A few minutes later, after Edwards departed for a dinner around the corner, Hunter came back over to Brumberger and started quizzing him about his job. “I think I can help you guys,” she said, and handed him her business card. The inscription read, BEING IS FREE: RIELLE HUNTER—TRUTH SEEKER.
She called her spouse a “hick” in front of other people and derided his parents as rednecks. One time, when a friend asked if John had read a certain book, Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Oh, he doesn’t read books,” she said. “I’m the one who reads books.”
“Why the **** do you think I’d want to go sit outside a Wal-Mart and hand out leaflets?” she snarled at the schedulers.
There were 40 or 50 people on the line, mostly kids in their twenties being paid next to nothing (and in some cases literally nothing). Elizabeth had been cranky throughout the call, but at the end she asked if her and her husband’s personal health-care coverage had been arranged. Not yet, she was told. There are complications; let’s discuss it after the call. Elizabeth was having none of that. She flew into a rage.
If this isn’t dealt with by tomorrow, everyone’s health care at the PAC will be cut off until it’s fixed, she barked. I don’t care if nobody has health care until John and I do!
That was one thing the people in Edwards’s orbit never stressed over when it came to John, who they believed had long ago made the decision not to fall into that (*****) trap. And, anyway, he had always seemed … well, sorta asexual, at least to his staff.
There was nothing legit, however, about Hunter’s behavior. It was freaky, wildly inappropriate, and all too visible. She flirted outlandishly with every man she met. She spouted New Age babble, rambled on about astrology and reincarnation, and announced to people she had just met, “I’m a witch.” But mostly, she fixated on Edwards. She told him that he had “the power to change the world,” that “the people will follow you.” She told him that he could be as great a leader as Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. She told him, “You’re so real. You just need to get your staff out of your way.” She reinforced everything he already believed, told him everything he wanted to hear.
Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine
http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/index3.html#ixzz0cHz8TLbS
Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine
An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine
