Game Change_ Obama And The Clintons, McCain And Palin, And The Race Of A Lifetime Part 6

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!"

"No," Edwards said. "Why didn't you come to me like a f.u.c.king man and tell me to stop f.u.c.king her?"

They were both yelling now at the top of their lungs, red-faced and teary-eyed. ("You're a twenty-seven-year-old kid and I'm a grown man!" Edwards railed. "Don't you think I've thought about this?") But when Edwards finally regained his composure, he seemed to recognize the implications of sacking Brumberger. Let's talk about all this when I get back, he said.

But Brumberger had had enough. Crushed and mortified, he was finished with Edwards. It would be a very long time before they spoke again.

Brumberger's firing sent shock waves through the Edwardsphere. Bald.i.c.k, Rubey, and longtime communications adviser David Ginsberg followed him out the door. All three gave Edwards other pretexts for quitting, but there was no escaping the conclusion that the candidate was diddling Hunter, and that he was h.e.l.l-bent on resisting the efforts of the people closest to him to save him from himself.

The departure of much of Edwards's inner circle only weeks before he planned to declare his candidacy didn't seem to trouble him. Most of his team had clashed with Elizabeth, so he could chalk it up to that. The valley of staff was getting smaller; so much the better. Hunter was still traveling with him everywhere, while Elizabeth had been a distant figure from the campaign for much of the fall. Her new book, Saving Graces Saving Graces, was a huge success, charting high on the bestseller lists. She was even more famous now, more iconic, more beloved than her husband by a mile. She appeared on Oprah Oprah and countless other TV shows, establis.h.i.+ng a broad const.i.tuency of fans. and countless other TV shows, establis.h.i.+ng a broad const.i.tuency of fans.

Elizabeth had never crossed Hunter's path-until the afternoon of December 30, 2006, in Chapel Hill, at the last stop on the announcement tour for John's presidential bid, which Rielle was on hand to shoot.

Elizabeth and her family were waiting at the campaign headquarters in a small room with big windows overlooking an expansive lawn below. Hundreds of people were there for the rally, milling around outside, listening to a bluegra.s.s band. Edwards and his aides arrived straight from the airport and breezed into the room. Hunter was toting her camera, sticking like glue to Edwards, acting the way she always did-too familiar, too intimate. Always jealous of anyone, male or female, who seemed close to John, Elizabeth watched Hunter working the room. The expression on Mrs. Edwards's face said: Who is is this woman? And what is she doing here? Icily, Elizabeth asked Hunter to back off. "Excuse me, we're trying to have some privacy," she said. this woman? And what is she doing here? Icily, Elizabeth asked Hunter to back off. "Excuse me, we're trying to have some privacy," she said.

As Edwards took the stage, Hunter rushed to get into position to film his speech. Elizabeth, her brother, and her sister-in-law observed Hunter's movements. Onlookers watched them engage in an animated conversation in which Elizabeth was visibly upset.

When the whole wretched business eventually became public, Elizabeth would claim that her husband revealed to her the next morning that he had slept with Hunter-but that it had happened only once and afterward he was consumed with remorse. Her first reaction, she would say, was that John should leave the race, but he convinced her that dropping out immediately after the announcement would raise suspicions that would be hard to put to rest.

Whatever was actually said between them, by the next afternoon, Elizabeth was on the phone with members of Team Edwards, issuing marching orders: Hunter's contract was to end, the webisodes pulled from the Internet, the raw video retrieved as soon as possible.

That woman is crazy-get rid of her, Elizabeth said.

And John professed agreement.

"We have to get the tapes back," he told one of his aides. "She's dangerous."

And with that, Rielle Hunter disappeared. But not really. And not for long.

THEY ALL SAT IN silence around the square table in the middle of the Edwardses' living room in the new estate on Old Greensboro Road. It was late in the afternoon on March 21, 2007, and John and Elizabeth had called their closest aides together to talk about her health. It had been a roller coaster of a day, with Elizabeth at the hospital for hours of tests and difficult talks with her doctors. The news had been dark, pitch-black dark, for a while, but now it was merely bad, which made it seem almost good. John explained that Elizabeth's cancer had returned and moved from breast to bone. Calmly, clinically, he explained the diagnosis and prognosis: it was treatable, but incurable.

Among the handful of aides gathered in the room and listening in by phone, more than a few wished that Edwards would use the development as an excuse to leave the race. And if Elizabeth really wanted him to quit after learning about the affair with Hunter, this presented the perfect opportunity for him to do so, no questions asked. For the past three months, as the campaign got under way, Elizabeth and John had been fighting savagely on the road, sometimes causing events to be delayed. She was telling friends that John had changed, that he no longer cared about anybody but himself. To a longtime aide, she put the question "Don't you think he's kind of messianic?"

