In an interview with The Dartmouth, Elizabeth Edwards discussed a life on the road, making the grade, and the perils of "yes-men."
The D: Your husband talks a lot about his humble origins on the campaign trail. What is your background, and what has it brought to you and your husband's social awareness?
Elizabeth Edwards: My dad was a Navy pilot for 30 years, so I grew up basically on airports all over the world. I spent nine of my first 17 years in Japan.
Someone asked me one time -- ABC Radio -- they said Laura Bush had her mother-in-law to teach her how to be first lady. I wasn't really prepared for the question but I said something which -- sometimes you have to answer a question, it was on live radio, whether you have an answer or not -- but I realized that my gut reaction was actually right. And that was that having lived in the military overseas, I was taught that every time I walked off the boat I was an ambassador for my country, and how I behaved and how I interacted with other people was a reflection on my country.
That's sort of a training for who I am. It also means that I have a great affinity for the soldiers and what they're going through. I know the kinds of problems that they face, and I think that's helpful.
One of the things I think that makes campaigning a lot easier is having that kind of a background. I'm used to saying hello to people, introducing myself and making sure that wherever I put my head down, that's home for me, and that's made this campaign a lot easier. I went to college and then to English grad school and then to law school where I met John.
The D: I know John was the first person in his family to go to college. He finished college in just three years and then went on to law school -- I was wondering if you could talk about the energy he brought to school and the ambition he brought towards planning a career.
Edwards: John finished college in three years, and he worked during that time -- some of it was because if he finished in three years it was going to cost him less than if it took him four years, and how much it cost made a huge difference. But still he graduated with high honors, so he was sort of a no-brainer admission into law school. Law school was very inexpensive, I have to tell you, when he went. We both went to state university and it cost us $200 a semester for tuition and fees. So it cost us each $1200, so we have $2400 invested in our two law degrees.
The D: I think that's a little less than Dartmouth's tuition.
Edwards: What month will that pay for in the Dartmouth tuition? Probably not one. That sort of determination that you saw, where he did so well in school, and he did it though he was working, and he did it in a compressed period of time, that kind of focus to accomplish something has really gone through everything he's done in his entire life. He is a problem solver. Every time something has arisen he has just taken all of his focus and energy and put them into it.
When he'd be trying a case, we'd go to dinner when he came home for the weekend, and he'd be thinking about the case. He wouldn't be thinking about what we were doing in our lives, and we'd know. And we had a conversation, and he'd be off some place thinking about the case and finally we'd all give in and talk about his case instead, our older son and our older daughter and we'd just talk about that.
When he's got something in his head, that's what he's going to do. It's been great, it's been a great characteristic for the kids to have, a model for them to have, but it's also that he's accomplished an enormous amount.
The D: You've been pretty active on the campaign trail compared to other candidates' wives. Does he consult you when he makes big decisions? What do you plan on as a role for yourself if you become first lady?
Edwards: We always use when instead of if. He talks to me about a lot of things. We met each other as equals, as intellectual equals, as first-year law students together. We talked about things there as equals, and we talk about things since then as equals. What's particularly useful for him is that he knows I don't have an agenda. He can ask me about an issue and know that I don't have anything else to prove or I only have his interests or the best interests at heart. He can play something off me and know he's going to get a true reading.
Sometimes it's easy if you're in politics and you're a senator to get a lot of "yes-men" around you. It's great for him to have me and also to have our daughter Kate, who you might have met, I don't know, who's 21, neither one of us will tell him yes if the answer's no or tell him he did well if he didn't do well. We don't have much opportunity to do that, but we give him a true reading.
The D: Are there any issues you'd focus on as First Lady?
Edwards: After school programs -- we've started a few after-school programs in North Carolina, and that's the thing near and dear to my heart; preventative medicine because I think we need to do that; and women's rights, particularly the issues related to women's rights and women's employment.
