MARBLEHEAD — When he spoke of the poor, of the two Americas, John Edwards' eloquence could bring his supporters to tears.
"You couldn't be in a room with him and not be impressed," said Democratic political consultant Michael Goldman, who worked for Edwards.
If, after Edwards' spectacular fall from grace, some are still weeping, they can hardly be blamed. Just don't expect to find Goldman among them.
The Marbleheader worked for Edwards as a senior adviser in Massachusetts in 2007 and 2008. He was part of a large campaign staff, he said, so, "we weren't best friends, but he knew who I was. I knew him."
As rumors swirled about Edwards and his extramarital affair, Goldman stood in a room of campaign insiders and listened to Edwards tell them earnestly that the stories of infidelity were not true.
"The guy looked you right in the eye," he said.
Goldman believed him, and for a simple reason.
"It boggles the mind," he said, "in this day and age that anyone with that kind of baggage would put himself in that position. ...
"Would anyone be dumb enough to run for president if this story is true?" Goldman asked himself.
Particularly unbelievable, he thought, were the rumors that Edwards was using campaign funds to keep his mistress quiet.
"People (in other campaigns) go over these reports with a fine-tooth comb," he said. "How could you think you could get away with hiding campaign money? You've got to have an element of arrogance beyond anything I can imagine."
Meanwhile, Goldman said, Edwards was indeed vying first for the presidency, then for the vice presidential nomination on Barack Obama's ticket, or at least the office of attorney general.
Goldman was happy to see the former U.S. senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate (2004) advance his political beliefs.
"When I took a look at what he talked about," Goldman said, "it's what I believe in."
He saw Edwards' approach as a way to bridge the gap between Americans across the political spectrum. The war between right and left "is what's ruining the country," he said.
He cites the squabbles over issues like health care, gay rights and religion. "How do we make ourselves one country again?"
It wasn't long, however, before Edwards' story crumbled, along with his personal reputation and his political career. He has now acknowledged that in the midst of his campaign he cheated on his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, and fathered a daughter with a campaign videographer. Then he allowed a campaign aide to try to take the blame for him by posing as Rielle Hunter's lover and the father of her child.
"Beyond the sadness that you feel for his children and his wife," Goldman said, is shock at Edwards' "ability to pathologically lie to literally thousands of people," including his closest supporters, people who were working hard and making sacrifices for him.
"It's really almost to the levels of Nixon's pathological behavior," Goldman said.
Goldman rejects the idea that Edwards' closest staffers were remiss in not knowing and not blowing the whistle. "Nobody had a clue this was going on," he said. Yes, there were rumors. "There are a million stories where it turns out not to be true. ... There's not a campaign I've been on where you didn't hear rumors."
His own disappointment with Edwards began before the rumors were confirmed, and it concerned the candidate's defeat in the Iowa caucuses in early 2008. "If I lose in Iowa, we're going to pull the plug," Edwards had told supporters.
He did lose, but to Goldman's dismay, Edwards decided to fight on.
For all that, Goldman rejects the notion that he's been disillusioned by his experience with the Edwards campaign, or that he should be. From the start, his devotion was to Edwards' ideas. He still believes in those ideas.
Besides, disappointing behavior by political leaders is nothing new. It happens at the highest levels, Goldman said, whether it's discovering that the president authorized a break-in at the office of a political opponent's psychiatrist (Richard Nixon) or violated his own policies by trading arms for hostages (Ronald Reagan).
"I have to depend on my own instincts and judgment," Goldman said. With Edwards, he found it difficult to see the truth, particularly, "when he sat in the room and said to me, 'These rumors aren't true.'"
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