The Politician (20 page)

I heard all about this when I went to the airport near Disney World to meet the jet that brought Edwards back that night. While I waited outside the private terminal, I watched a couple of maintenance workers who were hanging around for this one last arrival, playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and reveling in the fact that they were getting paid overtime. The jet finally landed at 12:50
A.M
., and as the senator came inside, I could see he had relaxed with a little wine. He introduced himself to the card players (as if they really cared who he might be) and then said, “Man, I gotta piss.” (The senator was irked that the jet was too small to have a decent toilet.)

Once we got in the car, Edwards refused to tell me what had happened until I assured him that everyone he had left behind had enjoyed themselves during the day. Once I’d done this, he told me about the car with the tinted windows, Albright’s house, Kerry’s interest in the Animal Kingdom, and the substance of the conversation. He thought it was ridiculous that Kerry had asked him to promise he wouldn’t run in 2008 but considered the rest of the meeting a terrific success. Kerry had stopped just short of offering him the job, but before the session was over he’d shown Edwards a mock-up of a Kerry-Edwards campaign logo: red, white, and blue, with an American flag.

It was about two o’clock when we got to the hotel. We went upstairs together, and as we split to go to our rooms we exchanged a victorious high five, like a couple of UNC ballplayers celebrating a three-pointer. The next day, the national press was reporting that John Kerry had conducted a secret meeting with the person leading the contest to join the ticket. Several commentators noted that since John Edwards was at Walt Disney World
with his family, he was almost certainly out of the running. But one source, ABC’s
The Note,
offered a hint by posting the mileage from Washington, D.C., to Disney World. I never figured out how they knew and why they didn’t follow up on it.

S
everal days passed while Kerry made his final pick. The Youngs and the Edwardses went home to North Carolina, and at both houses the phones rang continuously. For four days, I couldn’t say anything as friends, colleagues, neighbors, and members of the press called to ask questions and share rumors, the most persistent being the idea that the only one on the Kerry team opposed to Edwards was Teresa Heinz Kerry. Gradually, her resistance was overcome (or set aside), and by the Fourth of July, Edwards seemed to be in the lead, according to everyone we spoke to.

On that day, I accompanied the senator on his annual “Beach Walk,” which was really just a stroll along the ocean with stops to talk to voters and their families. In private moments, we discussed where we might hold the first Kerry-Edwards rally in North Carolina and decided we could get the biggest crowd in Raleigh. Robbins was now way too small.

Two days later, in the early morning hours, deliverymen working from trucks that stopped at newsstands throughout the New York region hurled onto the sidewalk bound stacks of the day’s
New York Post
. On the cover was a big photo of Dick Gephardt and John Kerry below the headline
KERRY
’
S CHOICE
.

In Raleigh, my phone rang at about six
A.M
. A friend whose father was a bigwig in the national Republican Party practically shouted into the phone, “Congratulations!” He then explained that his father had received word that Edwards was on the ticket. The source was completely reliable, he said, and the
New York Post
was as wrong as the
Chicago Daily Tribune
had been with its
DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN
screamer in 1948. The Republicans must have had a very good line into the Kerry operation, because I called Senator Edwards immediately and heard that he was still waiting to hear the news.

I got off the phone with the senator in order to keep his line open and practically shook with anticipation. Although the senator was the focus of the decision, and no one outside my immediate circle even knew I would be affected, I felt as though the rest of my life depended on what John Kerry was thinking. Desperate for information, I called Fred Whitfield, a friend of mine who just happened to be Dick Gephardt’s neighbor in Washington. (A close friend of Michael Jordan’s, Whitfield was then an executive with the Washington Wizards basketball team.) Whitfield said that Gephardt was in town and some media folks were camped out by his door. But the mood in this crowd was not positive. This suggested that the
Post
was wrong and Edwards was in.

