Politician Page 8

  The senator responded with an eager smile, saying I could have the job if I wanted it. But he urged me to make sure that Cheri and I both knew what we were getting into. When I got home that night, she didn’t hesitate. She said I had to try out Washington and that she would support me. I then took a quick trip to consult with the staff there, learn what the job entailed, and make my decision.

  My visit took place on a typical June day for Washington, which meant ninety-degree temperatures and high humidity. The Edwards office was in the Dirksen Building, a big slab that occupies half a block along Constitution Avenue between First and Second streets NE. Built in the 1950s, the place is covered in marble that is so white, at certain times of day you risk temporary blindness from the reflected sunlight when you step outside.

  Will Austin, the man I would replace, and my old friend Julianna Smoot met me at the Edwards suite, which was on the second floor. They showed me around, introduced me to the people who would be my coworkers, and talked about the job. Based on what they said, my assignment would be demanding, but I thought I could handle it. However, Julianna and Will didn’t explain the real challenge involved until we had left the building for lunch and settled into an outdoor table at a little restaurant.

  For several minutes, the two of them talked about the pressure they felt working on the Hill and the cutthroat nature of the competition both inside the Edwards office and with the staff who worked for other members of the Senate. A case in point was Josh Stein, who had done more to get John Edwards elected senator than anyone because he had run the Senate campaign. Josh had served as “acting” chief of staff or deputy chief of staff. But he never got the chief of staff job on a permanent basis because of Mrs. Edwards. She told me that she believed that Josh kept things from her, and that made her suspicious. (In fact, Senator Edwards often told key staffers to withhold things from his wife.) Eventually, her disapproval would drive him back to North Carolina, where he won election to the state senate.

  Will and Julianna did their best to make me understand the environment inside the Edwards operation—they used the term snakepit and warned, “They’ll suck you dry”—but I didn’t really want to hear it. I was too busy thinking about how inspiring it would be to walk to work on Capitol Hill every morning and take my daily run on the National Mall in the shadow of the Smithsonian Institution. I insisted that Cheri and I were ready for the move, that everything would be okay.

  “But Andrew, you have everything you could want right now,” said Julianna. “You have a beautiful wife, a baby, a house, and the chance at a normal life. That’s what we all want and don’t have. Why would you want to come up here and give that all away? D.C. is miserable. The people here suck.”

  It was almost impossible for me to understand what they were saying. Washington seemed beautiful, exciting, and full of opportunities. The job was a perfect fit for someone with my skills, and it would put me at the center of the action. Cheri and Brody were going to come north with me. The senator was even giving me a big raise to go with the new title, and he insisted we use their condominium in Alexandria—just across the Potomac from Washington—rent-free while we got settled. What could possibly go wrong?

  Y

  ou know how most babies are lulled to sleep when you put them in a car seat and start driving? Not Brody. He hated the car and cried for much of the four-hour trip up Interstates 85 and 95 and into the District of Columbia. Cheri did her best to quiet him, and from where I sit now, years later, I have to say she also did her best to bury her own anxieties about moving to Washington and leaving behind a house still undergoing renovation and a good, stable life. I had asked her to “just believe” in the move in the same way that I had asked her to “just believe” when we met and got married. Things had worked out so far, so she set aside concerns about money and the fact that she didn’t know a soul in Washington and came along.

  When we got to the city, we went straight to the Embassy Row district and the Edwards mansion on Thirtieth Street NW, where the neighbors included the ambassadors from Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa. A massive seven-bedroom house with marble walls and a sweeping central staircase, the place reeked of power and money, but when the Edwardses met us at the door, they seemed like the same people we knew in North Carolina. If anything, they were even more down-home friendly, and they welcomed us as if we were good friends. They insisted we have dinner with them, and the senator grabbed his car keys and said, “C’mon, Andrew, let’s get some ribs.”

