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John Edwards

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John Edwards should not be confused with talk show host John Edward.

John Edwards

John Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was one of the candidates seeking the Democratic party's nomination in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and was the last serious challenger to the Democratic frontrunner, U.S. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Early Years

Edwards was born in Seneca, South Carolina, and spent his formative years in the town of Robbins, North Carolina. His father, Wallace, was a textile mill worker, while his mother, Bobbie, was a postal employee. The first person in his family to attend college, Edwards briefly attended Clemson University in South Carolina, where he was passed over for a football scholarhip, before transferring to North Carolina State University. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in textile technology in 1974, and later earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, both with honors. While at UNC-Chapel Hill, he met and married his wife, fellow law student Elizabeth Anania.

Before entering politics, Edwards was a successful trial attorney who represented families and children that had been wrongly injured by negligent corporate manufacturers and municipal entities; Edwards made his personal fortune of millions of dollars in the process. The highlight of his legal career was a personal injury lawsuit against Sta-Rite, the manufacturer of a defective pool drain which seriously injured Valerie Lakey, a Cary, North Carolina girl, on June 24, 1993. Turning down all offers of settlement from the company, Edwards pressed the case forward until he secured a $25,000,000 award from the jury, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. Fellow lawyers and law students crowded the courtroom to hear Edwards' closing arguments, while he spoke to the jury for two straight hours without referring to notes in an emotional appeal.

Drawing on his experience in personal injury cases, Edwards has characterized himself as a defender of "the little guy," although his critics have alleged that Edwards only took on cases that he was sure of winning and that would result in substantial financial settlements. Scrutiny has fallen upon one of Edwards specialties, infant cerebral palsy cases, where scientific evidence has recently suggested that birth conditions only rarely cause the disorder.

Edwards and his wife Elizabeth have four children. Their first two, Wade and Catherine, were born soon after John and Elizabeth's marriage. Just one month prior to the beginning of testimony in the Lakey case in 1996, Edwards lost his son, Wade, in an automobile accident; in remembrance of his son, Edwards wears Wade's Outward Bound pin on his suit jacket. Following Wade's death, Edwards and his wife chose to have children again; their two youngest, Emma Claire (1999) and Jack (2001) were conceived with the aid of fertility treatments. The Edwards family resides in Raleigh, North Carolina and Washington DC; Edwards also owns a beach home near Wilmington, North Carolina.

In December 2003, during his presidential campaign, Edwards (with John Auchard) published Four Trials (ISBN 0-74324-4974), a biographical book focusing on his legal career.

Senate Term

Both the success of the Lakey case (which Edwards' called "the best lawyering of my life") and his son's death (Edwards had hoped his son would eventually join him in private law practice) prompted Edwards to leave the legal profession and seek public office. A Democrat, Edwards won election to the U.S. Senate in 1998 by defeating the favored incumbent Republican, Lauch Faircloth.

Edwards' skill as a trial attorney was evident during President Bill Clinton's 1999 Senate impeachment trial. Edwards, who was responsible for the deposition of witnesses Monica Lewinsky and Vernon Jordan, played a critical role in the Senate proceedings that eventually ended in the President's acquittal.

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, Edwards made Democratic nominee Al Gore's Vice Presidential nominee short list (along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gore's eventual pick), and in November 2000, People magazine named Edwards as its choice for the "sexiest politician." Edwards serves on several Senate committees, including the prestigious Intelligence and Judicial committees.

2004 Presidential Campaign

Edwards unofficially began his presidential campaign as early as 2001, when he began to seek speaking engagements in Iowa, the site of the nation's first party cacuses. On September 15, 2003, Edwards unofficially announced his intention to seek the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The next morning, Edwards made the announcement official from his hometown, Robbins, North Carolina. He declined to run for re-election to the Senate in that same year.

As Edwards had been building support for a presidential bid essentially since his election to the Senate, he led the initial campaign fundraising, amassing over $7 million during the first quarter of 2003, more than half of which came from individuals associated with the legal profession, particularly Edwards' fellow trial lawyers, their families, and employees.

Edwards' campaign was often characterized by the American news media as populist; his stump speech spoke of "two Americas;" one composed of the wealthy and privileged, and the other of the hard-working common man. (Excerpt from "two Americas" stump speech) His refusal to level direct negative attacks at his fellow Democratic contenders also attracted attention.

After campaigning for most of 2003, Edwards' campaign struggled to gain large support in the Democratic Party. But in early 2004, weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Edwards began to catch fire and his support and poll numbers began to rise steadily. Edwards' late stage momentum, as well as his departure from the negative campaigning which characterized other leading candidates, carried him into a surprising second place finish in Iowa, behind only John Kerry and ahead of former front-runner Howard Dean. Edwards finished with 12% support in the New Hampshire primary one week later, essentially tied for third place position with Wesley Clark.

As Kerry appeared to claim the front runner position following wins in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, many Democrats speculated on the desirability of a Kerry-Edwards ticket; however, Edwards indicated on January 28, 2004 that he has no interest in running as vice president. [1]

Edwards' presidential aspirations were boosted when, on February 3, 2004, he won the South Carolina Democratic primary with 46% of the Democratic vote, outshowing Kerry's 30% result. Edwards had declared that he "must win" the state in order to remain in the race. Edwards also polled ahead of Kerry in the Oklahoma primary that same day, losing that state to Clark by less than 1,300 votes.

The following week, on February 10, Edwards finished second place in the southern states of Virginia and Tennessee, well behind frontrunner Kerry in both states. Edwards had hoped to capitalize on a southern victory to boost his campaign, but he vowed to remain in the presidential race through the Super Tuesday primaries in early March. On February 17 his campaign gained further momentum when he nearly defeated Kerry in the Wisconsin primary; with Howard Dean's withdrawal from the contest the following day, Edwards became the only major challenger to Kerry for the Democratic nomination. Remarking on his unexpectedly strong finish, Edwards humorously cautioned Kerry: "Objects in your mirror may be closer than they appear."

As the major challenger to John Kerry, Edwards emphasized the relatively few policy differences between the two. He particularly emphasized his disapproval of NAFTA, which Kerry had supported, and his southern background, suggesting that he would be better able to earn support in the predominantly-Republican south than his rival from New England.

Edwards maintained a positive campaign and largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004 debate in New York, where he attempted to put Kerry on the defensive by characterizing the front-runner as a "Washington insider" and by mocking Kerry's plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.

Edwards' campaign ended after a disappointing finish in the Super Tuesday primaries on March 2, when Kerry finished well ahead of Edwards in eight of the 10 states voting that day. (Dean won his native state of Vermont.) Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry in Georgia, but, failing to win a single state, chose to withdraw from the presidential race. He annouced his official withdrawal at a Raleigh, North Carolina press conference on March 3, 2004.

As the last major contender to withdraw from the race, many political pundits speculated that Edwards' presidential bid was not a "serious" campaign, but merely an attempt to raise his national profile, perhaps to earn a vice-presidential spot on the Democratic ticket. Edwards is regarded as a strong contender for the 2008 presidential election, should President George W. Bush win re-election.

Issue stances

Edwards completed the National Political Awareness Test. Some of Edwards' positions, ideas, and experiences with national issues are as follows:

  • National Service: Edwards believes in giving the solider the compensation they deserve. He supports increasing the servicemen's refundable child tax credit and improving the pay, housing, and health care for American troops. Edwards believes that more needs to be done to support soliders' families and has introduced legislation to expand child care for families of active duty personnel and reservists.
  • Economy: Edwards proposed a plan to stimulate the economy in the short term while restoring the long-term fiscal discipline and leveling the playing field for American businesses. Edwards has fought for more resources to let individuals and communities recover from trade-related plant closings, and is a proponent of "fairer" trade agreements.
  • Education: Strengthening public schools is one of Edwards's top priorities. Edwards is against private-school voucher schemes.
  • Security & Foreign Policy: Edwards believe that the country must be protected, but not sacrificing rights and freedoms. Edwards believes in America's right to self-defense and working within the framework of international law. [2]
Edwards helped to improve airport security, increase seaports safety, reduced vulnerability to bioterrorism, and enabled law enforcement agencies to keep known terrorists from entering the country. He cosponsored legislation to strengthen nuclear shipments safety (container strength, shipment escorts, and emergency coordination). Edwards is a proponent of legislation to fight cyberterrorism.
Edwards has proposed a new domestic intelligence agency to fight terrorist cells, strengthening security along borders, making terrorist targets less vulnerable to attack, and developing a better emergency warning system.
  • Immigration: Edwards favors increasing border security, reducing border deaths, and addressing the large inflow of undocumented workers. Edwards is a proponent of removing the backlog at the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to encourage family reunification. Edwards believes in expediting citizenship applications and waiving the processing fees of immigrants erving in the U.S. armed forces. Edwards opposes the proposal to create a guest worker program without a path to citizenship.
  • Law & Justice: Edwards opposes racial profiling. He favors fostering the due process rights of all those within American borders.
  • Drugs: Edwards supports keeping drugs out of the United States. Edwards is in favor for prosecuting of drug sales and greater funding for drug treatment. He is a proponent for alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders (such as drug courts). [3]
  • Gun Control: Edwards believes the right to bear arms and protected by the Second Amendment. Edwards would be in favor of restrictions, including closing the gun show loophole. [4]
  • Senior Citizens: Edwards is a proponent of a comprehensive, fiscally-responsible Medicare prescription drug benefit, providing social and nutrition services to seniors under the Older Americans Act, and a ban of misleading sweepstakes mass mailings.
  • Privacy: Edwards has proposed legislation to prevent the misuse of information from financial and health insurance records and to protect details about telephone calls and Internet surfing habits. Edwards is in favor laws that would require consumer notification before collecting personal information and empower consumers to decide whether or not that information can be used.
  • Environment: Edwards opposes weakening the Clean Air Act, favors legislation to offer a tax credit for use environmentally-friendly technology, and has fought for funding to research new waste treatment technology.
The main points of his proposal are: 1) Preserve clean air, 2) Keep water pure, 3) Restore our national treasures, and 4) Achieve energy independence.
  • Gay Rights: Although Edwards does not support legalization of same-sex marriage, he opposes a Constitutional amendment to define marriage. He supports adoption rights for homosexual couples and overturning the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the U.S. miltary.
  • Abortion: Edwards has stated "I support a woman's right to choose and believe that this right is constitutionally protected." Edwards supports funding for family planning.[5] As a member of Congress, Edwards voted against a ban on partial-birth abortions.

Official

Support

Profiles

Opposition

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