A special woman has died

By Rob Christensen

McClatchy Newspapers

A little over a decade ago, Elizabeth Edwards was a Raleigh, N.C., homemaker, soccer mom and lawyer, living a normal suburban life, shopping at the mall, browsing at a bookstore or dining at a restaurant.

When she died Tuesday, all three major television networks led their broadcasts with lengthy reports on her life and her death.

The media spotlight shown on Elizabeth Edward’s death was more akin to a Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or a Princess Diana than that of a political spouse, said David Rohde, a political science professor at Duke University.

Although Elizabeth Edwards rose to national prominence because of her husband’s political career, it was the trials and tribulations of her personal life — and how she handled them — that made her a national figure.

“The interest extends beyond politics and is not primarily politics,” Rohde said.

Former Sen. John Edwards propelled the couple into the national scene with his election to the Senate, his two runs for president, and his place on the ticket as a vice-presidential candidate in 2004.

Plain spoken

When Elizabeth Edwards first entered the national stage, the public saw a plain-spoken woman, who looked a lot like their next-door neighbor, and who was not afraid of making fun of her handsome, youthful-looking husband.

In an age when much of the public views people in politics as plastic, Elizabeth Edwards was real.

The loss of her 16-year-old son, Wade, in an automobile accident was real. Her constant battle with her weight was real. Her battle with breast cancer was real. Her dealing with a cheating husband who fathered a child out of wedlock was real.

For many women, Elizabeth Edwards’ travails — and her spirit in dealing with them — made her a person to be admired.

“The existence of that personal connection was the basis for the wide coverage of her passing,” Rohde said.

Elizabeth Edwards also made herself into a public figure, and continued to burnish her image even as her husband faded from public view.

She was willing to publicly talk about the loss of her son, her illness, and her husband’s infidelities. In a different age, or someone with a different personality, might have taken a more private route.

She wrote about her problems in two best-selling memoirs and talked about them with Oprah and Larry King and on countless other national TV programs.

The TV and newspaper stories and obituaries focused on the positive side of Elizabeth Edwards — her courage, her intelligence, her plain-spokenness and her devotion to her family. And it played down what all her campaign aides and reporters knew could be a difficult personality in private.

There were only passing mentions that she enabled her husband to run for president in 2008, knowing that he had an extramarital affair, a secret that could have blown up the Democrats’ chances of winning the presidency if her husband became the nominee.

The Guardian, the liberal British newspaper, noted that all the controversies surrounding her seem to have been forgotten this week.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services