Part 6 (1/2)

One of the lessons that John and Elizabeth took away from 2004 was that they had relied too much on aides, advisers, and consultants. The political people hadn't helped Edwards; they'd hurt him, gotten in his way. If they'd just let John be John, he might have been president. Edwards had a phrase he used all the time to describe the problem: ”the valley of staff.” In his next bid for the White House, he and Elizabeth agreed, they would circ.u.mvent the handlers, while John forged his own path. It wouldn't be a campaign at all in any conventional sense, they said. Instead, it would be-he would be-a ”cause.” would be-a ”cause.”

The denizens of the valley of staff were astonished by the narcissism that seemed to have infused their candidate. Distraught and dispirited, too. But for a long time, they continued slaving in the service of the illusion at the core of Edwards's political appeal: that he remained the same humble, sunny, aw-shucks, son of a mill worker he'd always been. The cognitive dissonance was enormous, sure, but they were used to that. Because for years they'd been living with an even bigger lie-the lie of Saint Elizabeth.

EVEN BEFORE THE CANCER, she was among her husband's greatest political a.s.sets. In one of the focus groups conducted by Hickman in Edwards's Senate race, voters trashed him as a pretty-boy shyster-until they saw pictures of Elizabeth, four years his senior. ”I like that he's got a fat wife,” one woman said. ”I thought he'd be married to a Barbie or a cheerleader.” The Edwardses' eldest son, Wade, had been killed in a car crash in 1996; for a long time, Elizabeth went to his grave site every day and read softly to the tombstone. She gave birth to their youngest daughter, Emma Claire, at age forty-nine, and their son Jack at fifty. The combination of her suffering, resilience, and imperfections made her a poignant figure. But it was the illness that elevated Elizabeth to a higher plane, rendering her iconic.

She learned she might be sick on the Friday before Election Day in 2004. Her chemotherapy treatment started almost immediately. John was at her side throughout it, and everyone remarked on his warmth and attentiveness, and on the closeness of their bond. She confronted her illness with bracing courage and wry humor, emerging quickly as one of the most outspoken and widely admired cancer survivors in history. By July, she was shopping a book proposal on her ordeal, and by October, she'd struck a deal.

No one in the Edwards political circle felt anything less than complete sympathy for Elizabeth's plight. And yet the romance between her and the electorate struck them as ironic nonetheless-because their own relations.h.i.+ps with her were so unpleasant, they felt like battered spouses. The nearly universal a.s.sessment among them was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing. What the world saw in Elizabeth: a valiant, determined, heroic everywoman. What the Edwards insiders saw: an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman.

With her husband, she could be intensely affectionate or brutally dismissive. At times subtly, at times blatantly, she was forever letting John know she regarded him as her intellectual inferior. The daughter of a navy pilot, Elizabeth had lived in j.a.pan when she was a girl and considered herself worldly. She called her spouse a ”hick” in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a particular book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. ”Oh, he doesn't read books,” she said. ”I'm the one who reads books.”

As far back as the 1998 senatorial campaign, she had been p.r.o.ne to irrational outbursts that perplexed and worried John's advisers. The first time Hickman witnessed an explosion during that race, he attributed it to the strain of her being pregnant with Emma Claire and her lingering grief over Wade. But a close friend of the Edwardses from law school informed him otherwise. ”She's always been this way,” the friend said-the sharp manner, the cutting comments, the sudden and inexplicable fulminations.

During the 2004 race, Elizabeth badgered and berated John's advisers round the clock. She called Nick Bald.i.c.k, his campaign manager, an idiot. She accused David Axelrod of lying to her and insisted he be stripped of the responsibility for making the campaign's TV ads. She would stay up late scouring the Web, pulling down negative stories and blog items about her husband, forwarding them with vicious messages to the communications team. She routinely unleashed profanity-laced tirades on conference calls. ”Why the f.u.c.k do you think I'd want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets? I want to talk to persuadable voters!” she snarled at the schedulers.

