DEMOCRATIC presidential hopeful Senator John Kerry kept his choice for vice president so close to his chest that the New York Post headlined that he had chosen Dick Gebhardt, which was the hottest rumor they had before going to press. No, Kerry chose his closest rival for the Democratic nomination, the ebullient young senator from North Carolina, John Edwards. There were a lot of insiders, which apparently included the observers from the New York Post, who felt that Senator Kerry would be uncomfortable with Edwards, who was nipping his heels closely up to Kerry’s final victory in the primaries.
Most Democrats are pleased with the choice. Perhaps because the two men couldn’t be more different. A "populist’’ from the south (he served one term as senator from North Carolina), Edwards’ father was a mill worker and he grew up in relative poverty in a small southern town, and attended public schools, eventually winning a law degree and making a fortune defending poor clients in medical malpractice suits. Kerry, on the other hand, is an East Coast aristocrat. Son of a diplomat, he attended private schools here and abroad. Although a brilliant debater, Kerry doesn’t have the common touch, and feel for the underdog, which characterizes Edwards’ homespun speeches. Shorter than the Lincolnesque Kerry, younger and handsomer, Edwards works the crowd on their level, hand to hand, like an indiscriminately friendly hound dog. Political observers liken his style to Bill Clinton’s.
Eager to take a slap at this new contender, the day after the announcement was made, President Bush sniffed that Edwards didn’t have the experience to be president. "Dick Cheney,’’ he said, "can be President.’’ To which Senator Kerry retorted that that really is the problem. A lot of voters are afraid of Cheney and his Halliburton connections and general disregard for ordinary people.
Edwards, who was the Democratic voters’ favorite second choice in the primaries, is a crowd pleaser, upbeat, optimistic, charming – all the things the sober, intellectual Kerry is not. When he was campaigning in the primaries, Edwards criticized the Bush administration for creating "two Americas’’ one for the elite and privileged, one for everybody else. Black and white poor people, low-scale workers, and the very young identify with him. Kerry’s popularity polls got a three percent bounce when he announced his choice and 10 percent with voters under 50.
A self-made man, from a blue collar background, as opposed to Kerry’s patrician background, Edwards is a walking example of his stated desire to "empower ordinary people.’’ He is also a southerner which may or may not help Kerry in the southern states, which went Republican last election.
How much a vice presidential nominee brings to a ticket is not certain. Over 70 percent of voters insist they vote for the president, not the vice president. The one historical exception in recent history was when John Kennedy, the first Catholic to aspire to the presidency, chose a southern Protestant, Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas, as his running mate, which reassured the voting public.
An upbeat, optimistic, patriotic type of regular guy, Edwards might be able to reconnect the Democrats to Middle America and working families. On the level of religion (and Americans are more church going than any population), Kerry, a Catholic, might have a problem with the white, church-going southern Protestants who voted Republican last time. Edwards, a southern Methodist and regular churchgoer, provides a corrective balance to the ticket.