While I had talked with Fred, Kerry had finally phoned Edwards to ask him to be on the ticket. The match was made, and the senator immediately called the hotel where Elizabeth was staying. Ironically, she was in the washroom and didn’t get to the phone before it went to voice mail. I then got through to the senator, and he told me, “It’s good, Andrew, I’ll call you back in a second.” After he finally spoke to her, he dialed me right back and said, “We’re in, Andrew, and we’re going to win it.”

Mrs. Edwards flew home immediately, and the family called on me to come help them pack to leave for the Heinz farm outside Pittsburgh. The mood at their house was high, and while the senator and I talked in the library, he said, “Andrew, isn’t this great? We’re going to do it. We’re really going to do it.”

In an unguarded moment, I tried to joke with the senator by saying, “Yeah, but it’s too bad that Kerry is such an asshole.”

In an instant, the rapport between us disappeared. The senator called out to his wife, “Did you hear that, Elizabeth? Andrew thinks Kerry’s an asshole.” I was suddenly flushed with embarrassment, and though I couldn’t hear her reply, I’m sure it was a scolding remark. The senator went into another room, and although the chill soon thawed, I had been taught a lesson. Everyone in the Edwards camp now approved of John Kerry, and this would be our attitude for the foreseeable future.

I was willing to go along, but I was unable to stop noticing the things about the Kerrys that struck me as odd. For example, when the Kerry and Edwards families got together for their first photo op at the Heinz family farm, Teresa took it upon herself to reach over and try to pull little Jack’s thumb out of his mouth. Of course, this was the moment when the photographers started clicking and it was the picture published in many leading papers. Soon enough, commentators in the
Times
and on National Public Radio were asking, What business was it of hers to handle a nervous four-year-old who was someone else’s kid?

The family summit at the ninety-acre farm was followed by a four-day campaign swing that would end on Saturday in Raleigh. They traveled on a Boeing 757 that was decorated with the Kerry-Edwards logo and were met by big crowds in four states. (The senator had come a long way from the days when I drove him around the state with a Velcro-backed U.S. Senate seal.) While they rallied the faithful, I raced around the Edwards home to prepare it for a crew from the CBS News program
60 Minutes
(they were going to tape interviews in the living room) and for the Kerrys to stay overnight.

The Edwardses were not meticulous housekeepers, and I was hard-pressed to chase down all the dust bunnies, empty Diet Coke cans, and throw out old newspapers and magazines that cluttered the place. Once again I had to move furniture out so that TV cameras and lights could be positioned, and I had to make sure that the balky air-conditioning system was in good order and the kitchen was stocked for both families and the media crews.

Just like many VIPs I had worked with, the Kerrys sent their preferences ahead. According to the list, Teresa would eat either grilled salmon with steamed vegetables or one of two types of salad: Cobb or chicken Caesar. John Kerry wanted Boost energy drinks (strawberry or vanilla) and a dinner of roast chicken, meat loaf, or pot roast. They both requested chocolate cake and only one kind of wine—Kendall Jackson Sauvignon Blanc. I made sure every item on the list—including peanut butter and strawberry
preserves—was in the kitchen. Following Mrs. Edwards’s orders, I also hired a chef to stand by and prepare whatever anyone wanted.

The main event for the North Carolina visit was an afternoon rally at North Carolina State University that drew more than twenty-five thousand people. It was to be the largest political rally the state had ever seen and would raise the hope that Edwards might actually give the Democrats a chance to win North Carolina for the first time since 1976. While en route, the senator called to ask me to send a sport coat to the airport. I ignored the request because it was ninety-plus degrees and I was extremely busy.

The rally became a love fest, with Edwards shouting, “He’s with me!” and Kerry asking if the Tar Heels would mind lending the nation Edwards’s services for eight or maybe sixteen years. At many points in the rally, the huge crowd roared its approval. One of these moments arrived when Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” rang out of the sound system. After the song, Teresa Heinz Kerry took the microphone and assured folks that “these Johnnies will be good if Elizabeth and I have anything to do with it.” Later, she explained that she and Mrs. Edwards would protect their husbands from those who would “inflate their egos or try to destroy them.”