Elizabeth's illness seemed at first to mellow her in the early months of 2005-but not for long. One day, she was on a conference call with the staffers of One America, the political action committee that was being turned into a vehicle for John's upcoming 2008 campaign. There were forty or fifty people on the call, mostly kids in their twenties being paid next to nothing (and in some cases literally nothing). Elizabeth had been cranky throughout the call, but at the end she asked if her and her husband's personal health care coverage had been arranged. Not yet, she was told. There are complications; let's discuss it after the call. Elizabeth was having none of that. She flew into a rage.

If this isn't dealt with by tomorrow, everyone's health care at the PAC will be cut off until it's fixed, she barked. I don't care if n.o.body has health care until John and I do!

The health care call immediately attained wide infamy in the Edwardses' political orbit. The people around them marveled at Elizabeth's callousness-this from a woman whose family had multiple houses and a net worth in the tens of millions. (They marveled as well at the tight-lippedness of their operation, the loyalty to John that kept any of the stories about the other side of Elizabeth from seeing the light of day.) Yet no one called her out on her behavior, least of all her husband. When she demeaned him, he pretended not to notice; when people complained about her behavior, he brushed them off. His default reflex was to mollify her or avoid her. No one doubted that, as her condition improved, the increase in John's travel had a lot to do with steering clear of his wife.

THE REGENCY HOTEL on Park Avenue in Manhattan was the preeminent clubhouse outside Was.h.i.+ngton for Democratic politicians and those who loved-and funded-them. Its restaurant, 540 Park, served the city's most storied power breakfast, and its bar, The Library, was a prime site of lubrication and transaction between supplicants and benefactors. The Regency was Edwards's hotel of choice when he was staying in New York.

One early evening in February 2006, Edwards was hanging out in the bar, having a gla.s.s of wine with one of his donors and his young traveling aide, Josh Brumberger, when a woman sitting at a nearby table with some friends recognized him, walked over, and introduced herself. ”My friends insist you're John Edwards,” Rielle Hunter said. ”I tell them no way-you're way too handsome.”

”No, ma'am. I'm John Edwards,” the candidate replied.

”No way! I don't believe you!”

Brumberger saw this kind of thing all the time. Women were always. .h.i.tting on his boss. He and Edwards had a well-oiled system in place for dealing with these situations tactfully and politely.

”He is John Edwards,” Brumberger interjected, ”and I'm sorry, but we're in the middle of something. Thank you.”

”Oh, I'm sorry,” Hunter said, and retreated to her table.

From the get-go, Brumberger thought that she was trouble. Everything about her screamed groupie. She looked like a hybrid of Stevie Nicks and Lucinda Williams, in an outfit more suitable for a Grateful Dead concert than an evening at the Regency. A few minutes later, after Edwards departed for a dinner around the corner, Hunter came back over to Brumberger and started quizzing him on his job. ”I think I can help you guys,” she said, and handed him her business card. The inscription read, ”Being Is Free : Rielle Hunter-Truth Seeker.”

After Hunter left, Brumberger sat there chuckling, having another gla.s.s of wine with one of his colleagues from Team Edwards, who had joined him. A little while later, he looked up through the window and clocked Hunter and one of her friends cornering his boss on his way back from dinner. ”Holy s.h.i.+t, that crazy lady just cut him off!” Brumberger yelped and sprinted outside, where he broke up the scene, leading Edwards back into the hotel.

”Thank you,” Edwards said, apparently relieved. ”I'm lucky you saw that, because those women, I don't think they would have quit.”

Brumberger would always wonder about that evening: Was Hunter's presence really an accident? Had she and Edwards met before? Did she slink into the hotel and spend the night with him after Brumberger went home to his New York apartment? Because a few months later, without warning, Hunter was back-in a big way.

”Get ready to get mic'd up,” Edwards told Brumberger in June, before a speech the candidate was set to deliver at the National Press Club. We're gonna have a camera operator and a doc.u.mentarian traveling with us, Edwards said. We're gonna show the world what it's really like to be John Edwards.

