Former Democratic vice presidential candidate and presidential hopeful John Edwards ran afoul of the same crisis management rule that did in Gary Hart: Never flatly deny a relationship for which ample evidence exists.
While running for president in 2007, Mr. Edwards had an affair with a videographer he’d hired to document his campaign. Eventually he fathered a child with the woman, Rielle Hunter. Edwards persuaded a devoted aide to pose as the father of Ms. Hunter’s daughter, and used money from wealthy campaign donors to house his mistress, child, and aide in luxury. All this occurred while Edwards’s wife, Elizabeth Edwards, was fighting an illness that eventually claimed her life.
The National Enquirer began reporting on Edwards’s affair in October 2007. He strenuously denied it. It was not until 2010, long after the wreckage of his campaign had stopped burning, that Edwards publicly admitted it had all been true.