But Elizabeth didn't ask her husband to get out. She insisted that he stay in. We can't let my cancer impact the future of the country, she told the group that day. He has to run. He has to be president. I believe it's the most important thing that we can do.

Their decision set off a national debate: Should a candidate continue with a grueling campaign when there was serious illness at home? Was it fair to Elizabeth? Was it fair to their children? Would it be fair to the country if he won to have a president with such a trauma consuming his attention?

But John and Elizabeth insisted they were doing what they knew was best-for themselves, their family, and the voters. And despite whatever doubts existed in some quarters, it generally was accepted that Elizabeth had a right to determine how she spent her time, even if she preferred to continue the exhausting fight to get her husband elected president rather than rest quietly at home.

Edwards's position in the race was strong at the start. He'd come flying out of the gate, offering up a flurry of bold and concrete policy plans, notably on health care and global warming. He was in the driver's seat in Iowa. His relations.h.i.+p with labor was tight. His early fund-raising was surprisingly robust: $14 million in the first quarter of the year, not nearly as much as Clinton or Obama, but double his take in the same period four years earlier. Obama's entry, John and Elizabeth believed, didn't alter their original a.s.sessment of the contest. Barack was a phenomenon, no doubt about that, but one that would pa.s.s.

In the wake of the Hunter flare-up and the recurrence of Elizabeth's cancer, the dynamic between husband and wife s.h.i.+fted in the context of the campaign. He was more deferential to her; she was even more a.s.sertive. Former congressman David Bonior, the campaign's new manager, had no experience running a presidential operation and struck much of the staff as an extremely nice but very clueless guy. Elizabeth seemed to love having Bonior nominally in charge, because it meant that, in effect, she she was in charge. On everything from hiring to advertising, her influence was singular. was in charge. On everything from hiring to advertising, her influence was singular.

She pushed John hard on policy-always to the left. On health care, in particular, she lobbied vociferously, in meeting after meeting, for him to embrace a single-payer plan as the route to universal coverage. In television interviews, on blogs, and on the trail, Elizabeth was outspoken in support of her causes, at times advocating policies-in favor of gay marriage, for instance-more progressive than her husband's. In 2004, Edwards's campaign had been sunny, centrist, and thematic. Elizabeth prodded him toward being hotter, more populist, and more sharply ideological and anti-establishment. And in that cause she enlisted a new ally, bringing into the campaign that spring the consultant Joe Trippi-for whom tilting at the Establishment was akin to breathing.

Trippi was a piece of work. At fifty, he had toiled for seven previous presidential hopefuls, from Ted Kennedy to Gary Hart to d.i.c.k Gephardt to Howard Dean. Brilliant, eccentric, and mildly unbalanced, he'd long been a pioneer in applying new technology to politics. Though John Edwards was interested in Trippi mainly because he thought the shaman had some magic formula for turning the Web into a fund-raising spigot, Elizabeth was enamored of his heady talk of transforming the campaign into a movement.

Trippi thought John was high on his own vapors in considering himself equal to Clinton and superior to Obama. But he also believed that if Edwards could beat them both in Iowa, it might be enough of a game changer to propel him to the nomination.

The day after Trippi joined the campaign in mid-April, he got a call from a reporter inquiring about whether Edwards had received a $400 haircut. (Another question he heard early on from a member of the Edwardsphere struck him as even more unsettling: "What are you gonna do about the girlfriend?" Dude, what are you talking about? Dude, what are you talking about? Trippi wondered.) Trippi soon learned that the haircut was, in fact, just one of three interrelated imbroglios that would plague Edwards for months. Inside the campaign, they called them "the three Trippi wondered.) Trippi soon learned that the haircut was, in fact, just one of three interrelated imbroglios that would plague Edwards for months. Inside the campaign, they called them "the three Hs": Hs": the haircuts, the hedge fund, and the house. the haircuts, the hedge fund, and the house.

Edwards's advisers had warned John about the perils of the new house from the first time they saw the blueprints. It was a two-building complex totaling 28,200 square feet, with an indoor basketball court, swimming pool, and squash court, two theatrical stages, and a room designated "John's Lounge." Staring at the designs, Bald.i.c.k said, "Is there any foliage to cover the house?" At which Hickman cracked, "Are you kidding? They clear-cut a whole forest to build it!"

