The next day, I would have my Suburban all prepped with maps, cell phones, newspapers, briefing folders, Diet Cokes, water, and food, and we would attack the schedule like an army on the move. At each stop I’d reach into the backseat and grab a plastic plaque with the United States Senate seal and a roll of Velcro tape and make sure the plaque was fixed to the podium where he would speak. I tried to stage the events to capitalize on his trial lawyer’s skills. This meant keeping his formal remarks short, leaving plenty of time for questions and answers, and surrounding him with people. But while I followed a set routine, the senator would often deviate in a way that would charm the crowd and let him connect with people in a more direct and emotional way. A classic case in point occurred at a school in rural Greene County, where the staff had begun to turn around a long record of poor performance. They had done this with a new program that involved building discipline and pride and used many unconventional techniques, especially songs, to help students learn.

As he often did, Edwards began his improvising by suggesting that the event be expanded. Feigning irritation with me, he said, “Andrew, we shouldn’t be seeing just a few folks and leave everyone else out. Can’t we bring everyone into someplace like the auditorium and get ’em all involved?” The principal of the school, eager to please the senator, loved his suggestion and announced that everyone should come to the cafeteria for a special assembly. You could feel the excitement ripple through the bu Cthrilding as kids filed into the hallways. But I also noticed that these were the quietest, best-​behaved children I had ever seen. No one ran. No one shouted. And they took their seats in the cafeteria without any ruckus at all. Walking with one of the teachers, I noticed there were no locks on the lockers and no graffiti on the walls. “We don’t need locks-these kids learn trust,” he told me. “And they learn pride. There is no graffiti.”

When everyone was gathered together, the principal gave the kids a chance to show the senator what they knew. One small girl got up from her seat, and a hush fell over the room. Then she started to sing:

When the little girl finished this first verse, every kid in the room joined her for the rest of the song, singing out prime numbers past one thousand. The performance took eight or nine minutes, but it was a breathtaking and inspiring thing to hear. These kids had a fraction of the resources of similarly sized schools and a hundred times the spirit. At the end, Edwards moved into the crowd and knelt to give the girl who had started the song a big hug. Whatever he might have said during a speech or question-​and-​answer session could never have the power of that gesture. Most important, it was moments like this (and there were many of them) that made me feel that my assessment of him as a leader was correct.

As we left the school, our hosts followed us to the car and waved goodbye. If anyone on the school staff had started the day with doubts about the senator, my bet is that they were resolved by the time he left. The same could be said for students who would go home and tell their parents about the assembly or cast their own votes in future elections. We were also happy to note that we had visited yet another county on the list. As we drove away in the Suburban, I said something like “Well, that’s another county,” and the senator responded by high-​fiving me and saying, “Check!” with a wave of his arm, mimicking the gesture one would make to draw a huge checkmark on a blackboard.

On the day we visited Green County, we were close enough to home to sleep at our own houses. However, many of these expeditions were two-​or three-​day affairs, and we’d find ourselves spending nights at hotels and having three meals a day together. The first hotel I ever booked for us turned out to be a disaster. Located near Camp LeJeune, the Onslow Inn was very affordable and in the right spot. Unfortunately, every room reeked of mold and mildew. We stayed but C We the senator was miserable and he complained loudly.

In the days we spent touring the state, we talked about family, politics, our personal histories, marriage-like me, he said he loved his wife and was completely faithful-and everything else you can imagine. The subject of the senator’s son Wade came up often, and he frequently asked me to drive by the cemetery so he could visit his grave, which was marked by a ten-​foot-​tall marble statue of an angel emerging from the stone, with what appears to be Wade’s face cradled in her arms.

If we had company in the car, like a national reporter, the senator often discussed cases he had worked on as a lawyer, and whenever we passed a courthouse, he became nostalgic about performing in front of juries and judges and the thrill of winning a big victory for a deserving client. (He always gave some credit to Elizabeth for these victories, because she always studied his cases, offered advice, and even helped him with his closing arguments.) He would start to tell a story to a reporter, then stop and say, “Oh, have I told you this one, Andrew?” I would shake my head no. Then I would smile to myself and settle in to hear about another of his great legal conquests, for the twentieth time.

One of his favorite stories from his practice was about a case he tried in a small town close to Robbins. It was the first time his mother came to watch him work, and she was bursting with pride. Near the end of the trial, she ran into the jury foreman at the grocery store. She had known the man for years, and he told her, “We just think the world of your son.” Even I knew this was probably grounds for a mistrial, but the story ends with a victory for Edwards.

At other times, we talked about University of North Carolina basketball (college ball is a religion in the state), and we planned routes for our daily jogs. Edwards was thoroughly addicted to running and would get cranky on the days he couldn’t have an hour or more to change clothes, cover a few miles, shower, and cool down. I would join him, and as we pounded down city streets or dug our way across the sand at a beach, we would talk. Invariably, he’d say something about how much he preferred to be home in North Carolina and how disappointed he was by Washington and the life of a United States senator.

You’re forgiven if you can’t muster empathy for someone who complains about holding a prestigious elected office that brings him into the circles of power and requires him to be praised and honored wherever he goes. (Cue the world’s tiniest violin.) The life of a senator is not digging ditches. But if you do it well, it can consume your every waking hour, and the travel back and forth to your home state can become exhausting. Senators spend an inordinate amount of time fending off lobbyists and begging for political contributions, which most find to be degrading. Finally, as a freshman, a senator has hardly any power. In his first years, Edwards was permitted to take up one real issue, a proposed “patients’ bill of rights,” and he got lucky when his colleagues allowed him to put his name on the bill beside that of John McCain, who really did believe in working across party lines to get things done.

The legislation Edwards and McCain proposed would have given Am C haericans more say in their own medical care, making it easier for them to access services and giving them more power in dealing with health insurance companies. In the long run, the idea would be adopted by both the House and the Senate, but it was eventually vetoed by President Bush. In the short term, it gave Senator Edwards a very popular issue to talk about, and it brought him more attention from the national media than anyone else in his Senate class. Edwards couldn’t have risen so fast without some help, and as time passed I would learn what a powerful friend and mentor he had in Senator Ted Kennedy, who was coming to believe himself that Edwards might be a future president. In a party that was short on charisma, the old war horse saw promise in John Edwards and was going to do whatever he could to promote him.