This is my fifth entry in a series of essays on the films of 1998 for my paid subscribers. Click here to read essays on Zero Effect, The Wedding Singer, Dark City, and The Big Lebowski.
Did I ever tell you about the time I worked for John Edwards? It was 2007, and I was one of his field organizers in Iowa. My job was to persuade voters and turn them out to support Edwards in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucus. It was high stakes, and low paying, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to be there. Unlike many of my colleagues, I had TB disease: True Believer. Edwards’ combination of blue-collar roots, soaring rhetorical ability, and progressive platform inspired me to get into politics. I was 27 years old, and I would never be that young again.
Most days found me either on the phone or driving around rural Dubuque county, trying to engage as many voters as I could. It was real, authentic grassroots politics. There were some folks I met with three or four times before persuading them to support Edwards. One family invited me in for dinner the first time I knocked on their door. I became particularly close with the volunteers, those Iowans who were so enamored of Senator Edwards (as was I) that they gave their time and energy to help him win, and were willing to stand up at caucus night in front of their neighbors and vouch for his leadership abilities.
As you can imagine, I had a lot to answer for when the story broke of Edwards’s extramarital affair.
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