I know about what happened at the rally only because I saw bits of it on television. I was at the senator’s house, making sure all would be ready when they arrived to talk with Lesley Stahl of
60 Minutes
. I thought I had considered every potential problem when I called an air-conditioning guy to make sure the balky cooling system would hold up. Then I started to hear a noise that sounded like chirping in the chimney for the living room fireplace. A bird had somehow found its way inside. After I made a racket and the bird stayed put, I placed a frantic call to an exterminator—the company was called Critter Gitter—who agreed that it was an emergency and came right over.

With a strong flashlight, the exterminator spotted a nest of baby birds and then gave me the bad news. They were members of an endangered species. This meant he had to follow specific procedures to ensure the birds’
safety. I believed what he said, but as politically incorrect as it may sound, I didn’t care what he did to get rid of this feathered nuisance. “Just get them out of there as fast as you can,” I told him, and then I left the room so I wouldn’t have to watch. To this day, I can’t tell you what he did, but it worked. And fast.

As the exterminator was leaving, the Secret Service came through the house to make one last security sweep. I forgot to tell them the AC guy was in the crawl space. He jumped out of his skin when he saw the bomb dogs and had to explain why he was there. The Secret Service declared the house safe even though they were not happy with the condition of the chef. While I was running around, he had downed a couple of beers.

When the candidates arrived, the Kerrys looked at the house with obvious disdain. Though the plan had called for them to spend the night, they made it clear they would not. Senator Edwards, obviously in a bad mood, complained to me that I had forgotten to send his sport coat to the big rally, which meant he couldn’t make a show of peeling it off in front of the crowd and saying, “It’s great to be back home.” Kerry found everything the cook had made inedible, and the Secret Service drove his body man to a Boston Market store for replacement food. Teresa, who was nervous about the
60 Minutes
appearance, drank a glass of wine. Loosened up, she then paced around the house and clomped up and down the wooden staircase, making so much noise that the field producer had to holler, “Cut!” several times during Stahl’s interview of the candidates in the next room.

Seated side by side, Kerry and Edwards grinned like a couple of guys who were having fun, and I believed they were. The hostility they may have felt seemed to have been submerged in their pursuit of a mutual goal, and they insisted that they were comfortable with their roles and their agenda. When Stahl pressed him with questions about their relationship, Senator Edwards reduced the issue to a matter of commitment. “At the end of the day, all the words in the world will not make up for one thing,” he said. “You have to have trust. I trust him.”

After a break to get people arranged, the candidates’ wives joined the
interview. As I watched from the back of the room, I marveled at how far Mrs. Edwards had come. I knew she was uncomfortable, but she looked composed and she spoke without hesitating. Stahl was most interested in how these women saw their roles, and Mrs. Edwards accurately described herself as the person who would tell her husband the truth when others would not, and would provide a sort of ballast to keep him stable. To have someone who will play this role is “a very good thing,” she said.

L
ike Mrs. Edwards, who had always tried, in her way, to help her husband maintain his balance, I would be assuming a role similar to the one I had played since I volunteered for his campaign. I tried to make things run smoothly for the senator and to fix problems as soon as they arose. My immediate concern was the upcoming national convention in Boston. The senator asked me to be responsible for the care of his family and friends. While other people might get frazzled by logistics and dealing with emergencies, it came easily to me.

At the convention, Mrs. Edwards gave me a tough problem to solve when she left a dozen or so messages on my cell phone explaining that she had left the outfit she intended to wear when her husband accepted his nomination at a dry cleaner’s back in Raleigh. I knew that the last flight to Boston left Raleigh-Durham International Airport in less than an hour. With a few quick calls, I managed to get someone to race to the cleaner’s, pick up the outfit, and take it to the airport, where my contact with American Airlines got it on the flight. Mrs. Edwards was thrilled when her clothes arrived just a few hours after she’d informed me they were missing. (She also insisted I remove two women from a list of VIP guests from North Carolina, though I wasn’t told why they had to be cut.)