. Although Senator Edwards had told me Obama was lacking in substance, I could see he was a brilliant person with a level of confidence similar to what I saw in Edwards. He was far more appealing than John Kerry.
As far as the average television viewer could tell, Kerry and Edwards were a closely bonded team and the convention was a celebration of their shared vision for the country. But I was close enough to the senator at this time to hear what was on his mind, and after less than one month into his partnership with John Kerry, I could tell it was starting to come apart. He wasn’t ready to start calling him names again, but he was frustrated because Kerry wouldn’t listen to his advice and had insulated himself with too many advisers. (At one point, he had more foreign policy aides than President Bush had in the White House.) A typical example of the way the men were diverging arose as Edwards was preparing his acceptance speech, which would be his first extensive address to a national audience. For six years, the senator had been calling on people to embrace a heartfelt hope for the future. More than any other word, hope was at the core of his politics.
Hope was not exactly an original theme. Jesse Jackson had made his name with speeches in which he implored the country to “keep hope alive.” However, it is a reliable and positive message. Unfortunately, Kerry’s staff insisted that the refrain in Senator Edwards’s speech be built on the word help, as in “Help is on the way.” The difference is not as small as it may seem. “Hope” allows people to imagine solving problems on their own. “Help” suggests a handout, which can deprive a person of his or her dignity. Edwards stood his ground and got to use the theme he wanted.
When the time came, and Edwards stood before a sea of flag-waving partisans and the major networks all beamed his image and voice across the nation and the world, the senator did his duty by praising John Kerry and then rocked the house with a series of declarations that each ended with the promise “Hope is on the way.”
The speech was a hit with everyone except John Kerry’s top people. Afterward when I ran into Julianna Smoot, she said, “You picked the right horse,” and told me, “You deserve everything you get.” She asked me to pass word to the senator that she hoped he would call her. He never did.
The next night, Kerry stuck to his choice of “Help is on the way,” and while the delegates gave him all the noise you could ask for, the speech did not wind up on anyone’s list of best American political addresses. In contrast, Barack Obama’s brilliant keynote address, which challenged the idea that Americans were hopelessly divided, marked a historic moment. It was the one performance that every analyst gave a top grade, and more than anyone knew, it revealed the future of American politics.
Coming out of the convention, the Kerry-Edwards team had a significant lead ov
er Bush-Cheney, but by the time the GOP had their convention and their alli candes began their well-funded attacks-remember the “swift boaters”?-it became obvious that it would be difficult to unseat the incumbent. Kerry’s decision-making style-slow, even dithering in response to the lies coming from the far right-frustrated Edwards, and he told me he suspected he was being sent to make low-impact appearances in out-of-the-way spots because Kerry was afraid of being upstaged. So much for trust.
Presidential candidates handpick staff for their running mate long before the candidate is even selected. As a result, Edwards had only two of his loyalists with him during the 2004 run. As often happens, tension arises between the vice presidential nominee-who’s supposed to be a lapdog-and the people serving the person at the top of the ticket. This dynamic was in full force on a weekend when I joined Edwards at his beach house. Except for the presence of the Secret Service guys, the weekend recalled the time we had spent together in years past, and we talked more football than politics. But when we did discuss the campaign, Edwards bragged about how he had won a minor victory by getting Peter Scher, whom Kerry had picked to be his chief of staff, to “go native.” By this he meant that Scher had come over to his side of things in some dispute with Kerry.
Candidates never recover the time and energy wasted on distractions in a campaign, so it’s always best to keep them out of intramural battles over issues like staff loyalty and to control any personal issues that might flare into controversies that would draw attention from important issues. During the 2004 campaign, the senator’s younger brother, Blake, a good ol’ boy who reminded me of the actor John Goodman, began telephoning the lawyer Wade Byrd, who was a big political contributor. Blake wanted help with what he said was a serious problem. With Roger Clinton and Billy Carter in mind, Senator Edwards asked me to find out what was going on and resolve it.