Cheri was right. I was wrong. But I wasn’t going to admit it that night. Instead, I said what I always said-“John Edwards is going to be president one day”-and reminded her that I had been right about him so far. Cheri had heard this before and didn’t want to hear it again on our anniversary. True to our style, we didn’t shout or bark at each other but instead seethed with emotion. With both of us feeling too upset to eat, we asked to have our food boxed to take home. The wine was on the table, so I finished it, and when the boxes came we left. The argument got worse during the forty-five-minute ride home.
Having eaten next to nothing during the day and consumed just wine and a little bread at dinner, I was not exercising good judgment when I got behind the wheel of the car. We made it home safely, but in the privacy of our house, Cheri and I went from seething to an open argument. I couldn’t hear all of her resentment for my devotion to the Edwardses and her fear that I trusted them too much. I wasn’t sensitive to how she felt about Rielle Hunter and the idea that my boss, who was supposed to be one of the “good guys,” was apparently cheating on his wife. All I heard was that she was criticizing me for how I did my job, the same job that supported our family. In the heat of the moment, I stormed out.
What happened next holds a special place in the little Hall of Shame that occupies a corner of my heart. While I was essentially driving nowhere, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw flashing lights. I pulled over (again into a McDonald’s parking lot), and my heart sank as the police car slid in behind me. Part of me was glad I had been stopped before something worse had happened. (I was still under the effects of the wine I’d had at dinner.) But I also knew immediately that an arrest for driving under the influence could hurt me and my position with Senator Edwards, especially if it got into the press. Panicked, I refused to take a Breathalyzer test. The police officer, who could tell I had been drinking, put me in handcuffs and took me to a police station I knew well from having visited with Senator Edwards during our hundred-county tour.
From the first words I exchanged with the officer who arrested me to the moment a judge released me to take a taxi home, I refused to cooperate beyond giving the police and court officials the barest information about my identity. When asked about my employer, I mentioned the names of the organizations that paid me, not John Edwards. In the end, as the process led to my release, I became completely sober and terrified about my future.
At home I found Cheri sick with worry and anger, but she quickly grasped the seriousness of what we faced, namely the loss of my reputation and, quite possibly, my job and health insurance for our family. With my DWI arrest, every other concern faded in importance as we tried to protect our financial foundation.
The practical problems that befall anyone stupid enough to drive under the influence in North Carolina are more than enough to teach an important lesson. First, you automatically lose your driver’s license, which rendered me unable to work. The courts also require you to attend frequent alcohol awareness meetings (much like sessions of Alcoholics Anonymous), and you face even more punishment, including possible jail time, once you go before a judge.
With the help of Cheri and her brother, who lived nearby, I managed to get to the meetings, and I had to hire an assistant to help me get around for work. However, I still had to deal with the damage the arrest might do to my reputation and relationship with the Edwardses. I agonized for a few days, feeling the way I used to in my shameful twenties. Finally, I followed the advice I got from Wade Byrd and David Kirby and picked up the phone to call the Edwardses. Cheri sat beside me and listened as Mrs. Edwards answered, and I decided to begin by telling her what had happened. Her response confirmed all the good feelings I had ever felt for her.
“Andrew, you are family,” she said. “You don’t worry about this. John will call you in a few minutes. It’s going to be all right.”
The senator, who had been exercising on a treadmill when I phoned, called me about half an hour later. This time I was alone on our back porch. After I laid out the story and told him I was worried about my future with him, the senator’s voice dropped into a reassuring tone as he insisted that everyone faltered at some point, and he would not abandon me. “We’ve all done something like this, Andrew. I have. I know yo saveu feel like the lowest person on earth right now, but I love you. You are like a brother to me.” I felt as if a great weight had been lifted off my heart.
Words like “love” and “family” make you feel a powerful bond, one that suggests an us-against-the-world kind of loyalty that is very comforting at times when you feel threatened. But this bond can also be a trap. When I told them about the drunk driving arrest, which the press did not report at the time, I handed the senator and Mrs. Edwards a bit of information about myself that I wanted to hide. It gave them a type of leverage that matched whatever power I held through my knowledge of the senator’s relationship with Rielle and of Elizabeth ’s more unattractive qualities: ambition, haughtiness, impatience.
Although we never actually spoke of it this way, years of intimacy had brought us to a point where we were all forced to ignore certain truths and devote ourselves to the shared goal of putting John Edwards in the White House. If this sounds to you like the unspoken pact that binds members of the Mafia, you are correct. Mob loyalty is based on fear, and with the crisis around my arrest, the basis for my loyalty to John Edwards was shifted from hope for a better future to an almost desperate dread of being exposed and losing my livelihood.
The similarities with the Mafia go beyond mutual blackmail. Like the Mob, the Edwards clan was willing to “whack” those who got out of line. A prime example of this ruthlessness arose as I was dealing with my DWI issue. A staffer who had developed deep suspicions about Rielle Hunter during the trip to Africa had taken his concern to Nick Baldick, who was still running operations for the senator. The aide, Josh Brumberger, was one of several people who had spoken to me about Rielle, but unlike the others, he wasn’t satisfied with my evasive reassurances. Soon after Brumberger talked to Nick, the senator brought him into the American Airlines Admirals Club at LaGuardia Airport and suggested he leave the Edwards team. Edwards made sure that Josh would remain discreet by arranging for him to have a job at Fortress Financial, but his dismissal sent a signal to everyone in the inner circle of the campaign.
The sudden disappearance of Josh Brumberger made me even more concerned about my future and the senator’s judgment. He should have taken Josh’s questions as a warning about the dangers of indiscretion, but he did not. In the fall of 2006, he and Mrs. Edwards traveled extensively to promote themselves (she for her book, he for the White House), and the senator saw Rielle and spoke to her by phone as often as he could.
Although he had not formally declared, the senator had been operating as a candidate for the 2008 Democratic Party nomination ever since the 2004 defeat. He faced two main opponents in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who were similarly undeclared but already campaigning. (Iowa governor Tom Vilsack and Ohio representative Dennis Kucinich were declared candidates, but they were not sthegiven much of a chance to win.) Some analysts would say that Clinton and Obama enjoyed an advantage in their offices, which gave them credibility with voters. They also received an inordinate amount of press coverage because of the historic prospect of a woman or a black man reaching the White House.