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Elizabeth Edwards, lawyer, author, mother, wife

By Art Harris, The Bald Truth, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

As a journalist shivering in the cold Carolina rain before dawn, camera crew in tow, we were under orders from campaign staff NOT to knock for another 15 minutes.

It was 5:45 a.m. mid fall, 2004, and Elizabeth Edwards, a vice presidential candidate’s wife and mother of four, was a television show dream date. As a middle aged supermom with two children under five, she juggled cereal boxes for rebellious Jack and Emma Claire and a legal career turned campaign strategist for husband John. She joked that People magazine had chosen him as a hot-looking guy, but he was married to a wife in perpetual diet mode. She had endured the ultimate parent’s tragedy–losing a son, Wade, when the 16 year old died in a car crash.

Millions of women, and lots of mothers, hung on her every word, lessons life had taught her, and she was sought after by all the talk shows, to share about surviving, relearning how to find joy in life, what really mattered, which mattered to the good as gold Oprah demo. Now she was inviting us in to share herself to millions of ET and The Insider viewers, not only as a way to humanize her family, and by extension, the Kerry Edwards ticket. She said it was a typical school morning Chez Edwards.

“Come on in. I can’t let you all stand in the rain like that,” said Elizabeth, flinging open the door to her elegant, sprawling home outside Chapel Hill. “Want some coffee?” Read the rest of this entry »