Democratic Party

Elizabeth Edwards R.I.P.

By Jay Newton-Small | @JNSmall | December 7, 2010 | +

My colleague David Von Drehle has a insightful piece about Elizabeth Edwards life and death. Read it here.

During the 2004 campaign, I had an interview with John Edwards the day of the second debate between John Kerry and George W. Bush. We were flying from New Jersey to Detroit and I had 20 minutes with him at the end of the flight. It was a terrible interview — even by Edwards’ own admission. He spent the entire time reading the Wall Street Journal (at the time I worked for Dow Jones’ biggest rival, Bloomberg). “He’s just woken up from a nap,” said his staffer. “He’s grumpy. Why don’t you have a beer with him after the debate? Really get to know him.”

So, even though my not-so-flattering story had already been filed, I found myself at the hotel bar at 10pm having a beer with Edwards. He sat down and almost without preamble asked, “Have I ever told you how I met my wife?” No, I replied. And so he launched into the story.

It was the first day of Edwards’ first year of law school. In one of the classes the professor began quizzing students on homework many of them hadn’t even realized they were supposed to have read. The professor called out student after student and no one could answer the question properly. Finally, he called on a stunning brunette at the front of the classroom. She answered the question flawlessly. “I was in love,” Edwards recalled, “from the minute she opened her mouth.” The brunette was Elizabeth.

The teacher then moved on and launched into a complicated dissection of an obscure legal code. “I was lost,” Edwards said. The class was silent, when Elizabeth raised her hand. Edwards couldn’t believe she’d been following along: the woman must be a prodigy. “That was about as clear as mud,” she admonished the professor. “Go over it again in plain English.”

“Right then I knew I wanted to marry her,” said Edwards.

I left that night, more impressed with the absent Elizabeth than her husband. Not dissimilar thoughts,  I think, to many who’ve encountered the couple. During the 2008 campaign, I got to know her a bit. Enough to say, tonight we lost a smart, brave, sassy woman. God rest her soul.

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Related Topics: elizabeth edwards, 2012 Election, Democratic Party, White House

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  • tbtb

    Elizabeth Edwards died ! Very sad, she was a remarkable woman ! Love her book Resilience (http://amzn.to/hwDXTF) !!!

  • kbanginmotown

    Thank you for sharing this story, Jay.

  • http://ritab1020.wordpress.com ritab1020

    Elizabeth Edwards always struck me as a beautiful, intelligent, and inspiring lady. May all the love and wisdom she spent on family and loved ones warm their hearts and strengthen their spirits as time goes by.

  • ohiolibb

    R.I.P. Elizabeth Edwards.

  • mortalfool

    We all learned a lot from Elizabeth Edwards…but mostly about grace and especially about dying with grace.

    I harbored resentment toward her for encouraging her cheater husband to continue his run for president after she found out…and for campaigning for him as if he were a person with integrity. But I figured out that she did that because it was the one thing she could do that the other dipsy woman couldn’t, and I understand it and got over it.

    Your article is a lovely, appropriate note.

  • apr2563

    As I responded in Alex Altman’s post, Mr. Von Drehle has it wrong. Elizabeth Edwards may have hit many reefs in her journey, but she was no wreck.
    She was brave, funny, intelligent, nurturing, ambitious, and loved by her children. Pretty sturdy I would say.
    RIP

  • apr2563

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-court/elizabeth-edwards-with-le_b_793533.html
    .
    Rage for justice:
    .
    “Compromise today is too often applauded simply for itself. The cost of compromise to principles and real lives doesn’t seem to matter. It matters here. This organization understands that the way to build a fair and just society is not through baby steps or incremental goals, but with big steps and big solutions… and an obvious backbone to match.”
    .
    “We speak out for those people who need someone to stand up for them without compromise.Those who need a champion cannot afford compromise, in the face of forces that are powerful, persistent and pernicious and greedy.”
    .
    “I don’t know how many tomorrows I have. Really, none of us do. I want to fight now, I need to fight now and I am buoyed by the fact that you are fighting now.”
    .

    “We will each by judged by the mark we left on the lives of others. I chose to campaign only because it is about a woman in Cleveland who came up and whispered in my ear, “I am really afraid because I found a lump in my breast, and I can’t go to the doctor. I have no insurance.” It’s about Beverly in Detroit who broke down, unable even to speak, when she said she couldn’t sleep, so afraid was she for the life of her son, who is serving in Iraq.”
    .
    With less armor than I have, they fight, too.

    Appropriate today as it was in 2007

  • imaryma

    In that classroom long, long ago,
    His roving eye fell upon her.
    It would take time before she’d know
    The heights and depths that would occur
    To them joined as husband and wife.
    Their ups and downs went for a while
    Without the world in on their life.
    Then publicity did beguile,
    And they chose to let the world see
    The hopes and dreams that they pursued.
    And then it all turned out to be
    Soap operish – so sad, so crude.

    Elizabeth Edwards is gone.
    May the media just move on.

  • bobell

    About a dozen years ago Elizabeth Edwards and I swapped a couple of emails on a non-political topic. She didn’t use her name, and I wouldn’t have recognized it then if she had. (Many years later she made a brief public mention of our exchange, which is how I know.) As do most such exchanges, it tapered to nothing very quickly, and for once I was sorry it had, because it was obvious that someone very interesting was on the other end. I still value the recollection.
    .
    She occupies a very special place in the nation’s heart, and history will remember her kindly. She had her flaws, as do we all, but she wanted to be a force for good, and I think she succeeded. Like many who followed the Edwardses in their presidential campaigns, I’d have been happy to vote for her if by some miracle she had been the one to run. No such luck.
    .
    If, in the end, life, and then impending death, wore her down (perhaps what Jay meant by “wreck”), she bore it far better than any human should have to. We shall not see her like again.

  • http://rbmatudan.wordpress.com rbmatudan

    I didn’t know her and don’t know John Edwards. But based on everything put out there during the scandal, neither one was a saint, nor none of us knows what went on behind closed doors. So I won’t judge either of them. I will say though that there are thousands and thousands suffering from cancer who don’t have the financial resources that Edwards had. It’s a terrible thing that the disease killed her, but she’s no more courageous, brave, or worth of praise than the nameless people who are also afflicted and who don’t have the advantages Edwards had. I’m not humbled by her and I’m not going to post phony praise for her. But I do offer my condolences to her children, and hope that they come through this well.
    http://www.pathtoasia.com/jobs/

  • bobell

    Sorry, Jay. It was David von Drehle, not you, who used the word “wreck.” My bad.

  • formerlyjames

    rbmatudan, she herself publicly noted the disparity between her own health care due to her wealth and those not so privileged. She did that in her advocacy for universal health care. I think if you learned more about her, you would understand that the praise for her is not phony, and that she agreed with much of what you think.

  • apr2563

    “With less armor than I have, they fight too.”
    .
    Elizabeth Edwards said on her Facebook page as she continues to write even in her dilemma that she is only human.
    .
    Elizabeth Edwards acknowledged those things you chose to point out rbmatudan.

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