Now Edwards was standing before a massive fireplace, dressed in an open-necked blue Oxford shirt and cream-colored slacks, his boyish face framed by a shock of light brown hair, his whole being a study in inchoate charisma. Like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton before him, Edwards represents the beguiling Democratic myth that a handsome champion can emerge from the South, head north toward his true political home and smile and glad-hand his way into the Oval Office. Though I had studied Edwards in Senate committee rooms and in his home state, today marked the first time that I had seen him flash his plumage outside his native habitat. As Edwards began his speech, laying out his populist pedigree, I mentally footnoted his oratory:
* "I grew up in a little town in North Carolina; my dad worked in the cotton mills all his life." (Left unmentioned was that his father worked himself up to mill supervisor.)
* "When I became a lawyer, I decided that those people who I wanted to represent were those who worked in the mill with my dad." (Awkward truth: Edwards was so successful as a personal injury lawyer that he is worth about $25 million and funded most of his own 1998 Senate campaign.)
* "What people think about what's going on in Washington is exactly right. We get off the elevator to vote and you can barely get to the floor for all the people who want to talk to you. Most of them have very fancy suits, representing powerful interest groups. And they're going to make sure that the people they're representing are heard." (This one may be a keeper.)
* "We ought to use a little North Carolina and New Hampshire common sense." (Ouch.)
The speech was interrupted by applause only once (when Edwards repeated the Democratic mantra that prescription drugs should be covered by Medicare) and there were no on-the-spot conversions. The reaction was that of a friendly audience which realizes that this play still has first-act problems, but knows that they are fixable. The allure of living-room politics in New Hampshire is not the stump speeches, but the obligatory questions from voters with a craftsman's pride in quizzing would-be presidents. Edwards cleanly fielded the first two queries on taxes for small business and funding for special education. Then came the first sense that we might be witnessing a candidate with the potential to become more than the sum of his position papers. The questioner was a middle-aged woman wearing expensive gold jewelry, a peach blouse and white slacks. Palpably uneasy at speaking in public, she pointedly referred to September 11 as she said, "It sort of feels like the Marx Brothers are running security in this country. Truly, it's scary. How can Americans feel safe? Tell me something that will make me feel safe."
Edwards knew that she wanted him to look her in the eye and promise with his hand over his heart that the New Hampshire seacoast is far from any known terrorist target. But the senator had spent too many days behind the guarded doors of the Senate Intelligence Committee to offer this kind of balm. Edwards simply could not do it. Nor did he direct his attention to his questioner. Instead his gaze was fixed on a young woman in the front row holding on to her eight-year-old son. (Afterward Edwards told me that he was thinking, "How can I answer that question honestly without scaring the kid?")
Finally, in a soft voice, Edwards responded, "Well, we can't get that assurance. That's what I would say." But the would-be candidate understood that he could not leave it there, that he had to give his audience some basis for optimism. So without missing a beat, he immediately launched into a knowing critique of the FBI's efforts to combat terrorism, studding his remarks with an agenda for reform. It was less what Edwards said and more the calm confidence that he projected in saying it. Years of addressing juries in small North Carolina towns as a trial lawyer enhanced Edwards's natural ability to radiate sincerity. Watching the faces in the room, I noticed the fear dissipating by the time Edwards reached his conclusion: "The best way to stop these potential attacks is not to catch every single person who might be getting on an airplane, but the way to stop it is to get inside it, and stop it before the plot even gets started."
Late that night as I sat with the senator at a table in the bar of a Portsmouth restaurant (Elizabeth Edwards, press secretary Mike Briggs and Meryl rounded out the party), I was seized by a revelation. After twelve hours of campaigning, Edwards had been elevated to a secret planet that only he (and maybe Elizabeth) occupied. He was on a pure adrenaline high, glassy-eyed with the crack of politics, too pumped up for ordinary conversation, still reveling in the memory of every handshake and every encouraging smile, replaying every line of his stump speech in his mind. This is why they all do it—this is why otherwise prudent men condemn themselves to harrowing days on the road, hamburgers on the run and Holiday Inns for rest, this is why they risk derision, dejection and defeat, all for the fleeting chance of becoming president.
