John Edwards leaves the public stage

Three years ago, John Edwards promised to change America if elected president. On Thursday, he made a more personal promise: to do right by the daughter he's publicly denied.

With that, the curtain fell on Edwards' political career. He pulled the cord.

"I don't have any plans to return to public life," Edwards said through spokeswoman Joyce Fitzpatrick late Wednesday. "I just hope that I can find another way to serve."

Edwards finally admitted Thursday that he had fathered Frances Quinn Hunter, the daughter of former mistress Rielle Hunter. The day before, he pulled on a pair of blue jeans and headed to Haiti. He took a sleeping bag; he had no return ticket.

This, some say, is where Edwards can look for his redemption: an earthquake-ravaged country where he is just another American looking for survivors and bandaging their wounds.

"He's been doing work outside of this country where his errors in judgment don't have any bearing on his work," his wife Elizabeth Edwards told The News & Observer on Thursday. "His political career is decimated. He has put that part of his career behind him."

Edwards was North Carolina's rising star. He had a Kennedy smile and a cause. His story resonated: the son of a millworker who became a successful malpractice lawyer. He had a smart wife, a college-age daughter, two little children - and a son who died in a car wreck in his teens. Before Edwards even finished his first term as a U.S. senator, he decided to go for broke: the White House.

On Thursday, he was another failed politician, undone by lust and a love child. He admitted on the "Today Show" and through The News & Observer that he was, contrary to his previous insistences, Quinn's father.

Since 2007, one lie bred another. Edwards' denials of paternity of Hunter's child, who turns 2 on Feb. 27, tumbled out every time a reporter crossed paths with him.

His initial admission of infidelity was a tale of a single night of abandon after Rielle Hunter, a recovered drug addict who became a campaign videographer, hit on him at a New York City hotel, according to Elizabeth Edwards' book "Saving Grace."

Others began to share in Edwards' lie.

When tabloid pictures showed Hunter pregnant, Andrew Young, a former Edwards aide, claimed to be the father.

Hunter and Young's family settled into the posh Governors Club in Chatham County, then moved to California for the birth of Quinn. An Edwards supporter sent money to pay for their hideaway.

All the while, Edwards angled for gigs within the rising Democratic administration. He wanted to speak at the Democratic National Convention. He talked with President Barack Obama about getting the attorney general post.

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, authors of the new 2008 presidential campaign book "Game Change," said in an interview that Edwards was delusional and reckless.

"Every presidential candidate, in addition to their salutary qualities, has a degree of vanity and ego and hubris and neediness and delusion, but Edwards is like an extreme case of all of those things, and they became for him all-consuming and self-destructive," Heilemann said.

The façade crumbles

Eventually, Edwards' cover started to unravel.

Young changed his story, claiming in a proposal for his soon-to-be-released book to have taken credit for Hunter's baby as a favor to Edwards.

The lies had stacked tall.

Edwards said through Fitzpatrick, the spokeswoman, that he had lied so long, in part, out of concern for his wife, Elizabeth, who has an incurable cancer, and their children.

The Edwardses' marriage has been strained in recent months. NBC News reported Thursday that the couple is separated.

"It would be amazing if any marriage could endure what they have been through," said Wade Smith, a Raleigh lawyer representing Edwards. "I don't believe there is anything in place that is formal, however."

Dismantling the lies absorbed Edwards for much of the last year, friends said.

"It's been very difficult for him to find the path that would cause the least amount of harm," said John Moylan, a close friend of Edwards' and a former campaign official.

"I think he found it. Telling the truth and professing his profound remorse was the right thing for John and those who love him."

Several barriers blocked Edwards from claiming Quinn, friends said.

A federal investigation into campaign finance improprieties loomed. His and Elizabeth's two youngest children needed time to process the news. Hunter and Edwards hadn't yet hammered out a custody agreement.

"His heart wanted to do this for a long time," said Harrison Hickman, a longtime friend and political adviser. "For head-related reasons, it was not possible."

Hunter and Edwards have reached a financial support agreement. Quinn and Hunter settled in Charlotte, where Hunter has full custody of Quinn, Fitzpatrick said.

Space to be a father

Virtually every title for Edwards begins with former or failed. Except father.

Edwards has been spending time with Quinn over the past year. Lately, he's been trying to bring her into the fold of his family.

Even Elizabeth, who has expressed disdain for Hunter in television interviews, has spent time with Quinn. Friends say she was relieved by her husband's announcement.

"It's classic Elizabeth," Moylan said. "She would be the first to acknowledge that there is a lot of blame to go around, and none of it belongs to Quinn."

Friends are sure he will tackle the parenting of Quinn with care and discipline. They hope he's given the space to be a father to Quinn as much as he has to his other children.

"Eventually the tabloids will quit snooping," Hickman said. "The value of their photographs will go down. I don't know exactly when that will be, though."

It wasn't Thursday. As Edwards stepped on the tarmac at Haiti's airport, a bank of news cameras tracked his every move.

Staff writer Benjamin Niolet contributed to this report.