Zhongnanhai

In the 2004 Democratic primaries, I slowly became a John Edwards fan.  I felt John Kerry was unelectable to red-meat red-staters, and it turned out to be true.  Howard Dean was obviously too shrill and generally just nuts.  Edwards’ drawback was his inexperience (much like Barack Obama today), but he had charisma, was a great orator, was from the south, and seemed generally likeable (also like Obama, minus the south part).

It could be argued Edwards’ star has fallen since then, especially according to an article published in TIME magazine.  The article, written by veteran campaign manager Bob Shrum, recounts the days John Kerry was agonizing over who to select as his running mate. It says veteran Missouri Senator Dick Gephardt was the man Kerry felt most comfortable with.

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

Kerry did go on to pick Edwards, and the article concludes with Kerry regretting the decision. It also says Edwards promised Kerry he wouldn’t run against him in 2008, a promise we will never know if he had any intention of keeping.  But Shrum makes Edwards seem vacuous and power-hungry.

The article is actually an excerpt from Shrum’s new book, No Excuses - Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. Having read the article and some of the reviews on Amazon.com, I think this is a book I’ll likely be picking up on my next trip home.  Publisher’s Weekly characterized the book this way:

With this lengthy but frequently gripping memoir, Shrum recounts his three-decade career in American politics, which he began as a speechwriter for New York’s Mayor John Lindsay and ended as a campaign strategist for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. More insider history than memoir, the book focuses almost exclusively on the author’s professional experience, featuring richly detailed accounts of his efforts working on Edward Kennedy’s, Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential bids (conversely, Shrum covers his engagement and wedding to Marylouise, his wife of 18 years, in three swift pages). Unsurprisingly, given his background, Shrum writes with eloquence and passion; more unexpected is his disarming candor. He’s by turns effusive and brutal, for example waxing poetic about Edward Kennedy after vehemently criticizing Jimmy Carter. Later, he voices somewhat harsh ambivalence toward Bill Clinton. A deep sense of disappointment pervades the book: Shrum’s string of failed presidential campaigns led to talk of the "Shrum curse," which the author never managed to overcome. Casual judgments and frank disclosures along the way make this a provocative and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at American politics.