But the house was a cancer thing, a gift to Elizabeth at the time when the disease first appeared. When John's advisers pointed out that such a gaudy manse might be a political liability for an aspiring neo-populist, he said, "It's Elizabeth's project" and "I can't deny her this." When the place was ridiculed in the media-by Jay Leno, among many others-Elizabeth responded that her new home was "not grand" but "functional."

The hedge fund was John's deal to be a "senior adviser" to Fortress Investment Group, in New York, from which he reaped a minor fortune. Edwards signed on in October 2005 without even telling his team he was doing it. He justified it by saying he needed the money. (The Edwardses burned through cash at an astounding rate, on everything from real estate to Internet shopping, to which Elizabeth was apparently addicted, filling their house with unopened boxes containing items she'd bought online.) By December 2006, John had left Fortress. But the damage was done-especially since he kept some of his money in the fund, which was implicated in a welter of foreclosures in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and a ton of subprime lending, two d.a.m.ning facts that became subjects of considerable media interest in 2007.

Edwards already had an image problem when it came to his hair, due to a bootleg YouTube video, set to a sound track of "I Feel Pretty," that caught him fussing with his glossy coif before a TV interview. But now there was a story that he'd received two $400 cuts from a posh Beverly Hills stylist who later revealed that he'd once charged Edwards $1,250 for a session back in 2004.

The instinct of Team Edwards was to make a joke of John's follicular follies, but Elizabeth had other ideas. The story drove her to distraction-to the point where, over the summer, she shot a homemade response video in the backyard of their beach house, with her and John boasting about how little they paid for her engagement ring.

She sent the staff the video and told them to post it on the campaign's website. Cooler heads eventually prevailed.

The Edwards campaign was certain that the Clintonites were driving the three H Hs, planting the stories in the press at the national level and in the four early states. And it was true: frustrated by the media's indifference to its attempts to stoke negative coverage of Obama, the Clinton operation was pus.h.i.+ng the hedge fund and the haircuts. (In fact, the Obamans were also hawking the stylist story.) The Edwardses saw the effort as a sign of respect, an indication that Hillary was feeling threatened by John. Their advisers tried to spin journalists that the three Hs were nothing more than a preoccupation of the media, that voters didn't give a d.a.m.n. But, in fact, the campaign's research suggested otherwise, especially regarding the house. Fair or not, the impact on Edwards's image was undeniable. The three H Hs reinforced doubts about his substantiveness, and, more damaging, his authenticity.

Problematic as all that was, however, it paled beside another threat that returned as the summer turned to fall. Suddenly, it appeared that a fourth H H might be added to the list-an might be added to the list-an H H that could have stood for "honey" or for "hussy," but either way stood for "Hunter." that could have stood for "honey" or for "hussy," but either way stood for "Hunter."

ROGER ALTMAN PICKED UP the phone in his thirty-eighth-floor office on the East Side of New York and found John Edwards on the line. Altman, the former deputy treasury secretary who was then secretly planning Hillary Clinton's White House transition, was chairman of the investment group Evercore Partners. Since 1999, Evercore had owned a stake in American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer National Enquirer-and it was that connection that prompted an agitated Edwards to call Altman one day in the first week of October.

There's a story about to come out in the Enquirer Enquirer, Edwards said, which is going to allege that I had an affair with a woman who used to travel with my campaign. The story is untrue and outrageous, he insisted. It's going to be extremely hurtful to my family. Could you please do something to stop it?

Altman barely knew Edwards, but could tell he was upset. "I haven't heard a word about this," Altman said. "I'll look into it, but there's really nothing I can do."

He had some sympathy for Edwards. The Enquirer Enquirer had been a thorn in Altman's side for years, especially when it published embarra.s.sing pieces on his powerful friends. So he called David p.e.c.k.e.r, the had been a thorn in Altman's side for years, especially when it published embarra.s.sing pieces on his powerful friends. So he called David p.e.c.k.e.r, the Enquirer Enquirer's publisher, and asked him about the story. We have evidence, p.e.c.k.e.r told him. "This thing could have a big impact on this guy, so let's be triply sure," Altman said. p.e.c.k.e.r replied that he already was.

A little later, Altman's phone buzzed again. This time it was Elizabeth, in tears.

You must do something about this, she begged. It's cruel, it's unfair, and it's untrue. This is way too much for me. I can't take it. It's killing our family. It's killing me.

Altman was torn up by Elizabeth's distress. He knew, of course, that she was ill. He considered her the victim in this sordid episode. But Altman's hands were tied. "I'm really sorry, Mrs. Edwards," he said. "I'm really, really sorry."