The idea was that Hunter would produce a series of Web videos doc.u.menting life on the road with Edwards. Edwards told Bald.i.c.k, now running his PAC, that he liked the concept, that they should do it. Bald.i.c.k objected for any number of reasons-but not because he had the slightest worry that Edwards was fooling around with Hunter. That was one thing the people in the Edwardsphere never stressed over when it came to John, who they believed had long ago made the decision not to fall into that trap. And, anyway, he had always seemed . . . well, sorta as.e.xual, at least to his staff.

No, Bald.i.c.k's concerns revolved around the way the project would feed the ego monster. Oh, great, a camera with you Oh, great, a camera with you, he thought when Edwards raised the subject. This is gonna be a really good idea. This is gonna be a really good idea. Bald.i.c.k also quailed at the cost-the proposed budgets Hunter submitted ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. For months, Bald.i.c.k used the price tag as a reason to resist signing her contract. But Edwards kept poking at him, calling him weekly, saying, It'll be really cool! It'll be on the Web! We've got to push the envelope! Eventually, a big check came in from one of Edwards's donors, and that gave John his trump card. ”Now Nick can't tell me no,” he said to Brumberger triumphantly. Bald.i.c.k also quailed at the cost-the proposed budgets Hunter submitted ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. For months, Bald.i.c.k used the price tag as a reason to resist signing her contract. But Edwards kept poking at him, calling him weekly, saying, It'll be really cool! It'll be on the Web! We've got to push the envelope! Eventually, a big check came in from one of Edwards's donors, and that gave John his trump card. ”Now Nick can't tell me no,” he said to Brumberger triumphantly.

By then, Hunter was already a constant presence on the road with Edwards. Who needed a contract? There was history to be made! All summer long and into the fall, she traveled with him everywhere-Pennsylvania, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and New York, even on a trip to Africa, where they visited Uganda. Nothing about it was secretive: her name was always on the flight manifests, and even Elizabeth's allies thought Hunter was legit, that Elizabeth had probably approved the project, given her fascination with the Web.

There was nothing legit, however, about Hunter's behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, ”I'm a witch.” But mostly, she fixated on Edwards. She told him that he had ”the power to change the world,” that ”the people will follow you.” She told him that he could be as great a leader as Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. She told him, ”You're so real. You just need to get your staff out of your way.” She reinforced everything he already believed, told him everything he wanted to hear.

Edwards swooned, of course. Gobbled up her every word like so much pop-psych popcorn. He spent hours talking to her, listening patiently to her ideas about the state of American democracy and her advice on media strategy. (She had intuitions about Chris Matthews.) He ate every meal with her, sat next to her on the plane and in the car, offered to wheel her bags through airports. He told the staff to treat her like a princ.i.p.al. He behaved as if she were a combination of an adviser and a spouse. When Bald.i.c.k suggested that she not take this or that trip-It's all meetings, he would say; we don't need footage of those; let's save some money-Edwards would resist. When Hunter wanted access to some event that Brumberger thought she shouldn't attend, Edwards would order, ”Let her do it.” Or plead, ”C'mon, just let her do it.” Or lean over and whisper conspiratorially, ”Just let her do it this one time.” this one time.”

It didn't take a genius to suss the warning signs, and Brumberger was no fool. He had been worried about Hunter since she first came on the road, when he Googled her and discovered that, in her party girl past, she had been the model for the ”ostensibly jaded, cocaine-addled, s.e.xually voracious” character Alison Poole in Jay McInerney's novel Story of My Life. Story of My Life. It took Josh a while to screw up his courage, but he finally did, knocking on Edwards's hotel room door one day that summer in Ohio. It took Josh a while to screw up his courage, but he finally did, knocking on Edwards's hotel room door one day that summer in Ohio.

I'm not accusing you of anything, Brumberger nervously said. But I need you to know there's a perception out there that you have a different relations.h.i.+p with Rielle than you do with everybody else, and we're in the perception game, and we know that perception becomes reality. I just need you to be cognizant of it, because your staff is starting to talk.

Edwards nodded and smiled rea.s.suringly. I get it, he said. Thank you. Say no more. I hear you loud and clear.

Brumberger exhaled and walked out of the room thinking, Yes! Home run! Yes! Home run!

But nothing changed.

