The GOP's Edwards Challenge

Analysis By David Paul Kuhn
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

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As Republicans turn their sights on Sen. John Edwards, he will likely prove a hard candidate to target. Edwards has already been vetted in a national campaign as well as in a hard-fought and victorious Senate race against a hard-fighting Tar Heel Republican establishment.

But that won't stop the Republicans from trying. Already, the GOP is reminding Americans that the North Carolina freshman senator made tens of millions as a lawyer. Democrats call him a trial lawyer; Republicans call him a personal injury lawyer.

More immediately, the Bush-Cheney campaign is painting Edwards as a candidate with a lack of foreign policy experience in a post-9/11 world.

On Wednesday in North Carolina, a reporter asked President Bush how Dick Cheney can stack up against Kerry's selection, being that Edwards is "described today as 'charming,' 'engaging,' 'a nimble campaigner,' 'a populist' and even 'sexy.'"

"Dick Cheney can be president," Mr. Bush responded curtly, immediately pointing to the next reporter.

When Vice President Dick Cheney debates Edwards in October, you can expect Cheney to argue that he can be president if the need suddenly arises. If Edwards attempts to make Cheney look out of touch, Cheney will attempt to make Edwards look green.

An exceptional orator, Edwards traversed stages confidently in Iowa and Wisconsin during the Democratic primaries. Speaking of "two Americas," one for the haves and the rest for the have nots, his humble beginnings gave him credibility with working class voters. Retail politics was his game.

During this period, while the national media had long records to scrutinize on his opponents, there was little to dissect on Edwards. Republicans face the same dilemma.

"In some ways, Edwards benefited from not having cast thousands of votes," says Ferrell Guillory, Director of the Program on Southern Politics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "His record leaves him with not a lot to examine."

What the press was left with was the man before it. And he was charming. If the GOP calls Kerry 'too Washington,' it will face a problem arguing that Edwards does not have enough in him.

Back in the deeply divided Tar Heel State, the two-fifths that is Republican charged that Edwards' national ambitions were to the detriment of his state representation in the senate. State political experts say the resentment never cemented beyond party lines.

Shortly after Kerry announced on Tuesday that Edwards would be his running mate, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie was on the cable news networks charging Edwards with "pocketing millions" as a lawyer. The implication: Edwards is slick, a la former President Clinton.

However, his 1998 senatorial opponent, Lauch Faircloth, tried the same tactic. The Republican incumbent attempted then to frame Edwards as a greedy personal injury lawyer.

"It was among the arrows in the Faircloth's quiver against Edwards, but Edwards dodged that arrow fairly effectively," Guillory says. "He has deftly turned what could be a negative to being part of a life story. His politics has flowed out of his upbringing [and] the kind of law he practiced, representing middle class people."

Little illustrated this point better than Edwards' later titling his obligatory presidential campaign biography "Four Trials." The son of a mill worker positioned himself successfully as a legal advocate on behalf of the working poor that weaned him. Edwards won a tight election in the conservative state.

"Faircloth was not a strong candidate. But the Jesse Helms machine has elected people the voters couldn't even recognize," says Ted Arrington, chairman of the political science department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "It's an extremely powerful machine and very good at running negative campaigns for candidates, and they couldn't get Edwards."

When Faircloth's campaign pointed out that Edwards didn't vote as a citizen, Edwards said the death of his teenage son caused him to reevaluate his life and decide to go into public service.

In North Carolina Wednesday, President Bush said North Carolinians will vote Bush-Cheney because he "shares their values." Republicans have begun painting Edwards as a liberal like Kerry, inferring both are out of touch with the mainstream.

"But the advantage Edwards has is that unlike Kerry, he sounds good when he talks about values," Arrington says. "He is a self-made man who comes from a lower class family."

During Edwards Democratic primary race, he earned most his funding from trial lawyers, surprising all when in the first quarter of 2003 he raised more than his Democratic opponents. This connection has already shown signs of rallying the business community.

But if the Bush-Cheney campaign puts out advertising portraying Edwards as a personal injury lawyer, Arrington says, "They will come back with ads showing people Edwards defended and they will cry on camera and say John Edwards saved my life and he made that bad corporation pay up.

"People may not like trial lawyers," Arrington adds, "but they don't like insurance companies either."


By David Paul Kuhn