Sen. Edwards Announces White House Run

AP | 1/02/03 | REBECCA MILLER

[kattracks]

RALEIGH, N.C., Jan 02, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Democratic Sen. John Edwards will run for president in 2004, telling guests at a party at his home Wednesday he will form an exploratory committee.

The first-term senator from North Carolina told about 200 friends he will announce his plans publicly Thursday, said Walter Dellinger, a former U.S. solicitor general who attended the New Year's Day party.

Edwards' guests gathered in his back yard while the senator thanked them for their support during his time in the Senate and in "what I'm going to do next."

As he spoke, a loud cheer went up.

"John was talking about where he wants to lead the country," Ed Turlington, a former state Democratic party executive director, said afterward in describing the announcement. "He asked for our support. Our answer was yes."

Edwards' announcement gives him the jump on several of his colleagues in Congress who are also expected to join the Democratic field in 2004.

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry are already running, and associates expect Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt to announce he's running within the next week.

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman is leaning toward a run, though he hasn't set a timetable for his decision. Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle is still talking with supporters with a plan to decide by mid-January, and Florida Sen. Bob Graham has said he will decide this month.

Edwards, 49, a millionaire former trial lawyer, has spent months making the rounds at Democratic functions in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

Standing with his youngest children, 2-year-old son Jack and 4-year-old Emma Claire, Edwards said before the party started that his family was uppermost in his mind as he considered whether to run.

"I've been thinking about North Carolina and the nation and what effect it's going to have on my family," he said.

He is scheduled to appear on NBC's "Today" show Thursday morning to make his announcement official. He also has two fund-raisers scheduled for Saturday in Raleigh.

Edwards would be up for Senate re-election in 2004, a factor that had to be weighed in making a decision on the presidential race.

Edwards' move toward a run has drawn a lot of attention. He was an early hit with Democratic activists who saw him as telegenic and able to connect with voters.

The last three Democratic presidents - Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Jimmy Carter of Georgia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas - have been from the South.

Edwards grew up as the son of a textile mill employee, born in South Carolina but spending his teenage years in Robbins, N.C. He became a successful trial lawyer in Raleigh, winning personal injury cases against big companies and amassing a fortune of $14 million.

---

Associated Press writers Ron Fournier in Washington and Scott Mooneyham in Raleigh contributed to this report.

---

On the Net:

Edwards' Senate Web site: http://edwards.senate.gov

By REBECCA MILLER Associated Press Writer

Copyright 2003 Associated Press, All rights reserved

[kcvl]

Edwards has forgotten about North Carolina

I'm confused. I didn't know that we elected John Edwards to be a fund-raiser for the national Democratic Party. For some reason I thought we elected a North Carolina senator to represent North Carolina in Washington.

I'll bet that the computers that John Edwards sent to the Democratic parties in Iowa and New Hampshire would have been welcomed by teachers and students in his home state. Mr. Edwards, when you get back from Colorado, how about taking some time to travel in North Carolina. You might just see a need, particularly in North Carolina's rural areas.

Rene Lawrence, Greensboro

[kcvl]

Democrat backers behind Edwards
CHARLES HURT
Observer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is raking in millions from Hollywood moguls, Wall Street execs and lawyers -- many of whom are heavyweight Democratic donors that once bankrolled Al Gore's presidential election.

In the second quarter that just ended, Edwards' political action committee got one check for $250,000 and five more for $100,000 each. All told, he received 31 checks of $25,000 or more, according to financial reports released last week.

Edwards' total take for the quarter was $2.7 million, bringing his total cash on hand to $4.4 million.

To political observers, the cash infusion suggests Edwards has potential to make a real presidential run.

Among Edwards' top donors this quarter:

• Steven Bing, Hollywood movie mogul, gave Edwards the $250,000 check. He is one of the most generous donors in the Democratic Party's history, giving more than $5 million this year alone.

Los Angeles attorney Bruce Broillet held a fund-raiser in his home for Gore during the last election that raised $500,000. He recently wrote Edwards' political committee a check for $50,000.

• Daniel Neidich of Goldman Sachs and Google chairman Eric Schmidt each wrote Edwards checks for $25,000. Each has given more than $100,000 to the party, its candidates and Gore in recent years.

• Frederick Baron, a Houston lawyer and past president of the American Trial Lawyers Association, gave Edwards $100,000. In past years, Baron has given $300,000 to Gore and the party.

Baron and a group of Edwards' supporters joined for a weekend at St. Simons island off the coast of Georgia.