If anything, Edwards's behavior became even more brazen. At the end of August, he brought Hunter over to the family's new mansion outside Chapel Hill. She spent the whole afternoon and evening exploring the place, shooting footage of his family with her video camera. His parents were there, happily answering questions about their son. His two younger children were there, too, and Rielle lingered with them, interviewing both one-on-one on camera, delighting them by showing an interest in their opinions.

Elizabeth was up in Cambridge that day, dropping off their oldest daughter, Cate, at Harvard Law School. Hunter made herself at home, prowling comfortably around the big house, taking off her shoes, curling up on the sofa. She stayed for dinner with Edwards, the children's nanny, and some family intimates.

Brumberger's dealings with Hunter, meanwhile, were getting testy. Increasingly, she treated him and the rest of the staff as if they worked for her-and Edwards was doing nothing to stop it. On a trip to Missouri over Labor Day weekend, it had been decided that Edwards would fly back east on the private plane alone, with the staff traveling commercial. Hunter objected, demanding a seat on the jet with Edwards. An argument ensued. Edwards sided with Hunter. Brumberger was fed up. Arriving back home in New York, he picked up the phone and called his boss.

This is hard, Brumberger began. I don't know how to say this, but I'm really worried about where your head is. I came to you in Ohio, I thought I got through, but the problem has just escalated and gotten a lot worse, and I'm really, really worried.

”Okay,” Edwards said frostily. ”Anything else?”

Brumberger was beside himself now. He flew down to Was.h.i.+ngton and met with Bald.i.c.k, Peter Scher, who'd been Edwards's chief of staff for the 2004 general election, and Kim Rubey, Edwards's press secretary. For Bald.i.c.k, the alarm bells had already started ringing, when he got a look at the first webisode produced by Hunter. It was filled with so much flirty banter and overfamiliarity between her and Edwards that it made Bald.i.c.k cringe. When he and his wife watched it at home in bed on Bald.i.c.k's laptop, she turned to him at once and said, Oh, my G.o.d! He's f.u.c.king her!

Somebody senior had to confront Edwards, they all agreed. The first to try was Hickman, who'd known him the longest and was often tapped for difficult conversations with John. Hickman phoned and gingerly said that people were talking about him and Hunter. One of the things people most admire about you is your commitment to Elizabeth, he said. You don't want to mess that up. ”I know what you're saying,” Edwards replied. ”I'll deal with that.”

Scher was next to raise the issue, traveling up to New York from Was.h.i.+ngton and meeting Edwards in his room at the Regency.

”So you think I'm f.u.c.king her?” Edwards asked.

Well, are you? Scher pressed.

Edwards said he wasn't.

Well, if you're not, everyone thinks you are, Scher replied. So unless she's going to play some vital role in your future that I don't understand, he continued, it seems to me that she shouldn't be traveling with you anymore.

Edwards calmly agreed-so calmly, in fact, that Scher took it as a clear indication that he and Hunter were having an affair. If someone accused me of cheating on my wife, I'd say, ”Go f.u.c.k yourself!” If someone accused me of cheating on my wife, I'd say, ”Go f.u.c.k yourself!” he thought. he thought.

A few days later, Brumberger flew from New York to Chicago to join Edwards, who'd come in from North Carolina, for the start of a trip to China. ”Hey, I need to talk to you,” Edwards said abruptly when they met in the terminal at O'Hare. They walked together to the airline's premium lounge, where Edwards had reserved a private meeting room for their conversation. ”Sit,” Edwards said-and then tore into Brumberger.

Stuff from the road is getting back to people, and it's obviously you who's doing it, Edwards said angrily, his southern drawl rapidly rising. You didn't recognize who you work for. You don't work for Nick and Peter. You work for me. I trusted you like a son, but you broke my trust. I can't have you around me anymore. You're not coming to China and you're never working for me again.

Brumberger's heart sank. ”I'm sorry you feel that way,” he said. ”I always thought my goal in all of this was to do everything I could to help you become the next president of the United States.”

”Why didn't you come to me?” Edwards asked.

”I did come to you! I came to you in Ohio. I called you after Labor Day! I tried!”