Capitol Press Association
It was October 1998, and then-state House Speaker Harold Brubaker was pushing his wheelbarrow full of frogs (his great description of a slim legislative majority) toward the finish line of lengthy legislative session.
My colleague at the Associated Press, Dennis Patterson, was given the task of watching the final, fitful days of the legislative session. I was pushed out the door to go chase around two U.S. Senate candidates — crusty Republican incumbent Lauch Faircloth and fresh-faced Democratic neophyte John Edwards.
I had interviewed Edwards on a couple of occasions, but hadn’t spent any significant time around him. Then I met him one day in Durham for a series of events and speeches.
Like many who came across Edwards’ path as part of that initial political quest, I was struck by how down to earth he seemed. For a while that morning, we simply chatted about the things that guys chat about — sports, family, the newspaper headlines of the day.
His apparent ease around people whom he’d only recently met was remarkable, contrasting with the suspiciousness of Faircloth.
That John Edwards can’t be found in The New York Magazine excerpts from “Game Change,” the new book from John Heilemann and Mark Halperin exposing the inside of the 2008 Edwards presidential campaign as it crumbled amid his infidelity and arrogance. Heilemann and Halperin paint Edwards as a manipulative politician increasingly isolated by an ever-growing, super-duper-sized ego.
The question that I’ve always struggled with, and on occasion discussed with others who covered or knew him, is how much of the John Edwards that I saw back in 1998 was ever real in the first place? How much was political façade and how much was the real man?
Heileman and Halperin suggest that the power and public adulation that came from Edwards’ first presidential run in 2004 changed him.
I’d like to believe that. I’d like to think that I, and those Iowa voters in 2004, weren’t duped.
I’m not convinced.
In 2000, while covering the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, I had long conversations with Chuck Fuller, who had been Faircloth’s campaign manager, about Edwards and the Senate race. Fuller was certain that Edwards possessed an arrogance rare even for Washington. He talked about doctors deposed by a callous man.
At the time, I dismissed the talk as the bitter residue of an election loss.
But stories began circulating around Raleigh about Edwards’ disregard for those looking for time with their U.S. senator. At an event at Wake Medical Center, I remember being shocked watching him harshly deal with staffers only to walk into a room and transform into Mr. Charm.
The question is important because it leads to another one: Are the spectacular failings of John Edwards the result of the trappings of ultimate power, or does our political system attract and reward those with such flaws?
Either answer probably doesn’t say good things about our distorted, money-driven system of choosing our elected or our celebrity-focused culture.