Edwards: Kerry Ready To Command

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards saluted John Kerry Wednesday night as a man tested by war and ready to take command, determined to "build one America" no longer divided by income or race.

The upbeat Southern populist accused Republicans of waging a campaign of "relentless negative attacks," and told the Democratic National Convention and a national television audience that they hold the power to reject it.

"Instead you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what's possible because this is America, where everything is possible," the North Carolina senator said on the convention's third night.

"The truth is, we still live in two different Americas," said Edwards, the son of a Carolina mill worker and the first in his family to attend college.

"It doesn't have to be that way," he added, reprising the theme that fueled his own surprisingly strong challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination last winter.

Edwards' appearance prompted the most boisterous demonstration of the convention to date. Thousands of cheering delegates held aloft identical red signs bearing his name, passed out by the boxload just before he stepped to the podium.

Delegated cheered the newly nominated vice presidential candidate with a sea of red and white banners and chants of ``Edwards! Edwards!''

Edwards had his turn at the podium a few hours after Kerry campaigned his way to the convention city and into the eager embrace of his Vietnam War crewmates. A dozen fellow veterans greeted him, including Jim Rassmann, a retired Special Forces soldier whose life Kerry saved from a muddy river in the Mekong Delta while under enemy fire.

"We're going to write the next great chapter of history in this country together," Kerry vowed at a welcome-home rally in the city that has nourished his political career for a quarter century.

In keeping with the overwhelming security arrangements for the first national political convention since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kerry's ferry was escorted by Coast Guard vessels armed with machine guns as it made the brief trip across the open harbor.

The convention program called for the delegates to formally bestow their presidential nomination on Kerry in the midnight hour, after his running mate's prime-time oratory. Kerry accepts the party's presidential nomination on Thursday.

Like dozens of other speakers, Edwards stressed the overriding national security theme at the convention. He recalled Kerry's service in Vietnam a generation ago, saying he ordered his swiftboat turned around despite enemy fire and plucked a fellow American from the river to safety.

"Decisive. Strong. Aren't these the traits you want in a commander in chief?" he asked rhetorically.

To hammer home Kerry's military credentials, a parade of 12 retired admirals and generals, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark, came to the convention stage Wednesday in a show of support for Kerry.

Edwards' speech marked something of a pivot to other issues that have received scant attention during three nights of convention oratory.

In one of the few references of the convention to Kerry's economic program, Edwards said it relies on tax hikes on Americans in top 2 percent of income and offers the hope of benefits to millions.

"We can build an America where we no longer have two health care systems,'' he said. "... We can build one public school system that works for all our children. ... We can create good paying jobs in America again,'' he added, by stopping the tax breaks that give companies an incentive to send jobs overseas.

Recalling a childhood in the segregated South, Edwards said he and Kerry want "our children and our grandchildren to be the first generations to grow up in an America that's no longer divided by race."

In a slap at the Bush administration, he said Kerry will "build and lead strong alliances and safeguard and secure weapons of mass destruction ... We will always use our military might to keep the American people safe."

``And we will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaeda and the rest of these terrorists. You can run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you.''

Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, drew the prime-time assignment of introducing her husband, whom she called the "smartest, toughest, sweetest man I know" — and the most optimistic, too.

Edwards viewed his convention speech as an opportunity to introduce himself and Kerry to millions of Americans who know little about either.

In an interview with CBS News Anchor Dan Rather, Edwards was asked what he'd like the country to know about him that it doesn't already know.

"The toughness inside me," said Edwards. "And I think that they've seen enough of me to know that I'm optimistic and hopeful. It's in my nature. But what's hard to see is the toughness that's there. I mean, I have fought my whole life, Dan. I know how tough I can be."

Nearly a decade younger than Kerry, Edwards is father to two young children and projects a sunnier, more youthful appearance than the man at the top of the ticket. At the same time, years of honing courtroom speeches to juries has left him with a smoother, more animated and listener-friendly speaking style than Kerry, who has spent the last two decades debating in the Senate.
If the Kerry campaign has sought to make use of those attributes, Republicans already have tried to raise questions about his qualifications to become second-in-line for the presidency.

"Dick Cheney can be president," Mr. Bush declared at one point, an implicit claim that Edwards cannot.