The Politician

When I got home with my news about the vice presidency, Cheri was shocked and a bit impressed. She had been skeptical about the senator. The idea that he might be moving up didn’t change her opinion completely, but it gave her a bit of confirmatio Cof n about my judgment, proof that I had placed my bet on a pretty good horse.

Days after Christopher’s call, Edwards went to meet with Gore at the vice president’s mansion on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory. He did not think he had a good shot at the job, but he enjoyed the publicity he was getting. When I saw the senator next, he talked a little about Gore, saying he had been strangely shy and that there was no spark between them. He made fun of the vice president’s pointy-​toed cowboy boots, which he wore with a suit, and he said he thought Gore was much too cautious. Eager to be his own man and distance himself from the Lewinsky scandal, Gore had all but banished President Clinton from his campaign. Edwards, who had used the president to great advantage while courting the black vote in North Carolina, thought this was a big mistake.

But although he was lukewarm about the man he met, the senator was extremely impressed by the vice president’s official residence. Built in 1893, Number One Observatory Circle is a three-​story building with a round tower and a high-​pitched main roof with dormers. It looks a lot like the faux Victorian mini-​mansions you see in pricey developments all across the South, except it’s the real thing. The senator thought it was a nicer home than the White House and would be the ideal place to prepare for a run for the presidency in, say, 2008. He didn’t say what he intended to do if he became president, but as I came to learn, most big-​time politicians don’t think much about what they will do when they get to the top of the mountain until they arrive. Until then, it’s all about the climb.

Of course, a place on the short list for vice president isn’t a guarantee of anything, especially if you are the guy’s in-​state advance man. With this in mind, Cheri and I pla

We moved in at the end of July and were still unpacking on Saturday, August 5. I put a television on top of a cardboard box and turned on CNN. At some point while I was passing by, I heard a newscaster mention Edwards as they showed a video of the senator, Mrs. Edwards, and Julia

For the rest of the weekend, the cable news shows speculated about Gore’s choice, which meant he enjoyed a bonanza of free publicity and everyone co

The buzz had become a racket, and it was impossible to ignore the idea that John Edwards just might become vice president. (On Sunday, the Daily News in New York even published a story saying Gore favored Edwards and would take Massachusetts senator John Kerry if Edwards turned him down.) I had my own ambitions, and I thought about how well I had served the senator and the possibility that he might want me to work in the vice president’s office. For me, an offer to work in a Gore/Edwards administration would mean an instant jump from the minor leagues to the majors. And as much as my apolitical wife loved the life we were building in North Carolina, she said she would make the move and support me one hundred percent.

I tried to temper my own expectations, the way the senator had tempered his wife’s on the day Warren Christopher called. Gore had other people under consideration, and presidential candidates always float a bunch of names to see how people react and to grab as much free press as possible. I also kept in mind that a jump to Washington would be disruptive. Cheri and I had just moved into a new house, and we were serious about starting a family. There was no sense in getting all worked up about something that might never happen.

Gore would make his a

“Today I don’t know any more than you,” he said. But this didn’t make much sense to me. If he was going to be the pick, he would have been informed. So any hope we had was slender at best.

All day long we kept waiting for the phone to ring with Gore on the other end, asking Edwards to come to Nashville. In the mountains the cell phone signals are so unreliable that we often lost service, so I would check every few minutes for messages. We heard from staffers and political advisers and Mrs. Edwards, but not Gore. At the events we held, where the crowds were suddenly massive and we saw more reporters than usual, the senator made sure I arranged to have him jokingly introduced as “the next vice president of the United States.”

That night in Asheville, we stayed at the historic Grove Park Resort, a massive hotel built in 1912 out of local granite by a patent medicine huckster who filled it with Arts and Crafts furniture and decorated it with quotations from Thoreau and Emerson and others. A few special rooms feature theme decorations. The “Great Gatsby” is Art Deco. The “Swinging Sixties” has a flower power motif.

As usual, I checked him into a su C hiite and put myself in a regular room. Even though it was in the basement, it still cost hundreds of dollars for the night. Before di

In response, Edwards told me that his life experience, especially his son’s death, had taught him to control his expectations and never take anything for granted. He had thought about what Gore had to consider as he made his choice and concluded that John Edwards was not the ideal pick. Since he never had the job and never expected to get it, losing out wasn’t going to hurt. He also said something about how he had been a senator for only a short time and that the future would bring so many opportunities, it didn’t make much sense to get upset about this one.