Politics 2008: John Edwards, Untucked
This year, former vice presidential candidate John Edwards crisscrossed the country, speaking out against poverty and the Iraq war. Edwards said he was getting back to the working-class causes he cared about. He was also playing smart politics--in a Democratic primary dominated by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a solid grounding in the populist left could be the only way for Edwards to stay in the game.
But maybe something is really changing inside the son of a millworker. This week he will launch a series of short documentaries on his Web site, OneAmericaCommittee.com, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of life on the campaign trail. The Webisodes, previewed exclusively by NEWSWEEK, show Edwards struggling with how to show more authenticity on the campaign trail. "I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll," he says in one episode. "But ... we're so conditioned to say what's safe ... and it's hard to shed all that."
The documentaries--which show the former senator on trips to Iowa and Africa, and places in between--are a start. In one installment, Edwards mocks a memo prepared by staffers reminding him to praise the value of public education when speaking to a group of public-school teachers. "I pay a lot of money for people who have the expertise to tell me that."
The Webisodes are the brainchild of Rielle Hunter, a filmmaker who met Edwards at a New York bar where Edwards was having a business meeting. "I didn't think it was John Edwards," Hunter recalls, "because the public persona did not mesh at all with the person who was sitting in front of me." Hunter pitched Edwards on the documentaries as a medium for bringing the "real John Edwards" to the people.
Edwards still has a ways to go. In the midst of a short theme sequence that begins each Webisode, the camera lingers over the former senator's behind as he tucks a starched white shirt into his pants. Still, Hunter, now under contract with Edwards's organization, says she sees the untucked John Edwards coming more and more to the fore. "When he gets really tired, he'll jump back into that automatic pilot thing," she says. "But he's aware of it, he doesn't want it to happen."
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Jonathan Darman was named Senior Writer and Political Correspondent in October of 2006. He travels the country profiling candidates for elected office and covering breaking news in national politics.
Prior to his current assignment, Darman was a General Editor in Newsweek's New York headquarters. In that role, he authored or co-authored major profiles of newsmakers in politics and media ranging from former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards to controversial New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to 2008 presidential hopeful Gov. Mark Warner. His May 2006 cover story, "The Mystery of Mary Magdalene," separated fact from fiction in the life of Christianity's most fascinating woman. In September of 2005, he spent three weeks covering the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Darman contributed to three Newsweek cover packages on the storm, reporting from the decimated coastline of Biloxi, from an Air Force helicopter hovering over New Orleans and from the private office of Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour.
Previously, Darman had been an associate editor. In May, 2004 he joined the Campaign 2004 Special Project team as a correspondent. In that position he followed the Kerry/Edwards campaign, reporting from behind-the-scenes for the special issue that Newsweek published two days after Election Day. The special issue won the 2005 National Magazine Award for Single Topic Issue. Public Affairs published "Election 2004: How Bush Won and What You Can Expect in the Future," an expanded version of the campaign narrative, in January 2005. It was a national bestseller.
From February to May 2004, Darman was an associate editor for Newsweek.com where he covered everything from the real estate bubble to reality TV. He also helped conceive and edit GenNext, Newsweek's coverage of youth voters in the 2004 election. Newsweek asked five college journalists to write essays during the campaign and polled voters 18-29 years old each month on campaign issues. Before joining Newsweek as a full-time staffer, Darman held internships in the magazine's Washington and Los Angeles Bureaus and at Newsweek.com.
Darman graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with an A.B. in history and literature. A native of McLean, Virginia, he lives in New York City.
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