If Edwards loses SC to Kerry, he'll endorse him

We've got Kerry, Dean and Clark threads. Here's one for Edwards on his big day.

Pretty wild that he'd announce a contingency endorsement the day before the race. Also says that he always considered himself, Kerry and Gephardt to be the serious candidates in the original field.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6892-2004Feb2.html

For Edwards, It All Comes Down to South Carolina

By David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A01


GREENVILLE, S.C., Feb. 2 -- For John Edwards, Tuesday is the day of reckoning.

If the native son of South Carolina loses the presidential primary here to John F. Kerry -- a possibility that his entourage nervously acknowledges is real -- the decision will be simple. Edwards will congratulate Kerry, quickly endorse the Massachusetts senator as the Democratic nominee and head home.

He will feel no shame, he said in an interview, in losing to a man he regards as an upright politician, worthy of the presidency.

But if he beats Kerry in South Carolina, Edwards said he looks forward to challenging him for the top spot -- no matter what the odds against his success.

A victory here would send the North Carolina senator flying late Tuesday night to Memphis to begin a quest for victories on Feb. 10 in the Tennessee and Virginia primaries -- a prelude to a battle he says he can wage right through the remainder of the race.

In his most explicit comments about his strategy against Kerry, Edwards said that it would not be a personal vendetta. He bestows on Kerry, and on defeated Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), his ultimate accolade, saying he regards them as the other "solid" contenders in the original field. "I think John Kerry and I have run very serious, disciplined campaigns with very substantial policy foundations," Edwards said. "I think he was in it for the long run, and so was I."

But if the field narrows after Tuesday, as Edwards expects, he looks forward to drawing an increasingly sharp contrast with Kerry on issues and backgrounds.

The first of those issues is trade, which Edwards is highlighting in an ad made for the South Carolina, Oklahoma and New Mexico primaries Tuesday. In it, Edwards notes that he opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement in his 1998 Senate campaign -- but does not point out specifically that Kerry voted for the agreement with Mexico and Canada, which many voters in the industrial areas of the South and Midwest blame for the flight of manufacturing jobs.

In interviews, however, Edwards has started to highlight Kerry's pro-NAFTA vote, and he said he would not hesitate to confront Kerry directly on the issue if they meet again in a debate.

Edwards acknowledges that Kerry, coming off victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, will likely collect more delegates than anyone else in Tuesday's seven primaries and caucuses. Kerry is also a heavy favorite in Michigan, which votes on Saturday, along with Washington state. But with Tennessee and Virginia to follow, "the geography is good for me," Edwards said.

The particular problem Edwards faces would be how to bring the high-flying Kerry down to earth without abandoning his own pledge not to "attack" a fellow Democrat. That pledge is an essential part of Edwards's stump speech, and he says it is a commitment he intends to keep.

"Thirty days ago, when it looked like nothing was working, when I was in single digits everywhere and not competitive, there was enormous pressure on me to change, to be more negative and more attack-oriented," he said. "But I believed I was doing the right thing, and I stayed with what I am."

The positive approach clicked in Iowa, where Edwards surged to finish second, 6 percentage points behind Kerry. But with less campaign time in New Hampshire, he faded to fourth, trailing Kerry, former Vermont governor Howard Dean and (narrowly) retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark.

That set up South Carolina as a make-or-break test for Edwards, and he has spent more time here this week than any other candidate except Al Sharpton, the New York civil rights activist who has been filling black churches across the state.

Edwards counts on a network of local supporters, both black and white, that he recruited early -- before most of his rivals had begun organizing in South Carolina. He hopes their work plus his own campaigning will offset the boost Kerry received from his wins up North and the endorsements that followed from Sen. Ernest F. Hollings and Rep. James E. Clyburn, the state's top black elected official and formerly a Gephardt supporter.

If he loses South Carolina, Edwards would take with him the knowledge that he has impressed his rivals and a significant swath of Democrats to whom he was a stranger when he began this campaign, with his warm personality, his courtroom-honed speaking ability and his hopeful populist message -- qualities many of them would like to see him deploy as the No. 2 man on the ticket.

But if Tuesday's voting leaves Kerry and Edwards the only candidates with primary wins, as Edwards hopes, he thinks the contrast in their backgrounds and qualifications will quickly become clear. Part of it is the difference between a millworker's son, the first in his family to attend college, and the child of a U.S. diplomat who grew up in embassy circles and graduated from Yale.

When discussing the effect of plant closings, Edwards says, "It is not an academic issue to me. I understand how devastating that can be for families and whole communities. I've lived through that myself."

His hunch, he said, is that the populism he preaches, based on that experience, will resonate not just in Tennessee and Virginia but also in such midwestern states as Wisconsin and Illinois that come along later.

Edwards also claims to be more competitive with Bush nationally than a Massachusetts senator can be. "The South is not George Bush's back yard," he tells audiences. "It is my back yard."

That argument works on some voters outside the South. Jeanine Nelson, an independent who came to see Edwards in Albuquerque, said, "At first, I thought he sounded like a southern evangelist, but the more I listened, the more I liked him. I think he would be the best contrast to Bush -- and has the best chance to beat him."

Others who show up at Edwards's rallies acknowledge his talent, but say they want to see him in the No. 2 place on the ticket. In some cases, that works to his advantage. Betsy Metasca of Albuquerque said she was undecided between Kerry and Edwards but figured "it might be good to vote for Edwards here to get him on the ticket."

But Jim Bacchus, who attended the same event, said he was going to support Clark in the primary, while believing that eventually "it will be a Kerry-Edwards ticket. You can't keep a guy with [Edwards's] talent off the ticket," he said.

Edwards, of course, dismisses talk of the vice presidency, if only because "I'm running for president." Having decided late last year that he would not run for reelection to the Senate this year in North Carolina, he would seem to have few reasons to reject being the running mate.

But Edwards has never sold himself short, and he says he is undaunted by the challenge of a face-off with Kerry. It goes back to his courtroom experience as a trial lawyer, he said. In a scene he loves to invite his audiences to visualize, the corporate lawyers representing the insurers and big businesses he is suing are lined up in well-dressed platoons on one side of the courtroom, looking across at him and asking themselves, "What's he doing here?" "And then," Edwards says to a rising crescendo of cheers from every crowd, "I beat 'em. I beat 'em. I beat 'em."

He seems to think he can do the same thing to Kerry -- but only if South Carolina permits.

 

Smokey: it was a step down for the first Bush too. He got over it.

Erskine Bowles is running for Edwards' seat. He's out of the Senate as of next year. It's not a rumor or a possibility. It's done.

If he doesn't get the nomination, he can either run for VP (if asked) or go back to practicing law. My money's on VP. If he's even asked. It's not like he's going to have a clearer path to the top spot. If Kerry loses, he'll be up against Hillary and Bill Richardson next time just for starters. Maybe Gore too. Think he'd do better against them than against Kerry, Dean, Clark and Lieberman? Me neither.