Chapter 3
I Nominate Me
During late 2002, every Washington lunch with a top Democratic political operative followed an identical ritual. A handshake, a few murmured words of greeting, a cursory glance at the menu—and then ten minutes of rumor repeating, scuttlebutt sharing and tea-leaf testing. All this intense gossip mongering revolved around the same overarching topic: Was Al Gore running? There was no hint of ambiguity about the intentions of John Kerry, Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean and John Edwards. But the pivotal slot, belonged to either Gore or his self-appointed stand-in, Joe Lieberman.
Today's lunch at Bistro Bis, one of the better eateries on Capitol Hill, adheres to the predictable flight path. My companion, a senior adviser to one of the Democratic Definites, doesn't have much news to offer on the Gore front, saving both of us from endlessly chewing over an indigestible morsel on the order of "I just talked to someone who spoke to Carter Eskew who said that Peter Knight was claiming that Gore..." Instead, midway through the meal, my lunch mate casually drops the bombshell that he's heard that Edwards is having serious second thoughts about getting into the race.
I'm stunned. There hasn't been a word about Edwards's indecision in either the papers or the on-line political newsletters. I realize that Edwards is up for re-election in 2004 and that a premature presidential bid could transform the golden-haired freshman senator into a modern-day Icarus, tumbling to earth without a Senate seat or a political future. But I know Edwards—or at least I think I do. My wife profiled Edwards for Elle magazine in early 2001 and Meryl and I subsequently had two off-the-record dinners with the would-be candidate and his wife Elizabeth during which every vibe, every joke, every conversational gambit was premised on the shared assumption that he was going for the White House. Could my inner divining rod, which twitches at the slightest hint of presidential ambition, have been that out of kilter? Edwards certainly radiated I'm-ready-so-let's-get-on-with-it certainty when he shared top billing with Kerry and Dean at the annual Jefferson-Jackson fund-raising dinner of the Iowa Democratic Party in mid-October. Was the whole Edwards presidential edifice (the senior consultants, the young aides with their eyes on the main chance, the preliminary funding from trial lawyers and the lavish purchases of desktop computers for the Iowa Democratic Party) all a Potemkin village?
The Edwards enigma prompted me to schedule a lunch with the vacillating candidate's most trusted adviser, the one person sure to be privy to his inner deliberations: Elizabeth Edwards. So on a snowy Thursday in early December, with the capital's icy streets treacherous enough to warrant the assistance of the ski patrol, Meryl and I take a cab out to Chez Edwards sprawling rented house in the suburban-looking Spring Valley neighborhood of Washington, easily recognizable from the eight-foot-tall plastic snowman from Costco perched on the front lawn. Elizabeth, dressed in jeans and a sweater, greets us in an entry foyer filled with a jumble of children's coats, mittens and boots, a testament to the presence of the mid-life additions to the household—four-year-old Emma Claire and two-year-old Jack.
Our initial efforts at conversation are tinged with awkwardness, as if the three of us were onstage in a drawing room comedy without ever having seen the script. Elizabeth�
�a bankruptcy attorney until their sixteen-year-old son, Wade, was killed in a freak automobile accident in 1996—normally projects an air of bemused confidence. But here she is in the kitchen, fluttering nervously over the simple act of toasting the white bread for our lunch of egg-salad sandwiches. Some of the anxiety, on my part as well as hers, is rooted in confusion over appropriate roles. Up to now, we've primarily seen each other in social settings. Despite Meryl's presence, this is an interview; I've arrived with a notebook and tape recorder, the tools of a reporter's trade. As the sandwich preparation proceeds at the pace of Freudian analysis, it becomes obvious that Elizabeth is also tense for reasons that have little to do with my journalistic persona. With her husband arriving home this very afternoon from a four-day, burnish-the-foreign-policy-credentials visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels, the uncertainty and the waiting are taking their toll on the home front.