  When we got in the car, I realized that this was the first time I had ever ridden while he drove. And when we took off in the direction of Connecticut Avenue and his favorite hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, it struck me that I had no idea where we were going. It was a little unnerving to give up control, and the experience made it clear to me that I had left a certain comfort zone. The senator and Mrs. Edwards seemed to sense what Cheri and I were feeling, and they talked about how much time we would spend with them and how they would help us ease into our new life. When they gave us the key to their condo and directions to Alexandria, they told us not to worry about using it and to stay as long as we wanted. No rent. No worries.

  It was late evening when we finally got to our temporary home, and no doubt our first impression was affected by our fatigue. However, even after a good night’s sleep, the free condo was still a dark and depressing space with furnishings from the 1970s, as well as an orange shag carpet, a bare-bones kitchen, a living room with a sofa and TV, and a tiny bedroom. It was on the second floor of an odd-looking building that had dozens of units, but we never saw a single other soul coming or going. The neighborhood struck us as cold, not family friendly, and we quickly decided it was not the kind of place where Cheri would be comfortable hanging out alone with Brody while I was at work.

  Two days of house hunting with Elizabeth convinced us that we could not possibly afford to buy or even rent a house in Washington like the one we had in Raleigh. We eventually found something we could afford—a gutted condominium in the Watergate complex—and signed a contract to buy it. While we waited for the closing, we took out a month-to-month lease on a nicer apartment in a big complex in the Virginia suburb of McLean. It was the kind of place where almost everyone (me included) left so early in the morning and returned so late at night that it might as well have been a ghost town. Alone and isolated, Cheri spent her days with a brand-new baby who fussed and cried all day long and never slept through the night. As the weeks passed she grew more miserable, feeling she had lost her comfortable home, the support of friends, and even her husband.

  I became one of those workaholic drones who kissed his wife and baby good-bye at dawn, fought the traffic all the way to the office, and spent the next twelve hours or more in a constant frenzy of phone calls, meetings, and paperwork. To make matters worse, I learned that politics in D.C. is not like politics in good old North Carolina. It’s a full-contact sport where you have to watch your own back.

  That lesson came on my first day at my new desk beside the door to the senator’s private office. The person who sat closest to me, who had been Will’s assistant, was supposed to show me the ropes, but she was unhappy about being passed over for the job I had gotten. (The Edwardses had clearly led her to believe she would get it.) Although we ended up being close friends, we had a rough start, and she won round one. She told me a bit about working with the senator and his key people and how to set the schedule and then left me to fend for myself. I could feel her smile at my back as she watched me, the upstart from North Carolina, fail miserably. I could not cope with three desk phones that seemed to ring constantly (and often simultaneously) and a stream of people who just showed up at my desk demanding time with the boss. I kept a cheat sheet on my desk, but I still had to learn a new vocabulary—what’s the cloakroom?—and the meaning of the bells that kept ringing (they signaled votes on the Senate floor). While all this was going on, I experienced frequent moments of startled amazement as famous men
and women rang the phone. Once John McCain called to speak to the senator, and I looked up to see him on television at the same moment.

  I thought I was handling things fairly well when suddenly the door marked “Private,” which led to an outside hallway, swung open with a bang and a loud voice boomed, “Edwards! How the fuck am I gonna get you elected president if I can’t get you on the fuckin’ telephone?”

  I looked up to see Senator Edward Kennedy barreling toward me. He had some papers in one hand, and in the other he held a leash attached to a big dog with curly black hair. (Called a Portuguese water dog, the breed would become famous when Kennedy gave one to President Obama’s family.)

  Only Kennedy could get away with keeping a dog in the U.S. Capitol, and only Kennedy could charge through a private entrance and expect to see my boss immediately. He was stopped by a door that had been closed when Senator Edwards announced he needed to lie down on his sofa and get a bit of rest. When I told Kennedy I would get the senator for him, he asked why no one had answered the many calls he had placed to the private telephone that was one of the three on my desk.

