The new book "Game Change" about the 2008 election certainly slices and dices whatever was left of former U.S. Sen. John Edward's reputation -- and this time leaves his wife Elizabeth's image in the same shape.
They fought constantly over the course of the campaign, to hear authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin tell it, including one horrendous public spectacle at the Raleigh-Durham private aviation terminal when she ripped off her blouse and screamed "Look at me" to Edwards as embarrassed staffers turned their heads.
Edwards has long been revealed as a shameless egotist who believed the people loved him, and the stories of how he treated his staff poorly while pursuing an affair with a videographer, the truly bizarre Rielle Hunter, are well-known. But it will come as news to many that Elizabeth, a lawyer whom many regarded as a sympathetic figure also treated campaign staff like dirt and even made fun of John, calling him a "hick" and ridiculing his parents as "rednecks," the authors wrote.
Edwards' pursuit of the White House began within two years of his arrival in Washington, and changed him from a down-to-earth guy who was nice to people into a constant candidate striving for the big-time. At one point he tried to cut a deal with Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign to become his vice presidential candidate -- or that Obama would become Edwards' VP running mate if Edwards won early primaries -- and later tried to parlay that into becoming Obama's attorney general nominee. Toward the end the best deal Edwards could cut was for a speech slot at the Democratic National Convention, and then even that opportunity evaporated.
A number of people on Edwards' staff tried to warn him that he was playing with fire, including one of the smartest pollsters ever to work in N.C. and national politics, Harrison Hickman. Heileman and Halperin wrote that in 2005 Hickman tried to get Edwards to see how he had changed for the worse:
“You can’t talk to people that way,” Hickman scolded him after one off-putting display. People are attracted to the nice John Edwards, and for a lot of them, you’re not that John Edwards anymore.
Edwards bridled at the criticism. “I don’t know where that’s coming from,” he snapped. “You have to consider the source … A lot of these people are hangers-on.”
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#ixzz0cKG8Svrn
