Ed Rendell: Power: The Governor, the Blonde and the Rumor Mill

The Governor starts talking faster, smacking the conference table we sit at for emphasis, when he addresses how rumors of womanizing have swirled around him forever, even back when he was D.A.:

“I never, ever have told the public, my friends or Midge that I am perfect. Do I have some flaws? Absolutely! For all of the rumors, has any woman ever said that I have had sex with her? Other than my wife?

“Do you know about Madame X?” Rendell says. There were allegations a year ago that the same hooker who got New York governor Eliot Spitzer in trouble had a second paramour who was a governor, with a prominent wife, and blogosphere fingers pointed right at Rendell for a couple of days.

“I was hoping that the New York Post would print that it was me,” Rendell says, “and then I was going to own the New York Post. Midge knew it wasn’t me. I have my failings, but she was pretty confident that I didn’t go to a prostitute.”

But this is different. Sources speaking anonymously say he has been telling people that Kirstin Snow is “the love of my life” and his “soulmate.” And that he is thinking of leaving Midge.

“Do you think,” Ed Rendell says, “I would ever use the words ‘soulmate’ or ‘love of my life’? Ed Rendell would never enunciate those phrases. That’s like Romeo and Juliet. Do you want to tell me who those people are? That’s bullshit.”

He speculates about what people might think they’ve heard him say. “I might have been kidding,” he says. “Say if someone says, ‘I saw you with that great-looking blonde,’ I might say, ‘Oh yeah, she’s great. She’s hot as can be, she’s the cat’s meow,’ in a kidding manner. But the love of my life? That I’m thinking of leaving Midge? No way.

“I do not have affairs with women,” Ed Rendell concludes, stiffly, sounding a little like his buddy Bill Clinton, “and it’s really unfair. It’s particularly unfair to attractive women. I should go out and find an unattractive woman to have an affair with.”

Someone close to the Governor explains Ed Rendell this way: “I really just think he likes the intellectual stimulus of hanging around with smart people, some of whom are attractive women.” This source concedes that the Governor is a flirt, but emphasizes that despite more than 20 years of innuendo, no one has ever proved that he’s acted on anything.

And that is true. After talking to the rumormongers and, now, the subjects of the rumors, I have no idea whether the Governor’s relationship with Dr. Kirstin Snow is an affair, or an intimate friendship, or if she’s the classic “work wife” who straightens his tie and otherwise fawns over him.

Meanwhile, this is certainly true: The Governor spends a good bit of time with Zane, Kirstin’s son. Sometimes just the two of them. They play catch — there’s a park across the street from her house on the Susquehanna. Sometimes Rendell drops off Wiffle balls for him. Zane calls him “Governor,” and Ed Rendell says he intends to keep his relationship with Zane going after he leaves office. They, too, are friends.