  Senator Kennedy then explained that the telephone I had been using all day to place calls was, in fact, a sort of hotline for the White House and senators. It was not to be used except in an emergency. As the door to the inner office opened and Senator Edwards appeared, I was in the middle of apologizing. Both men started to smile, and I could tell the little crisis had passed. Kennedy’s face softened.

  “Did you know this used to be my office?” he asked, leaning down to me, his voice taking on an almost conspiratorial tone. He then launched into a story from 1980, when he ran for president and was assigned a Secret Service detail for protection. One day while Kennedy was in his office, the agent on duty slipped away for a moment with an aide with whom he was having an affair. (“This was before it was cool to be openly gay,” said Kennedy.) In the time when the agent was gone, a would-be attacker slipped into the office with a knife. “Fortunately, the agent returned in time and he tackled the guy, right here!”

  Kennedy slammed his hand on my desk with a whack, which startled me and made Senator Edwards laugh. The two men then retreated to his office, where they talked politics for a while. When they emerged, Edwards said, “Hey, Andrew. Don’t use that line anymore.” Later, Kennedy would invite me to his “hideaway” office in the Capitol building. Tucked in nooks and crannies behind unmarked doors, these private offices are prized bits of real estate that few people ever get to visit. Kennedy’s was filled with pictures of his family and one of John F. Kennedy’s famous rocking chairs.

  At about this time, I saw Senator Kennedy again at the Capital Grille, where he met Senator Edwards for lunch. After he asked me how I found life in Washington and I told him I barely left the office, he told me another story. “Yeah, it’s not like it was when I first got here,” he said. “It used to be civilized. The media was on our side. We’d get our work done by one o’clock and by two we were at the White House chasing women. We got the job done, and the reporters focused on the issues.” He passed for dramatic effect and added, “It was civilized.”

  As much as I loved Kennedy, Bill Clinton occupied a level of professional politics that was all his own. Despite his many controversies, when he was engaged, no one had better instincts, a better command of the issues, or a better network of powerful, loyal supporters. In a town full of great egos, no one disputed this assessment. One of the most illuminating duties I performed while in Washington involved driving Senator Edwards, Senator Chris Dodd, and a couple of other Democrats to a meeting with Clinton where he allowed them to pick his brain. I waited outside, and when my charges returned and we got back on the road, they all sat in stunned silence. Clinton had been so impressive that they didn’t know what to say. Finally, Dodd muttered, “I don’t care how long I live. I’ll never be that good.”

  The experience with Dodd and the others proved the value of being the guy who drove for a senator. Ironically, for someone who often served as a driver, I have an incredibly bad sense of direction, which was why I once tried to get out of driving Edwards to Andrews Air Force Base for his first ride on Air Force One. I didn’t know the route and told the senator to have someone else drive, but he insisted he knew how to go. We left with just enough time to get there but got terribly lost. The Secret Service called several times, and the president finally left without us. Edwards missed his flight, and of course he said it was my fault. Within a few weeks of being in Washington, I had two strikes: the mix-up with Kennedy and the Air Force One fiasco.

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  ortunately, most days didn’t bring dramatic challenges or encounters with intimidating world leaders. On most days I worked from early morning until well past dinnertime, juggling phones, reviewing hundreds of requests for appointments, and playing palace guard whenever the senator decided he had had enough and just closed his door to rest. When the Senate was in session, I had to keep track of floor votes—signaled by the bells system—and make sure the senator got to the chamber on time. On occasion, this would require me to race outside to the Mall (where he might be jogging) or to the Senate gym, where a lot of members liked to hide from their staff s, the public, and lowly members of the House of Representatives, all of whom were denied access.

  As much as senators may project an aura of deliberation, dignity, and decorum, the facts of life inside the world’s most exclusive club are much messier. Many times, senators cast votes on the basis of a signal from a staffer or a party leader, and they have no idea about the matters being considered. Aides often control the flow of business; I once heard that the cloakroom staff—who were among the most powerful people on Capitol Hill—delayed bringing the senators to the chamber for a vote because they wanted to see the end of an episode of the TV program 24. On several occasions I would have to chase down the senator, because he had gone for a run and refused to wear a cell phone or pager. More than once I put him in my car so he could get to the cloakroom on time. He’d stand in the doorway of the Senate in shorts or sweats to signal thumbs-up or thumbs-down to have his vote recorded.