The Enquirer Enquirer story didn't come completely out of left field for the Edwardsphere. Back in April and May, there had been whispers that Hunter had reappeared, with rumored sightings of her at hotels where Edwards was staying. (Once, an advance staffer sent up to his boss's room to retrieve something had come upon a woman matching Hunter's description.) Then, over the summer, a reporter from the Huffington Post began digging into the sudden disappearance of the webisodes from the One America site. The HuffPo story, published in September, was mild-full of insinuations but no direct allegations. story didn't come completely out of left field for the Edwardsphere. Back in April and May, there had been whispers that Hunter had reappeared, with rumored sightings of her at hotels where Edwards was staying. (Once, an advance staffer sent up to his boss's room to retrieve something had come upon a woman matching Hunter's description.) Then, over the summer, a reporter from the Huffington Post began digging into the sudden disappearance of the webisodes from the One America site. The HuffPo story, published in September, was mild-full of insinuations but no direct allegations.

There was little that was elliptical about the Enquirer Enquirer story that hit the streets on October 10, however. "Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign" was the lead, and the article went on to cite a "bombsh.e.l.l email message" in which the other woman "confesses to a friend she's 'in love with John,' but it's 'difficult because he is married and has kids.'" story that hit the streets on October 10, however. "Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign" was the lead, and the article went on to cite a "bombsh.e.l.l email message" in which the other woman "confesses to a friend she's 'in love with John,' but it's 'difficult because he is married and has kids.'"

The next morning, John and Elizabeth were scheduled to fly out of Raleigh to separate destinations-he to South Carolina, she to Iowa. But when the traveling staff arrived at their home, they found Elizabeth out of sorts, disconsolate, still in her bathrobe. She had drafted a blog post that she wanted to have published, defending her husband from the accusations against him. This kind of tawdriness was something the Clintons would be involved in, she wrote, but not the Edwardses.

The staff persuaded Elizabeth that posting such an item would do more harm than good. But she was livid about what she saw as the campaign's feeble response to the story. After pulling herself together, she and John set off for the private aviation terminal at the airport-but partway there, their car pulled over, and John got out and jumped into the staff car, saying in an exasperated tone, "I can't ride with her."

At the terminal, the couple fought in the pa.s.senger waiting area. They fought outside in the private parking lot. Elizabeth was sobbing, out of control, incoherent. As their aides tried to look away, she tore off her blouse, exposing herself. "Look at me!" she wailed at John and then staggered, nearly falling to the ground.

John tried to bring down the temperature, remaining calm and impa.s.sive, but his apparent standoffishness only seemed to infuriate and disorient Elizabeth more. Finally, after talking to her doctor on the phone, Edwards sent his wife home and flew off to South Carolina. There, outside a barbecue joint in Summerton, Edwards was asked by a reporter about the Enquirer Enquirer story; he offered a paean to Elizabeth-"I've been in love with the same woman for thirty-plus years, and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, s.e.xy and as good a person as I have ever known"-coupled with the blanket claim that "the story's just false" but no denial of the specific allegations it contained. story; he offered a paean to Elizabeth-"I've been in love with the same woman for thirty-plus years, and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, s.e.xy and as good a person as I have ever known"-coupled with the blanket claim that "the story's just false" but no denial of the specific allegations it contained.

Out of view, the Edwards campaign was in damage-control mode, going into overdrive to dissuade the mainstream media from picking up the story, denouncing it as tabloid trash. Their efforts at containing the fallout were remarkably successful. The Enquirers Enquirers expose gained zero traction in the traditional press and almost none in the blogosphere. Edwards's relief was palpable, as was his grat.i.tude to the small coterie of aides who had corralled the story. "It's John," he began in a voice mail to one of them. "I just wanted to call and thank you for everything you've done in the past few days. It hasn't been easy, I know that, and I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you've done. We'll get through this together. Don't worry, man." expose gained zero traction in the traditional press and almost none in the blogosphere. Edwards's relief was palpable, as was his grat.i.tude to the small coterie of aides who had corralled the story. "It's John," he began in a voice mail to one of them. "I just wanted to call and thank you for everything you've done in the past few days. It hasn't been easy, I know that, and I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you've done. We'll get through this together. Don't worry, man."

The next voice mail in the staffer's queue was from Elizabeth, who vented her fury that the story had appeared in any form, suspicious that the very aides who had kept the matter from mushrooming had somehow enabled the affair.

"You're to have nothing more to do with this!" Elizabeth hissed. "Nothing more! You stay away from our family! You are poison! You're dead to us!"