Slate's Bizbox
first mates: Explaining political marriages.

Elizabeth and the Big HouseInside the Edwards marriage.

By Melinda Henneberger
Posted Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, at 3:34 PM ET

(Continued from page 2)

Even after finding a lump the size of an egg in her breast in 2004, Elizabeth decided not to tell her husband right away. It was 12 days before the presidential election, and one of her worries was that he would insist on attending to her at the expense of the campaign. Another was that if anybody found out why the vice presidential nominee was distracted, he'd be accused of trying to capitalize on the situation. That particular concern—that the reaction of the press to a woman with breast cancer would be to suspect her mate of milking the situation—doubtless says even more about us than it does about them. But John Edwards didn't hear about the lump until more than a week later—an eternity Elizabeth spent making speeches, making friends, making the case for her husband. And as usual, speaking to him on the phone several times a day. After Wade died, she'd promised herself he would never have to hear bad news again. Not if there was any way she could spare him.

So she held back, betraying nothing until after she'd seen a doctor. In many ways, the days before you know for sure you have cancer are worse than those that follow a diagnosis. How could she keep that lifetime in limbo from her husband? As their daughter Cate asks, "I mean, who is able to do that?" Someone who has learned that denial is not all bad? As long as she didn't tell John, she says, she herself didn't have to fully take in what was happening. If he didn't know it, how real could it be? "I kept myself from thinking about it, too. As long as I could push it aside and tell myself I'd had a cyst before" then reality could be kicked down the road. "I thought I was going to be fine, even when I was in the doctor's office" and he was telling her it was not fine, not at all. Unlike her husband, "I'm a worrier by nature, but not about myself. We say we are optimists. But we really are."

Who would doubt it? Realists have no place in politics, especially at the presidential level. They tend not even to run, because electoral success is always a long shot at the outset. And they wouldn't last long if they did, because voters seldom appreciate cleareyed assessments. (What they do like: Morning in America! Baghdad in a fortnight, then on to Damascus!) Bill Clinton's famous ability to compartmentalize may not have done wonders for his private life but is a skill required in his line of work. Not for nothing did Karl Rove's mentor Lee Atwater advise all his candidates to "play dumb and keep moving." Even Atwater couldn't hip-fake real life, of course, and ended up writing long letters of apology for much of his dirty-campaign-trick oeuvre before succumbing to a brain tumor at age 40. But the Edwards family has had more than its share of real life to outrun. So much so, in fact, that just how much stark reality the voter is willing to contemplate is at issue in his campaign.

Today at home, Elizabeth Edwards seems tired—and you would be, too, if you'd just decorated the tallest Christmas tree south of Rockefeller Center—but no less than fully convinced the country needs and is ready for her husband in the Oval Office. This year, on their 30th anniversary, they renewed their wedding vows in a private ceremony out back. What their union most suggests about the kind of president her husband would make, she says, pulling her hair off her face, is that "with John, you say the good things and the bad things; that's the interaction in our family and home, so you could expect a high degree of candor" from him in the White House. I can't say I sensed that high degree of candor only an hour earlier, when a campaign aide cautioned me that anything I might see written on the walls in the Edwards campaign HQ was off the record (I failed to spot anything remotely quotable on the Big Board). But hey, she doesn't staff him.

And I believe Elizabeth when she says the main effect of her cancer recurrence on her husband is that it's made him more himself—more driven and impatient, because the country and the planet don't have all the time in the world, either: "This isn't anger, it's urgency about where we start as a country, and clarity about where the problems lie."

VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Melinda Henneberger is a Slate contributor and the author of If They Only Listened to Us: What Women Voters Want Politicians To Hear.
Illustration by Charlie Powell.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

When a candidate who claims to be as principled as John Edwards builds and lives in a 28,000 square foot home it means something very unfortunate: he does not understand energy and the environment. Where is the candidate that will tell Americans that just because you can do something doesn't mean you should? Who understands that we need to start living smaller? Not everything needs to be super-sized. That is not providing for your children - it is giving them an unsustainable and inefficient white elephant. And to say that you want everyone to be able to live like this is the most ridiculous part. Sorry, we can't - and shouldn't, even if we could. There is no way that I can support a McMansion candidate. Such a house is an offense to anyone who understands sustainable design, location efficiency, and how important the husbanding of our resources is to future.

--JTraveller

(To reply, click here.)

I probably wouldn't have any problem considering Mrs. Edwards for the title of "Spouse of the Year." She would certainly get my attention ofthe possible nominees. Having said that, I think the Edwardses try too hard. She seems like a great person and...let's face it, he's not hard to look at.

I don't think the former senator is electable. Perhaps not all candidates need to be in politics for a long time, but I think in the case of Edwards...he needs to serve in the Senate again, or take on some other political position before he will really be able to gain the voters' respect as a presidential choice. It may not be experience as much as individual personality.

He still comes across as the "Rich Kid with a Silver Tongue." That may not be who he is..., but that's the perception. My advice...stay away from presidential races and build a name in Federal Govt. then come back and see us.

--Eugenio M.

(To reply, click here.)

(12/25)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Assessing Sarah Palin
Topic A | Political experts weigh in on McCain's running mate.
Meyerson: Pure Identity PoliticsCapehart: A Hail Mary Pass
PLUS » Froomkin: The Anti-Bush