That exchange encapsulates the tension the Edwards campaign is experiencing these days. In the two weeks since Elizabeth announced that her cancer was back and incurable, Edwards has tried to strike a delicate balance between addressing his wife’s condition and promoting his candidacy. The media has dissected the couple’s decision to continue campaigning and has raised a host of questions about it: Was it admirable valor or unseemly ambition? How would it affect their marriage, their kids, the country? Edwards says he’s intent on moving on. “Entirely too much attention has been paid to this,” he declared at a rally later that day in Des Moines. Yet he and his campaign staff recognize that ultimately, they have little control over how the issue plays out in the course of the campaign.
During his swing through New Hampshire and Iowa this week, Edwards managed for the most part to keep the focus where he thought it belonged: the issues. When Elizabeth introduced him at each event, she never delved into her ordeal and instead talked up the man she assured would make a “good, decent, honest president.” In his stump speech, Edwards addressed the war in Iraq, universal health care, caps on carbon emissions and plenty of other policies. When he fielded questions from the crowd, the topics ranged from stem-cell research to nuclear disarmament. “I think people are very focused on substantive issues,” he told reporters after one event.
Not so for Elizabeth, however. Amid the throngs of supporters who mob her after each rally, her medical condition dominates the conversation. Well-wishers encourage her. Cancer survivors hug her. Fans ask her to sign copies of “Saving Graces,” her memoir, which details her first fight against cancer. It’s enough to make her worry that her disease will eclipse her husband’s message. “I have been trying to change the subject,” she said in an interview with two reporters, including one from NEWSWEEK, after an event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “You hear [John] talk about a lot of policies. I want to be on the campaign and talk about these policies, and I don’t want to be the wife with cancer.” But it’s a struggle, she admitted. “I honestly believe in candor and full disclosure and transparency,” she said. “On the other hand, it actually at some point becomes an impediment to getting the actual message across.”
The campaign has decided to brief reporters on her condition only when necessary. “If there’s something that’s newsworthy that the public should know, they’re going to know it,” says Jennifer Palmieri, a campaign consultant. That was the case this week. Last Friday, Elizabeth had her first medical appointment since the news of her diagnosis. The results of her blood tests were heartening: the type of cancer she has can be combated with more treatment options than she had expected. That day, she began her new regime–a monthly IV to build up her bones and daily tablets to deprive the breast-cancer cells of estrogen.
Despite the campaign’s avowed desire to move the discussion beyond Elizabeth’s health, John doesn’t always shy away from mentioning it. After being introduced by her at an event in Concord, N.H., he praised the “extraordinary courage” Elizabeth showed in the past few weeks. In response to a local reporter’s question about the crowd’s energy in Cedar Rapids, he said that “people wanted to see Elizabeth after her recent announcement.” And in comments to reporters in Davenport, he noted that the events of the past few weeks “allowed people to see a personal side of me and Elizabeth.” That window into the couple’s private life may have contributed to Edwards’s increased numbers in just-released polls in Iowa (where he leads) and New Hampshire (where he moved into second place).
Voters may admire the way the couple has dealt with adversity, but those interviewed by NEWSWEEK insisted that they would ultimately be swayed by Edwards’s policy stances. “The fact that they’ve been so open sets the tone of how they would be as president and First Lady,” said Debbie Alejo, 57, after the Davenport town hall meeting. But “will this cancer affect how I look at them? Not at all.” While Alejo considers both John and Elizabeth “amazing people,” she said, in the end, “I’m voting for him, I’m not voting for her.”
