Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster

A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.

(By John Heilemann & Mark Halperin, New York Magazine) - One early evening in February 2006, John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator then gearing up to launch his second presidential campaign, was hanging out in the bar of the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue with one of his donors and his young traveling aide, Josh Brumberger. A woman sitting at a nearby table with some friends walked over and introduced herself.

“My friends insist you’re John Edwards,” Rielle Hunter said. “I tell them no way—you’re way too handsome.”

“No, ma’am. I’m John Edwards,” the candidate replied.

“No way! I don’t believe you!”

Brumberger saw this kind of thing all the time. Women were always hitting on his boss. He and Edwards had a well-oiled system in place for dealing with these situations tactfully and politely.