Obviously — obviously — I saw and bookmarked the WaPo “where is he now” story on John Edwards. And obviously (obviously!) I made mental note of the money quote:

Yet as he spends his days in his family’s mansion on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, N.C., Edwards can’t help but fret about how Washington and the country are getting on in his absence.

That John Edwards! Always thinking of others, etc. etc.

Only thing is — and if wanton displays of naïveté aren’t your bag, you should leave right now — I liked this guy. No. I believed in this guy. Not so much in previous campaigns, or when he was yoked, uneasily, to Gore. This time around it was different. (Maybe I was just extra-susceptible.) Sure, the “son of a millworker” schtick wore thin. A lot of people heard it and called it phony, coming from a millionaire trial lawyer. Me, I thought about the men and women I knew who’d stitched shirts for a living, and the way the 4 p.m. sun shone straight through the empty brick buildings in my hometown. I thought: self-made wealth doesn’t mean you can’t understand that. I thought: some people become lawyers because they believe everyone deserves a representative in the halls of justice. That’s why my parents became lawyers, though in the middle of rural Maine lawyers aren’t millionaires.

I’m biased. It’s true. We all are. We gravitate toward politicians who best reflect the particular beliefs and values and ideas we’ve absorbed in our lives, from our parents, our schools, our communities. And it just so happened that I was raised with a certain set of beliefs and experiences, and these included things like soup kitchens and Dorothy Day and serviam, to say nothing of George Orwell and Upton Sinclair. And here comes John Edwards, shaking off his Ken-doll coma, speaking reasonably directly and with a believable (inasmuch as any of this is believable) passion, and with good ideas to boot. It was a hard time. I had no illusions left to lose, and I wanted to believe in something.

I am not a sucker, not often, anyway. But what can you do when you grew up with Pete Seeger and dinner table conversation about homelessness and a man in a suit uses his podium to say this:

I have walked into courtrooms alone to face an army of corporate lawyers with all the money in the world. I have walked off the Senate elevator and been besieged by an army of corporate lobbyists. And I have beaten them over and over again.

But let me tell you one thing I have learned from my experience — you cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power — you have to take it from them.

Don’t lecture me about speechwriters and strategists. I’ve been paid good money to put inspiring words in other people’s mouths. I know how this game goes, and even in spite of that, or perhaps because of it, I believed.

Which is why, without telling anyone, I decided to enroll in the Democratic party for the first time in my life, a fact that might amuse those peg me as a rank-and-file lefty. Since my 18th birthday, which I celebrated by going to City Hall and registering to vote, I’d clung to my flanneled-Yankee Independent status on principle, even though it meant forgoing Maine’s lively caucus proceedings. I was in New York in 2006-07, so I mailed in my request for a change of party and an absentee ballot for the Maine Democratic caucus.

While I waited for my registration to be confirmed I spent a lot of time in debate with my politically-engaged friends, all of whom were squarely in the tank for Barack Obama. I stayed up late and woke up early to read speeches and policy reports, sending emails with side-by-side comparisons of health care plans, arguing and defending the man I wanted to be president — although, see above re: illusions, I knew full well he’d lose.

I could not afford make large contributions, much as I wanted to; New York rent and student loans and a useless freelancers’ health insurance policy brought my balance to zero each month. I did, however, hear that a family friend was doing some sort of organizing work with the Edwards campaign, slated to be on the ground in New Hampshire and then South Carolina, and I began investigating the logistics of a bus to Greenville. Work commitments made it impossible. I decided it was all right: the most important thing would be my vote in the Maine caucus.

South Carolina Democrats voted on January 26, nominating Barack Obama by a decisive margin. Four days later I sat on the floor and cried harder than I could remember crying over anything in years, and somehow I didn’t even have the presence of mind to feel embarrassed. John Edwards looked tired, there in New Orleans. He stumbled over a few words and squinted in the wind. He waved and it was over. I sat on the floor for a long time after the newscast moved on to whatever else was happening that afternoon.

The next day I received confirmation of my enrollment in the Maine Democratic Party.

I wish I could tell you how I felt when news of the affair broke. I think for a long time I felt nothing, on purpose. Very few people knew the extent of my emotional commitment to his primary campaign, and for the most part they were tactful. I made careful show of shrugging, but I found myself reading every article, looking at the photos, watching the videos. The story was squalid. His attempt at spin was even more so. The knives came out but for once I couldn’t muster a word, no scorn, no outrage, no jokes. The whole thing seemed small and exhausting.

Eventually I realized that what I felt was resignation, that and the cold slap of inevitability. I had been foolish. I chose to believe in an idea of someone, an idea of someone’s ideals — a politician, no less. I knew better. It’s a lesson I won’t forget again and for that, more than anything, I’m grateful.

*Full disclosure: I did, in the end, joke about it. But not well.