(2010) The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down. By Andrew Young. (ISBN: 9780312640651)

Book Description: St. Martin's Press, New York, NY, U.S.A., 2010. Stated First Edition February 2010, number line on copyright page reads: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1, First Printing Thus. Black Cloth Hard Cover Boards and Spine with Silver lettering. 301 pages, 6.375" x 9.5" tall, 1" thick. No underlining, No highlighting, No owner names, this is a Brand New book. New copy - Never read - Not price clipped. Beautiful gift quality copy of book and dust jacket.

Book Condition: Brand New.

Dust Jacket Condition: Brand New. NON price-clipped DJ [$24.99 US].

Synopsis: The underside of modern American politics -- raw ambition, manipulation, and deception -- are revealed in detail by Andrew Young’s riveting account of a presidential hopeful’s meteoric rise and scandalous fall.  Like a non-fiction version of All the King’s Men, The Politician offers a truly disturbing, even shocking perspective on the risks taken and tactics employed by a man determined to rule the most powerful nation on earth.

Idealistic and ambitious, Andrew Young volunteered for the John Edwards campaign for Senate in 1998 and quickly became the candidate’s right hand man. As the senator became a national star, Young’s responsibilities grew.  For a decade he was this politician’s confidant and he was assured he was ‘like family.”  In time, however, Young was drawn into a series of questionable assignments that culminated with Edwards asking him to help conceal the Senator’s ongoing adultery. Days before the 2008 presidential primaries began, Young gained international notoriety when he told the world that he was the father of a child being carried by a woman named Rielle Hunter, who was actually the senator’s mistress. While Young began a life on the run, hiding from the press with his family and alleged mistress, John Edwards continued to pursue the presidency and then the Vice Presidency in the future Obama administration.

Young had been the senator’s closest aide and most trusted friend.  He believed that John Edwards could be a great president, and was assured throughout the cover-up that his boss and friend would ultimately step forward to both tell the truth and protect his aide’s career. Neither promise was kept.  Not only a moving personal account of Andrew Young’s political education, THE POLITICIAN offers a look at the trajectory which made John Edwards the ideal Democratic candidate for president, and the hubris which brought him down, leaving his career, his marriage and his dreams in ashes.

Review: “The greatest political saga, the one that has it all, that gets to the real heart of American politics, is the John Edwards story... This isn’t just politics, it’s literature. It’s the great American novel, the kind that isn’t written anymore.” --Michael Wolff on John Edwards's trajectory, on VanityFair.com

About The Author: Andrew Aldridge Young (born March 23, 1966) was a key staff member in the John Edwards 2008 presidential campaign. Young came to prominence via a scandal in which he claimed paternity of Rielle Hunter's child born on February 27, 2008. John Edwards had admitted a past affair with Hunter, but denied paternity of the baby even though Edwards was in fact the father. Young has since renounced that statement. In his book The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down, he claims that Edwards knew all along that he was the child’s father, but pleaded with him to accept responsibility.

Paternity scandal: Through his attorney, Pamela J. Marple, Andrew Young publicly claimed fatherhood of Rielle Hunter's daughter Quinn in December, 2007. Young later denied this, claiming Edwards was indeed the father and his original claim of paternity was part of a cover-up. On January 21, 2010, John Edwards admitted that he was Quinn's father.

Family life: Young married Cheri Young in 1999 and they have young children. The Young family lived in the same housing development in Chatham County, North Carolina as Hunter when the story broke in late 2007. The development is known as "Governor's Club." The Youngs and Hunter moved to California shortly thereafter, where Hunter's child was born.

Young is the son of the Robert T. Young (1935–2009), a Methodist minister who held positions at churches in Asheville, Boone, Statesville and at Duke Chapel, all in North Carolina; his uncle is the author Perry Deane Young.

Young is a 1984 graduate of C.E. Jordan High School in Durham, NC where he was a Captain of the HS football team.

Career: Young has worked for the North Carolina Academy of Trial Lawyers. He registered as a lobbyist in 1999. He is a graduate of the Wake Forest University School of Law, though he is not a licensed lawyer.

Publications:

• The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards's Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down, Thomas Dunne Books, 2010