John Edwards Pleads with Staffers

John Edwards has been calling former staffers and backers asking for forgiveness following his admission of an extramarital affair — but mostly getting the cold shoulder in return.

For months the former presidential candidate and 2004 John Kerry running mate denied a tabloid’s reports of his affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, only to admit the affair during an August 8 interview.

“I let you down, and I’m sorry,” is the theme of phone messages Edwards has left with former staffers.

“It was kind of pathetic, to tell you the truth,” one staffer told the New York Daily News, adding that he didn’t return the call.

Other staffers and supporters have also declined to return his calls, and some of those who had vouched for his credibility amid the tabloid reports have told him of their anger and disappointment that he lied to them.

One longtime confidant cut off his call with a terse, “I don’t want you to call me again.”

Edwards has said he carried on the affair with Hunter while his wife’s Elizabeth’s cancer was in remission, and claimed that he is not the father of the child she recently delivered.

But according to The Daily News, “many think he’s still not telling the truth.”