Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - Posts
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Did Elizabeth Edwards damage her husband's chances in the election he's dropping out of today? She did not hurt her husband, no; she'd literally rather die than do so, I swear, and still did him more good than harm.
But while people love Elizabeth, they do not love her ?&%! cancer, and the disease did limit her ability to help him. Not because either her illness or its treatment kept her from campaigning—she was out there anyway, forcefully questioning Hillary Clinton's effectiveness as an advocate for women and warning that conservative hatred of the Clintons would energize the Republican base if Hillary were the Democratic nominee. But uncertainty about her health and her future did neutralize her positives to some degree.
A friend of mine, Lynn Hunter, who lives in Ames, Iowa—and has had breast cancer, too, as I have, said, "Even I was stunned when the word that he was staying in the race anyway first came out,'' after the couple announced that Elizabeth's cancer had returned last spring. "At first, it seemed to indicate a level of ambition I wasn't comfortable with. It took a few days for me to figure out that it's like a bad country song or that bucket movie''—if your time is limited, then all the more reason to spend it well.
But men in particular seemed unable to come to grips with Edwards' decision, she thought: "My brother and I were talking about the candidates and the first thing he said about Edwards was he didn't understand how anybody whose wife was sick with cancer would make that decision. I'm in a faith-sharing group and it came up more than once in the group, too. And the men, interestingly, were always the ones saying they didn't get it.'' Lynn, who is a therapist, sees the fact that it was breast cancer as adding another layer of discomfort: "Psychologically, that's part of it. It's like my husband went to Borders and got two books on the husband's role in my recovery from breast cancer. Would he have done that if I'd had leukemia? No, there's a sexual overlay to this; he wanted to be the best breast cancer husband he could be.''
Yet the real deal-killer, of course, was not Elizabeth or John or even his $400 haircuts, but the newer, more inspiring alternative to Clinton, Barack Obama. Because Obama so completely embodies the change that this election is about, no amount of spousal support or sunny uplift would have been sufficient. As Elizabeth herself said of her husband months ago, "We can't make him black, we can't make him a woman.'' Just this once, it wasn't the white guy who best matched the message, or the moment.
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