“The greatest political saga, the one that has it
all, that gets to the real heart of American politics, is
the John Edwards story... This isn’t just politics,
it’s literature. It’s the great American novel, the kind
that isn’t written anymore.” --Michael Wolff on John
Edwards's trajectory, on
VanityFair.com
The underside
of modern American politics -- raw ambition, manipulation,
and deception -- are revealed in detail by Andrew Young’s
riveting account of a presidential hopeful’s meteoric rise
and scandalous fall. Like a non-fiction version of All
the King’s Men, The Politician offers a truly
disturbing, even shocking perspective on the risks taken and
tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most
powerful nation on earth.
Idealistic and ambitious,
Andrew Young volunteered for the John Edwards campaign for
Senate in 1998 and quickly became the candidate’s right hand
man. As the senator became a national star, Young’s
responsibilities grew. For a decade he was this
politician’s confidant and he was assured he was ‘like
family.” In time, however, Young was drawn into a series of
questionable assignments that culminated with Edwards asking
him to help conceal the Senator’s ongoing adultery. Days
before the 2008 presidential primaries began, Young gained
international notoriety when he told the world that he was
the father of a child being carried by a woman named Rielle
Hunter, who was actually the senator’s mistress. While Young
began a life on the run, hiding from the press with his
family and alleged mistress, John Edwards continued to
pursue the presidency and then the Vice Presidency in the
future Obama administration.
Young had been the
senator’s closest aide and most trusted friend. He believed
that John Edwards could be a great president, and was
assured throughout the cover-up that his boss and friend
would ultimately step forward to both tell the truth and
protect his aide’s career. Neither promise was kept. Not
only a moving personal account of Andrew Young’s political
education, THE POLITICIAN offers a look at the trajectory
which made John Edwards the ideal Democratic candidate for
president, and the hubris which brought him down, leaving
his career, his marriage and his dreams in
ashes.