2004 Race

The Goods

The bus is a rolling living room, with local politicians, major donors, and VIP supporters hopping on for a ride. In New Hampshire, Glenn Close came on for two days, entertaining the travelers with her menacing Cruella De Vil persona (“Do you have any little puppies?”), to the delight of the shrieking kids.

Joking and teasing, Edwards is at ease with his young staff, but in public he’s become much more guarded, rarely taking questions from voters, convinced that staying on-message—“My campaign is not about the politics of cynicism, it’s about the politics of hope”—represents the ticket to victory. He’s a charismatic speaker who connects—exit polls have shown he scores much higher than Kerry in the category of “cares about people like me”—but at times Edwards leaves audiences hungry for more specifics of his plans for health care, college-tuition help, or resolving the Iraq morass. Yet his movie-star looks and dazzling grin continue to draw crowds. At Allen University, a predominantly black school in Columbia, the handmade signs carried by students included DON’T HATE ME BECAUSE I’M BEAUTIFUL.

These days, Edwards no longer automatically turns on his charm for the press corps, rarely offering off-the-record hang-out time and instead doling out a few one-on-one interviews daily along with brief press conferences. Reporters, bored with hearing the same stump speech four times a day, constantly try to provoke him. “John was doing an issue a week, but the press wrote next to nothing about it,” says Elizabeth Edwards. “They just want him to take out an AK-47 and aim it at other candidates. You can present a great policy idea, but you all write about the train wreck.”

Elizabeth frequently strolls the sidelines at events unaccompanied by handlers, answering with dry wit whatever questions, silly or serious, reporters toss at her. When a reporter for Chinese television asked whether she missed spending time with her husband these days (she spends half her time campaigning on her own), she replied, “We’ve been married for 26 years. I know what he looks like.” When another reporter wondered about her power in setting strategy, she quipped, “There’s a 5-year-old on the bus who will tell you she’s the most important person in this campaign.” And when a journalist mentioned that the couple was rich thanks to the millions her husband earned as a trial lawyer, she said, totally deadpan, “I know—isn’t it just awful?”

Though Edwards harps on his humble origins and inspiring autobiography, he never voluntarily mentions the most painful episode in his life, the death of his teenage son Wade in an auto accident in 1996. It’s something he wants people to know—he discussed his agony in his book, Four Trials—but has long said that he would not play the sympathy card and exploit a private tragedy for political gain. Axelrod says that when Edwards was asked recently by a voter about a pin he always wears on his lapel, the senator simply replied that it was an Outward Bound pin, choosing not to explain that it had belonged to Wade. Perhaps because Elizabeth is more approachable, strangers aware of Wade’s death often stop her to share their own tragedies.

“People will give me a note, you open it later and realize that you should have given them a big hug,” she says. “Or they’ll tap me on the shoulder. It’s a bond you have with people. It doesn’t make me unhappy or nervous or awkward. You just let everything else drop; this is the most important thing at this moment.”

On primary day in South Carolina, while waiting for the polls to close, Edwards and his wife spent the afternoon at the Moylans’ house in Columbia. Hoarse from bronchitis, Edwards stayed mostly off the phone to rest his voice, but still went for a long run. Rehearsing his speech, he paced the floor, too wired to sit. The exit polls made it clear that he had won big-time; the pool press were supposed to arrive at 6:30 sharp for a quick photo op, but because of a snafu showed up twenty minutes late.

Edwards wanted to savor the triumphant moment when the networks named him the victor at 7 p.m. in private, with family and friends, so he urged chief of staff Miles Lackey to get the press in and out quickly. The still photographers ran into the living room just as Dan Rather was saying he’d be announcing the winner shortly, and got less than three minutes before being ushered out. Then it was the reporters’ turn. “What will winning South Carolina mean for your finances?” was the first question. Edwards looked flabbergasted: “That’s what you want to know?” “I guess,” Elizabeth quipped, “I can afford to go shopping.” The reporters asked just a few more questions, but by the time they were rushed out the door, the networks had already made the call—and Edwards had missed it.

South Carolina is the one state where he’s taken the gold so far; winning the Mr. Congeniality Awards in Tennessee and Virginia last week in his backyard was not exactly a resounding vote of confidence. As soon as the polls close in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Edwards plans to jet into Manhattan for fund-raisers and rallies, to make his final case before perhaps his most cynical audience to date. Can this happy warrior with a southern accent hold back the darkly complex Vietnam vet who has the entire Eastern establishment in his corner? It’s unlikely, but New Yorkers have always had a soft spot for wide-eyed, anything’s-possible dreamers.