Unfortunately, Americans were so hardened in their positions that as election night grew close, everyone realized that we were fig cat hting over a tiny number of voters-a few hundred thousand in each of a handful of “swing” states-who might actually be undecided. Kerry’s campaign team decided that Edwards could serve them best by making a series of national TV appearances, and he performed perfectly on shows ranging from The View to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Leno and Edwards liked each other. The host told the audience he loved the oft-told story about how every year Edwards took Elizabeth to Wendy’s for hamburgers to celebrate their anniversary. He said that any man who could get away with that deserved to be elected.
Between the national TV shows and the debate, Edwards was seen by well over 100 million TV viewers in the span of a week. But when he suggested the campaign let him make a bigger effort to woo voters in the South, especially in North Carolina, Kerry’s people balked. Despite polls showing Democrats had the best chance there in decades, they refused to buy any television ads in the Tar Heel State. Instead, they focused their spending on the Midwest and sent the senator to out-of-the-way places like Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Iowa. Edwards was furious about this.
For reasons that were never explained, the advisers and managers at the top of the campaign developed a surprising amount of confidence in the final weeks and, to our surprise, held back more than $14 million that could have been spent on advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts in Ohio and Florida. Although we kept hearing concern, even worry, in the voices of friends, Kerry operatives talked to the press about the combination of states that would get them to the magic number of 270 electoral college votes. In every winning scenario, either Ohio or Florida was painted blue for a Democratic Party victory.
The campaign ended in Boston. On election day I flew into Logan with the senator’s family and friends and checked in at the Copley Plaza. (Cheri came with me to soak up the moment.) The weather was dreary, but the hotel was so alive with press and security people that it felt as though we had arrived at the center of the universe. Everywhere we turned we bumped into someone we knew, and our conversations were filled with a mixture of relief, hope, and gratitude. As Cheri and I sat at lunch with the Edwards family, the senator’s sister, Kathy, said, “You’re closer to him than anyone, Andrew, and if he’s elected, he’s going to need you even more.” His parents said they agreed, and it made me feel good.
Kathy was part of a large group I shepherded on a day that included an afternoon aboard an amphibious tourist craft operated by an outfit called Boston Duck Tours, which took us around to historic sites and to the Charles River and Boston Harbor. (The senator’s mother, Bobbi, got a chance to drive the “duck.”) All the while, I was receiving text-message reports on exit polls that were very promising for our side. As I gave them updates, Bobbi and Wallace seemed overwhelmed by the thought that their son might win the second-highest office in the country. We couldn’t be sure of the outcome, of course, but by the end of the afternoon, as Cheri and I went to the hotel to dress for dinner, we were almost convinced that the Kerry-Edwards team had won.
eight=“0em” width=“1em” align=“justify”›Our minds were changed as we gathered at the Palm restaurant for the last supper of the campaign. Although some in the friends and family group clung to the hope that we had received better “inside” information, the television reported that Bush was likely to hold on to the White House. As I checked in with people high in the campaign, they stopped talking about their new offices in the West Wing and started to sound very pessimistic. Eventually they stopped answering their phones, and with their voice-mail files full, I couldn’t even leave a message.
After dinner, Cheri and I went back to the Copley Plaza with the senator’s family and got on the elevator with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Upstairs, we headed to the senator’s VIP area, where we ran into the actor Matt Dillon, model Christie Brinkley, and Seinfeld creator Larry David. By the time the polls started to close, we were almost sure we had lost, so although the place was filled with the sounds of phones ringing, people talking, and TVs blaring, the atmosphere was still fairly somber. We heard lots of reports of minority voters-our voters-being blocked from the polls.
The count and the media coverage reminded me of 2000, when I had sat in the senator’s living room and irregularities cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, especially in Florida. This time the center of controversy was Ohio, where, we heard, people in mostly Democratic wards were having a difficult time with long lines and officials who challenged seemingly valid voter registrations. Although some newscasters called the election for Bush, at midnight Kerry conducted a conference call from his house with about fifty advisers and Senator Edwards and concluded that the race was so close, he couldn’t concede.
Even though he had problems with Kerry, Edwards saw the election as a battle of good versus evil and truly believed the country would be hurt by four more years of Bush-Cheney. Although he was concerned about all the people who were standing in the rain at the Kerry-Edwards rally site in Boston Common, the Bush-Gore fiasco of 2000 had made him deeply suspicious of the vote-counting process. Kerry continued to hold out, and at about three o’clock in the morning he sent Edwards to the Common to speak. (Many people thought it was strange that Kerry didn’t address the crowd himself.)
The diehards who stood in the rain on that cold November night numbered in the thousands. Many had on Red Sox caps, worn like emblems of their tremendous patience, which had been rewarded just days before when their beloved team had finally won the World Series after eighty-six years. They had seen Tom Brokaw and Wolf Blitzer declare Bush reelected on the big TV screens set up near the stage but remained waiting faithfully to hear from their candidates. When Edwards appeared, they cheered so loudly that his parents called from the hotel to ask me if the Democrats had actually won. Of course they had not, but I thought that the roar confirmed that the wrong guy had been at the top of the ticket. “We’ve waited four years for this victory,” he said. “We can wait one more night.”
By morning, when it seemed they had lost Ohio by about one hundred thousand votes, Edwards spoke to Kerry and could tell he was devastated. Although Edwards thought he should wait and perhaps contest the Ohio result, Kerry soon conceded to Bush via a phone call and then scheduled a public appearance for ten-thirty at historic Faneuil Hall. While he waited for this event, the senator asked me to find his parents and bring them to his suite. When I brought Wallace and Bobbi to the room, I could see that something other than the election was going on. The senator told his parents and then told me that they thought Mrs. Edwards had cancer.
At Faneuil Hall, Senator and Mrs. Edwards seemed untroubled, smiling for the audience and applauding as John Kerry thanked them for their hard work and friendship. She had seen a doctor four days earlier and with his support delayed further tests so they could continue the campaign. As soon as the event ended, they went to see a specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, who performed a biopsy that confirmed the cancer was present and showed it had spread in a way that was extremely serious.
As public figures who had made their life experience part of their political appeal to the nation, the Edwardses didn’t wait to tell the world about their crisis. Their statements to the press, and background provided by aides, helped reporters present them as bravely soldiering on-Mrs. Edwards went to a dozen events after she learned she might have cancer-for the good of her husband, the Democratic Party, and the country. Ironically enough, the news of Mrs. Edwards’s diagnosis appeared in the press at the same time the media was filled with analysis of the election and articles predicting the senator’s political future. Although he was widely regarded as the Democrat most likely to challenge Hillary Clinton for the 2008 presidential nomination, he downplayed his prospects, noting that for the foreseeable future he would be focused on his wife’s health. I felt a chill when he talked privately about how her cancer affected his chances for attaining a higher office.