Compassion for Edwards’ wife nudges issues aside

Joe Schoenmann, Las Vegas Sun

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

As Elizabeth Edwards walked to the makeshift stage to the jagged edge of the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up," her audience of 150 went quiet.

They wanted the issues, which they got. But they also wanted to see the woman, to hear how someone facing inoperable cancer decides to go on the campaign trail. It is a question that hums in the background virtually everywhere she goes.

At the official opening of the John Edwards for President headquarters at Pecos and Flamingo roads last weekend, the 57-year-old spoke on issues such as gay marriage and her husband's plan for 100 percent universal health care, which he would pay for by revoking tax breaks President Bush gave to people making more than $200,000 a year .

The crowd roared at her reply to one man's complaint that, after 37 years of life with a male partner, he had fewer rights than Britney Spears had after her Las Vegas marriage of 57 hours in 2004.

"That is an appalling comparison, I have to say," she replied. "I applaud 37 years. Coming up on 30, I know it's a lot of work."

The crowd also roared when she said that her husband "will be honest when he's in the White House, and wouldn't that be a nice change?"

But it was more than Edwards' unscripted remarks that drew cheers. She is fighting a cancer that has gone to her bones and her condition frames every campaign appearance.

Even when she focuses on the issues, the crowds dwell on her health.

Making her way slowly through the crowd afterward, person after person thanked her and wished her well in her fight against cancer.

"I'm in this same condition," said one woman holding a copy of the January/February issue of MAMM magazine with Edwards on the cover. Edwards signed the publication, which focuses on breast and reproductive cancers. "I don't know how she's doing it. It's amazing."

In an interview as she headed to meet with the Nevada Hispanic Democratic Caucus, Edwards said the cancer issue is double-edged. She doesn't mind being a poster child for cancer, but she also hopes people are listening to what she's saying about her husband.

She reaches into her purse to show the 3/8-inch wide yellow pill she takes each morning to go along with a once-a-month regimen of chemotherapy.

"Now, I've earned the right to talk about health care and that's great," she said. "I have the capacity to put a new face on cancer, that it doesn't mean that you have open sores and all that.

"On the other hand, I want to be more than my cancer. I was a full person before it and I want to be a full person after it. I honestly don't think about it during the day. It's not a part of my day-to-day life, which is a blessing."

The Edwards es have three children, two preteens and a daughter, 25. The preteens see her go to the doctors a lot. "And they know it can kill me," she says. "But they also know we are all going to die and they don't see any threat that I'm dying soon."

Her oldest, who lived through her brother's death from a car accident 11 years ago, has more information. "I think it's hard for her to think about," Edwards said, "and it hurts to think that I'm causing her pain, because after Wade died, I hoped nothing would cause her pain again. But this can't be helped. And I'm incredibly proud of her for being so strong."

The question is, why do it? Why not just stay home?

"People who haven't been through it ask that question," Edwards said. "It's because if you gave up what your life was about, you'd be doing exactly the opposite of what you should be doing."

At the Hispanic Democratic Caucus, where the crowd of about three dozen included the state's attorney general and a few state legislators, two women sitting in the chairs said they knew as much as anyone about Edwards - that this was her second go-round with cancer.

Neither Monica Ortiz, former publisher of a bilingual magazine, nor Sylvet Baez, a Gloria Estefan impersonator, had any qualms about the woman with cancer on the campaign trail.

"You can't just sit around and say, 'Oh, I'm going to die,' " said Ortiz, who has health problems of her own.

"Once you do that, you really are going. You have to fight back in everything in life. You just have to sometimes. I guess she's doing it for her husband, maybe for the country, too."