Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [119]
Larry King conducted a debate in Los Angeles with John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, and John. Before the debate, I went to a forum of students, professors, and consultants and press run by Geoff Cowan of the USC Annenberg School of Communications. Geoff had been head of Voice of America when, three weeks before he died, Wade was one of the national winners of the contest VOA had sponsored with the National Endowment for the Humanities. Holding those little pieces together, as if my life made sense, as if Wade was still a living, changing part of it—see, here he is in California—filled me up and emptied me out at once. I’d always choose to have those moments, as when Wade’s friends would drop by to tell me about a job or show me a picture of the girl they were planning to marry, but each time they took away a little of the conceit that Wade was just away somewhere, at school maybe.
We did these things in the last two weeks before Super Tuesday with the knowledge that this was Everest and we hadn’t the right gear. The last debate, hosted by CBS in New York, was on Sunday morning. Again it was Kerry, Dennis, Al, and John. There was no audience; each candidate could have one person in the studio. I sent Cate. John was splendid. The last question was asked by Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times: “Is God on America’s side?” Kerry answered, “Well, God will—look, I think—I believe in God, but I don’t believe, the way President Bush does, in invoking it all the time in that way. I think it is—we pray that God is on our side, and we pray hard. And God has been on our side through most of our existence.” Elizabeth turned to John, “Senator?” And John answered: “Well, there’s a wonderful story about Abraham Lincoln during the middle of the Civil War bringing in a group of leaders, and at the end of the meeting one of the leaders said, ‘Mr. President, can we pray, can we please join in prayer that God is on our side?’ And Abraham Lincoln’s response was, ‘I won’t join you in that prayer, but I’ll join you in a prayer that we’re on God’s side.’”
That night Cate, Colin, now heading our press operation in New York, and I went out to dinner. We asked at the hotel where we should go, and they directed us through a garage door, down two blocks to an Italian place. Good, we thought—comfort food. So we sloshed through the cold rain and landed at a diner with a drag queen pianist dressed—honestly—like a clown, singing the songs from The Sound of Music. The food was dreadful, and the place was smoky, and Cate and I just looked at one another. Back at UPS!
It wasn’t the only misstep that week. I had campaigned in Ohio with Chris Redfern, the state legislative leader who, like John, will not age, and Matthew Nelson and I were scheduled to take a flight back to Washington from Cincinnati. I had promised the children that I would take them to school in the morning. We boarded the plane, but the doors wouldn’t close properly, so the flight was canceled. There were no other flights. I could go straight to New York, the office told me, but I had promised the children. Passengers from the flight were still standing around the counter, so I walked around saying, “We are renting a car; we’d love to have additional drivers if you want to drive to Washington.” We only had one taker, a fellow named Dean who worked for the Republican National Committee, so Matthew, Dean, and I drove and talked and sang for the next ten hours. Ask me anything you want about Matthew’s very large family; I now know all there is to know. When Nick Baldick found out I had ridden and spoken for ten hours with