Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards is already in full campaign mode for the 2008 presidential nomination.
John Edwards appears to be vying for party’s nomination (Ashville (NC) Citizen-Times)
John Edwards says he hasn’t decided whether to make another bid for the presidency, but the former Democratic candidate for the nation’s top job appears to be campaigning hard for his party’s nomination in 2008. Edwards, a one-term North Carolina senator who was Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, stressed his familiar “two Americas†theme in a speech Thursday to about 2,000 liberal Democratic activists. It was this theme of an economically divided America, where the poor get little help from Republicans and the rich profit handsomely, that Edwards used during his 2004 primary campaign.
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“I have no doubt he’s running for president,†former national Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler said in a telephone interview from South Carolina. “I know he would couch his response in all sorts of qualified terms, but if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.â€
Edwards, who was criticized during his campaign for being weak on foreign policy, also met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent visit to London and is examining U.S.-Russia affairs at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations.
Edwards, a native of Seneca, S.C., who turns 52 on June 10, heads a recently created poverty-research center at the UNC Chapel Hill, his alma mater. Since November, he has traveled to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation̢۪s first presidential contests, and swing state Ohio. He remains politically active through his One America Committee and has helped other Democrats raise money.
Mike Munger, a Duke University political scientist, is convinced that Edwards will run for president. If Edwards didn’t want to be president, Munger said, he would have returned to his law practice after the elections. “He has a think tank and a political organization and is giving talks all over the place,†Munger said via e-mail. “This is costing him $10 million a year, at least, in lost legal fees. So, he is serious.â€
My guess is that Edwards’ chances of getting the nomination are even slimmer in 2008 than they were in 2004, since the field of candidates is deeper. If Hillary Clinton stumbles along the way, I would put my money on a Southern governor like Virginia’s Mark Warner or Tennessee’s Phil Breseden.
via Taegan Goddard