  No one talks about how rules are bent and senators cast a lot of blind votes, because the illusion of a serious legislative body at work is useful to us all. It reassures voters, who want to believe that their men and women in Washington are serious about the public’s business, and it reinforces the Senate’s aura of authority, which can be a valuable thing in times of crisis. (We all want to think they are superior human beings when matters of war and peace are under consideration.) Besides, as everyone in Washington likes to say, politics is like sausage making: You really don’t want to know how it’s done.

  For the sausage makers—elected officials, their aides, consultants, pollsters, and party hacks—the product of all the effort must include, first and foremost, getting elected and reelected. This is why first-term presidents and members of the House and Senate live in a state of continual campaigning and fund-raising. Senators spend roughly a third of their time raising money for campaigns, and if they aspire to higher office, they must consider how every vote and every public statement might affect their future.

  From the moment Senator Edwards first heard he was being considered as Gore’s running mate, he imagined himself as a future president and shifted his focus away from the work of the Senate. Mrs. Edwards had the same idea and was even more enthusiastic about their prospects for inhabiting the White House. They both began to read everything they could find about national politics and global issues, including the briefing materials produced by the staff. And they began to host weekly policy dinners at their mansion, where they learned from experts who understood issues, public opinion, and the quirky system that the parties use to pick nominees. The main features of this process include early straw polls, caucuses in Iowa, and the primary election in New Hampshire. Iowa and New Hampshire are two small rural states that cannot possibly reflect the will of the nation but can make or break a candidate. Iowa has a pa
rticularly arcane process that requires voters to stand in certain places to be counted for their candidate, and the horse-trading can go on all day.

  Although every senator sees a future president in the mirror every morning, decorum prevents the hopefuls from formally announcing their intentions until a year or so before the caucuses. (It’s just bad manners to let your giant ego show any earlier.) For this reason, precampaign planning takes place behind a curtain of secrecy that adds a little thrill for those involved. I got behind the curtain in early September 2001, when I organized a day-long strategy session at the Edwardses’ Embassy Row house.

  T

  he living room at the mansion was so big that it could accommodate fifteen people, arranged in a big circle of sofas and upholstered chairs, with room to spare. The original list of attendees was actually sixteen, but just days before we got together, Julianna had a bitter falling-out with Mrs. Edwards. The senator publicly claimed that Julianna had resigned after an argument about record keeping, but he later told me the truth. The problem had been a personal conflict with Mrs. Edwards, as it had been with Josh. Julianna was replaced in the coming campaign by a couple of seasoned fund-raisers named Steve Jarding and Dave “Mudcat” Saunders. Mudcat was a colorful Southerner who liked to say he was going to make John Edwards the favorite of “grits-eatin’, gun-totin’ rednecks all over.” Mrs. Edwards loved him.

  I was upset about Julianna’s absence but soon got lost in the excitement of the business at hand—planning a presidential campaign—and the impressive circle I had been welcomed to join. When the meeting began at ten A.M., I was seated next to Bob Shrum, a balding, middle-aged man with sloping shoulders who was one of the most experienced political consultants in the country. Shrum was famous for never having backed a winning presidential candidate, but to be fair, his man Gore had won the popular vote in 2000. Shrum had also guided dozens of people to victorious races for the House and Senate and authored some very important speeches, including Ted Kennedy’s 1980 convention address, which was one of the best political addresses in American history. Our side of the room also included pollster Harrison Hickman and Erskine Bowles, a North Carolina native who had been chief of staff in the Clinton White House. Among the rest of the participants were Edwards aides, his friend Tom Girardi (the lawyer in the famous Erin Brockovich case), and, of course, Senator and Mrs. Edwards.