Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster, Excerpt from "Game Change"

[jefferson_dem]

Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster

A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.
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By John Heilemann & Mark Halperin

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For all the tabloid headlines that have dogged Edwards in the years since then, most of the details of the circumstances that led to his fall have remained shrouded in mystery. After his turn as John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, Edwards was among a small handful of politicians with a credible shot at occupying the Oval Office. He was popular and charming, with serious rhetorical skills, a wife beloved by the public, and the same basic profile—a white, southern, moderate male—as the previous three Democrats who’d proved capable of winning the White House. Today, according to a recent NBC News–Wall Street Journal poll, Edwards stands as the “most disappointing” public figure of 2009, having collected twice as many votes for that dubious distinction as Tiger Woods. And hard as it is to imagine, the coming months may debase his image further still.

<SNIP>

Yet it was Edwards who stepped so far across the line that his career and life were reduced to rubble. For all the high drama of the Obama-Clinton battle and the historic import of the former’s general-election victory over McCain, Edwards’s story is equally, lastingly resonant: an archetypal political tragedy in which the very same qualities that fuel any presidential bid—ego, hubris, vanity, neediness, a kind of delusion—became all-consuming and self-destructive. And in which the gap between public façade and private reality simply grew too vast to bridge.

<SNIP>

Some of Edwards’s advisers dismissed his outsize confidence as pro forma, but others took it as a sign of something deeper—a burgeoning megalomania. He was not the same guy who’d come out of nowhere and defeated the incumbent Republican senator Lauch Faircloth in 1998. Back then, everyone who met Edwards was struck by how down-to-earth he seemed. He had fewer airs about him than most other wealthy trial lawyers, let alone most senators.

Many of his friends started noticing a change—the arrival of what one of his aides referred to as “the ego monster”—after he was nearly chosen by Al Gore to be his running mate in 2000: the sudden interest in superficial stuff to which Edwards had been oblivious before, from the labels on his clothes to the size of his entourage. But the real transformation occurred in the 2004 race, and especially during the general election. Edwards reveled in being inside the bubble: the Secret Service, the chartered jet, the press pack, the swarm of factotums catering to his every whim. And the crowds! The ovations! The adoration! He ate it up. In the old days, when his aides asked how a rally had gone, he would roll his eyes and self-mockingly say, “Oh, they love me.” Now he would bound down from the stage beaming and exclaim, without the slightest shred of irony, “They looooove me!”

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Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/index1.html#ixzz0c92STJcF

[tammywammy]

1. Interesting n/t

[cali]

2. Fascinating though no surprise to me. Here's more:

During the 2004 race, Elizabeth badgered and berated John’s advisers around the clock. She called Nick Baldick, his campaign manager, an idiot. She accused David Axelrod, his (and later Obama’s) media consultant, of lying to her and insisted that 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 fuck do you think I’d want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets?” 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 2008 bid. There were 40 or 50 people on the line, 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 nobody has health care until John and I do!

The health-care call attained wide infamy in the Edwards camp. 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. Yet no one called her out on her behavior, least of all her husband. 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. What they didn’t know was that the road would soon hold other enticements, too.

Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/index2.html#ixzz0c9mTFEV9

[tammywammy]

3. I wasn't that surprised either

I always thought Edwards was slimey.

[cali]

4. Elizabeth doesn't come off well at all

but JE? The guy wasn't only power hungry in the extreme but utterly delusional and pathetic. What a pig of a human being.

[tammywammy]

5. Yeah she didn't.

I'm on the fence about her; feel bad about her, but then she knew what would happen when the affair/child came out during the general election. I did always like her way more than JE. In the end I just hope she's doing okay with her illness.

The one thing that struck me in the article was her conversation about healthcare with the staff. John and Elizabeth aren't like "regular" folks, they have millions to spend on their own healthcare if they need the insurance. I just thought that was strange.

[liberalpragmatist]

9. According to the article...

... she didn't know about the full extent of the affair or the child. But she obviously had suspicions and was deluding herself into thinking that it was Andrew Young who fathered the child.

Honestly, I came away from the article feeling fairly sympathetic to Elizabeth. Yes, she came off as fairly unpleasant to work for, but the rest of the things they talked about - which was spun to make her seem crazy - was perfectly understandable in the context of her husband of 30+ years cheating on her and probably fathering a child.

As for John, one thing that struck me was how the people around him claimed he really had "changed" since he was first elected. The power, the prestige, got to him. Supposedly he went from being a genuinely down-to-earth guy to being extremely vain, shallow, and narcissistic. It was also striking that his staff had never worried about him cheating before - they felt he seemed vaguely asexual.

But I guess it just shows how politics can corrupt people, and how it can mess with people's heads.

[tishaLA]

6. The stuff about Elizabeth is really shocking to me

way to make me even more cynical! I actually bought into the PR bullshit, although I did think she always regarded herself as the smartest person in the room.

[cali]

7. I'm not completely shocked. Her wanting him to stay in was a huge tip off.

[Mass]

8. Halperin definitively aspires to become the new Drudge. This is all I have to say,

[Raine]

10. I'm "soured" on the Edwards, both of them

but Elizabeth is fighting for her life and doesn't need to have her character assassinated.

[davidpdx]

11. The book sounds interesting

I too am shocked if Mrs. Edwards said what she is quoted as saying. It said she had a good idea something was going on, but wasn't sure. That along with the cancer had to play into it.