For Edwards, Time To Step Up

Testing his legendary Southern courtroom-developed charm on the nation, John Edwards is aiming to infuse the Democratic convention with youth and energy Wednesday when he accepts the party's nomination for vice president.

The North Carolina senator's wife, Elizabeth told CBS News Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm that Edward's speech will offer specifics on Iraq, the economy and on terrorism.

"He'll be talking about the big themes of this campaign - optimism, searching for a better tomorrow that this nation has always represented," she said Wednesday. "He'll be talking a lot about Senator Kerry and the attributes that he brings and will bring to the office of the presidency.

"And he'll be talking about specifics of their plan to improve our safety and security and strength at home and abroad."

Sen. John Kerry, arrived back in his hometown Wednesday aboard a water taxi with his Vietnam-era swiftboat crewmates for a splashy entrance to the Democratic convention city, summoning images of the candidate's wartime service to bolster his case to be commander in chief.

He'll address the nation Thursday night and officially be chosen as the Democratic Party's choice to oust President George W. Bush in the Nov. 2 elections.

As his plane made its way to Boston, the Massachusetts senator told reporters, "Welcome home. Welcome to the Super Bowl." Pumping his fist, Kerry said he felt great. "Ready to go. Pumped!"

After two days of challenges to a president they ache to replace, the convention's 4,350-plus delegates will shout their way through a roll call of states immediately following Edwards' speech, expected to include a recitation of his contention that President Bush has created "two Americas" — one for the rich and one for everyone else.

Born to parents who labored in the mills of his native South Carolina, Edwards became a self-made millionaire after two decades as one of the country's most successful trial lawyers.

CBSNews.com producer Jarrett Murphy reports jobs, health care and education were at the top of North Carolina delegates' recommendations to Edwards as he tries to attract swing voters nationwide — and even in his home state.
"Just keep bringing the word home about jobs and the economy, and make it personal," was Larry Townsend's advice to the senator. The tribal officer from North Carolina added that Edwards should make it clear that "everybody has a stake in this election."

Edwards' speech follows two days in which some of the Democrats' best and brightest — including party stalwart Sen. Edward Kennedy and newcomer Barack Obama, a Senate candidate — have praised Kerry with stories of his service in Vietnam while criticizing President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq.

Kerry planned a dramatic arrival Wednesday in Boston, riding a water taxi across the harbor. On Tuesday, he cited his qualifications to be commander in chief and asserted, "I will and I can fight a more effective war on terror than George Bush is."

Kerry is even or slightly ahead of the president in many pre-convention polls. At the same time, a new Washington Post-ABC poll showed that more than half those surveyed said they knew only a little or hardly at all about his positions on issues.

Two days into the convention, police reported that no protesters had been arrested, despite predictions that there would be thousands.

Republicans, in Boston to counter the Democrats' anti-Bush rhetoric, ridiculed Kerry for shifting positions on Iraq.

In her first big political speech, the candidate's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sought to shield him from that accusation, saying his positions on the environment and other issues were just common sense. She took her own jabs at President Bush, describing her husband as a fighter who earned three Purple Hearts "the old-fashioned way, by putting his life on the line for his country."

President Bush served stateside during Vietnam; Kerry volunteered for combat.

"No one will defend this nation more vigorously than he will," Heinz Kerry said of her husband.

It was critical that Heinz Kerry help Democrats better understand something of her husband's values, and as CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports, also, to share a glimpse into her own beliefs.

She spoke of being born in Mozambique under a dictatorship and women who still live in fear of speaking out.

"I have a very personal feeling about how special America is, and I know how precious freedom is," said Heinz Kerry, who joined anti-apartheid marches. "It is a sacred gift, sanctified by those who have lived it and those who have died defending it."

Kennedy, the Massachusetts senator and aging liberal icon whom Republicans happily link to Kerry, accused President Bush of wasting the "enormous goodwill that flowed to America from across the world" after the Sept. 11., 2001, terrorist attacks.

Delivering a slap to his late father's political party, Ron Reagan spoke out in support of stem cell research. He told Democratic delegates that voters in November face a choice between "the future and the past, between reason and ignorance, between true compassion and mere ideology" on the controversial issue.

Reagan became an active supporter of stem cell research after his father, President Reagan, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The elder Reagan died of complications of the disease last month at age 93. Nancy Reagan also is a strong advocate of stem cell research.

Some of the biggest applause of the night came for Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for Senate from Illinois who described Kerry as a war hero who has long made "tough choices when easier ones were available."

Without mentioning him by name, Obama said President Bush had failed to level with the public before ordering troops into Iraq. If elected in November, Obama — whose father was Kenyan and mother American — would become the Senate's only black member, and only the fifth black senator in U.S. history.