Finally we are seated at a table in the sprawling, comfortable library that serves as the casual center of family life. Nearby is the computer that Elizabeth uses to thread her way through strand after strand of the latest campaign stories, typing her husband's name and those of his putative rivals into the Google News search engine. The awkwardness dissipates as soon as I switch on my tape recorder, since now we have our assigned parts. I'm the sympathetic questioner, puzzled by Edwards's late-developing doubts. And Elizabeth is a hybrid, not the standard-issue willfully bland political spouse (she laughingly calls herself the "un-Barbie"), but also far too candid and emotionally engaging to play Hillary Clinton redux.
Elizabeth immediately confirms the rumors. Yes, they had intense discussions about the pros and cons of the race when their eldest daughter, Cate, was home from Princeton over Thanksgiving. They've met with many people here at the house and Edwards has been talking with his fellow senators. "John could probably make his decision by the end of the week," Elizabeth announces. "He has Cate's and my permission to do whatever he wants to do. It's his decision to make. We're on board if he wants to do it. And we're not disappointed in him if he doesn't choose to do it."
In my quarter century of covering presidential politics, I have always hungered for fly-on-the-wall moments like this when you get a sense of the internal debate before a decision is made. At my request, Elizabeth outlines the case for not running this time around: "That John's doing it too soon. Should he wait and do it, if he's going to do it, in 2008?" She pauses and then adds, "The first question that he has to ask doesn't have to do with the field, it has to do with himself. Am I up to this? Not only am I up to the job of the campaign, but am I up to the job of presidency."
This is the deep, dark-night-of-the-soul quandary, the question that should leave any self-aware politician in fear and trembling about the implications of his own ambitions. John Edwards has not had a moment's pause in his headlong rush to the top; he was in the Senate for little more than a year when—in a tribute to both his southern base and his courtroom-honed skills as an advocate—he popped up on Gore's short list of potential 2000 running mates. Politics as a second career has come easily to Edwards, perhaps too easily. But no would-be president is ever prepared for what awaits him the moment he steps into the Oval Office. I recall, for Elizabeth's benefit, that in 1994, while war raged in Bosnia and Croatia, Bill Clinton expressed regret that he had come to power without knowing anything about the Balkans. And then there's Bush.
She waves off the Bush comparison: "John said that you can't use Bush. The bar is too low if you use Bush." The real question, although Elizabeth doesn't use these precise words, is whether Edwards is ready to play at the top of his potential game. His years as a trial lawyer have given him a quick-study ability to master complex material, skills that might translate well to the White House. But is that enough? Has he come far enough along his personal learning curve to grapple with a fast-changing and threatening world?
For Elizabeth, a woman who listens to C-Span radio in her car, the other side of the equation is the risk of four more years of a Bush presidency. Her voice brimming with partisan zeal, she runs through the standard litany of issues from the red-ink tax cuts to the president's ill-advised judicial appointments. "We have to win," declares La Pasionara of Spring Valley. "We have to win. The nation can't afford for us to lose. And I think they [Bush and company] are exercising some restraint right now. There are things that won't happen until after 2004 because they're holding back to wait for the re-election. And it's going to be our worst nightmare."
This fear of a permanent right-wing ascendancy drives the debate in the Edwards household. Electability is normally a strategic consideration in nominating a candidate, but to Elizabeth it also possesses a moral component: Edwards is simply the Democrat most likely to defoliate Bush. Sounding like she's read more than her share of polls, Elizabeth argues that her husband is the candidate most likely to attract white males, the reverse gender gap core of the Republican Party. In her view, it all comes down to the contrast in backgrounds between Edwards (a high-school football player in the North Carolina hamlet of Robbins) and Bush (a prep-school cheerleader). Sure, it helps that Edwards is a southerner. But it's a mistake to view his appeal solely through a regional prism. As Elizabeth puts it, "I just think that he's more likable, warmer and more engaging than any of the other Democrats. And I also think he beats Bush on that score."
