John Edwards, Untucked

[question everything]

Politics 2008: John Edwards, Untucked
Newsweek

Dec. 25, 2006 - Jan. 1, 2007 - 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, http://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."

(snip)

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."

—Jonathan Darman

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16243412/site/newsweek/