This isn't spin, since Elizabeth immediately qualifies her beat-Bush prediction with a rueful "Maybe I'm wrong." Her comments reflect a mixture of honesty, wifely pride and a can-do optimism that is a hallmark of both her and her husband. Any obstacle (excluding the loss of Wade) can be overcome with hard work, a broad smile and innate intelligence. But now she finds herself on the outside looking in as this practiced attorney argues the case for and against running for president in his own mind. She thinks he's going to do it, she hopes he's going to do it, but she isn't confident that's what he'll decide. Finally, gesturing toward the front door, she says, "Maybe he'll come back from this trip and know the answer." Meryl and I swivel our heads in the expectation of witnessing this dramatic homecoming scene complete with the long-awaited announcement. Elizabeth laughs as she says, "I'll have to get him not to walk in the front door and yell it out to me."
******
Not to worry about loose lips. John Edwards was in no position to blurt out his secret, since his trip to Europe never granted him time for quiet reflection. So it went in the Edwards camp, another day, another implicit deadline missed, and the senior staffers working on this campaign-in-waiting were beginning to fret. There were problems on other fronts as well. Ted Kennedy, who served as a Senate mentor to Edwards, bowed to Bay State political realities and came out for Kerry, while the rumors were spreading in Washington that media consultant Bob Shrum would defect as well. Although Edwards's advisers claimed that methodically thinking through the rigors and rationale of a presidential campaign is a useful and even high-minded exercise, they had assumed that this was a slam-dunk leading to only one possible conclusion. After all, they were certain enough to dedicate the next eighteen months of their lives to nominating John Edwards for president. Why then was the candidate of their dreams having these doubts? The Edwards loyalists were, for the most part, younger and hungrier than the campaigners for his likely opponents. Having never experienced the birth pangs of a presidential candidacy, these staffers were palpably eager to be present at the creation.
None was more determined than David Ginsberg, the campaign's wunderkind communications director, whose scraggly beard and distracted manner make him seem like a graduate student brooding that he's chosen the wrong dissertation topic. Early on the Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend, Ginsberg was driving back to Washington from New Jersey with his wife, Ellen, when Edwards called on the cell phone to say, "I'm going to make this decision tonight. We're gathering some people at the house." But there was a hitch: Ginsberg was snarled in the kind of post-holiday traffic jam for which the New Jersey Turnpike is rightfully notorious. While Ell
en frantically changed lanes, Ginsberg was thinking, "I'm not going to miss the meeting where the decision is made." The breathless Ginsberg, the first staffer hired in early 1998 by the nascent Edwards-for-Senate campaign, made it to Spring Valley in time to participate in the historic discussion. Serious questions were raised and options were seriously considered before producing the conclusion that (gulp!) they should all talk again.
Instead of clarity, the Edwards dialogues generated more false climaxes than a Beethoven symphony. Once again opting for hope over experience, the campaign staff decided that since the week before Christmas is a traditionally slow news period, it would be an ideal time for Edwards to unveil his candidacy. A few days after Edwards returned from Europe, Jonathan Prince, a former Clinton speechwriter now a senior strategist with the campaign, and Ginsberg made the trek to the senator's home to argue for the virtues of this tentative rollout date. A little skittish, Prince and Ginsberg organized their mission under the guise of showing the candidate the new campaign logo (surprise: a star-spangled flag motif). When they casually inquired whether the senator had any firm plans for the week of December 16, Edwards snapped, "I'm not going to rush this decision just to get a little more press."
Throughout this period, the questions that Edwards kept raising were similar to those previewed by Elizabeth: "What does it mean to be ready to be president? Is the time right? Can I improve my skills without undermining my long-term potential?" Veteran Pollster Harrison Hickman, who had advised Edwards since the 1998 Senate campaign, tried to rebut the I'm-not-sure-I'm-ready concerns: "What, you want to be a better talk show host? What skills and knowledge will you pick up being in the Senate for six more years? Part of the problem of staying in Washington is you end up trying to fill the expectations of the people who live here." Miles Lackey, the chief of staff in the Senate office, argued that by waiting until 2008 Edwards would end up staking his future on the one factor that he can't control: the political environment four years from now.
One Car Caravan - On the Road with the 2004 Democrats Before America Tunes In Page 5