Texas has proved especially receptive to Edwards' message about "helping the little guy who always played by the rules." He raised more than $640,000 from Texas lawyers alone.

By raising more money than anyone else, Edwards has proved he's a real presidential contender, said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, a Washington newsletter.

He raised eight times as much as Gore and nearly five times as much as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Gore's vice presidential nominee in 2000.

Edwards also outraised other potential Democratic presidential contenders, according to the campaign numbers released last week.

About $1.9 million raised this quarter came in so-called "soft money" donations, which are large contributions that cannot be spent to directly promote his candidacy. But that's the best way to prove you can raise money, Duffy said.

Already, Edwards has spent about $100,000 of his soft money to buy hundreds of computers for Democratic party workers in key primary states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

among "progressive" voters -- Edwards wound up getting beaten by activist Al Sharpton.

In another poll, conducted by Hotline online political daily, Edwards was 17 percentage points behind Bush -- in North Carolina.


Sun, Jul. 28, 2002

[kcvl]

Trial Lawyer Trifecta
Even McCain-Feingold can't stop the lawsuit lobby.

Sunday, June 9, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT

As John McCain kept telling us, campaign finance reform was going to reduce if not end special-interest influence in Washington. Perhaps the Senator forgot to tell the plaintiffs bar, which is dominating the current Congressional session as completely as any lobby ever has.

From asbestos-litigation reform to terrorism insurance to even the patients' bill of rights, the tort lawyers are blocking whatever they don't like. So great is their clout in the Senate that the lawyers are even inducing Democrats to kill their own self-professed priorities. Ed Hyman's ISI Group calls it the "trial lawyer trifecta," but even that understates their influence.





Take the patients' bill of rights. Let's assume, generously, that this long-debated legislation is really aimed at the interests of patients. Democrats have claimed as much for years and their leader, Tom Daschle, made a show of passing it as one of his first priorities after regaining Senate control last year.
Yet talks between Senate Democrats and the GOP House fell apart recently over--guess what?--liability caps. North Carolina Democrat John Edwards, the nation's most prominent trial lawyer, is leading the charge against compromise. We don't mind if the bill fails as a result, since what it would really do is price more employers out of the market for health insurance by piling on mandate and lawsuit costs. But the failure is worth noting as an example of how Democrats put trial-lawyer priorities above all others.

What about urbanites, with whom Democrats claim a special affinity? Fears about the post-September 11 real estate market cratering have so far proved exaggerated. But one reason may be market confidence that such uninsurable risks as nuclear terrorism would, in the end, call forth a responsible government policy. That faith becomes less viable with every month that Mr. Daschle continues to stall terror insurance legislation over a single issue: whether trial lawyers will be able to sue property owners who become victims of terrorism. Lesson: Lawyers beat construction workers, hands down.

The third big trial-lawyer triumph is stopping any restraint on the economic plague of asbestos litigation. Even many Democrats want to answer repeated pleas from the Supreme Court to bring some sanity here. But their Senate colleagues in the party of "working families" refuse to do anything about lawsuits that have busted out from companies that made or sold asbestos and now threaten to bankrupt those that merely used the stuff or knew someone who did. Reform here is dead too.





We recently asked Delaware Democrat Tom Carper about all this clout and he explained it crisply: "Trial lawyers raise a lot of money." He should know. As a rare Democrat willing to challenge the trial bar, he's sponsoring a Senate version of the class-action reform that has already passed the House. But he can't get Mr. Daschle to bring that one up for a vote, either. We're beyond trifecta now, into Grand Slam territory.
Harry Hopkins once said the Democratic electoral formula was tax and spend. Nowadays it's sue and sue, so the settlement proceeds can be recycled into campaign donations. The only thing left is for the lawyers to cut out the middle man and elect one of their own to the White House, which they may do in two years in the person of Mr. Edwards.

The intellectual elite is already rationalizing the Democratic Party's trial-lawyer captivity, as in New Yorker writer Nicholas Lemann's recent massage of Senator Edwards. Lawsuits, he writes, have become "the metaphor that does the political work for liberalism." Oh, please.

[kcvl]

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 10/17/02

The latest batch of FEC files shows all the likely Democratic presidential suspects in pretty good shape -- with the possible exception of former Vice President Al Gore, who's having trouble paying staff. But the big news in the financial disclosures may be New American Optimists, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' PAC, which raised $4.1 million. Edwards already has another million sitting in his Senate campaign account.

[wotan]

Adding 10,000 border agents won't solve any problem. It's like Clinton's adding of 100,000 police to the streets of the cities. What did that do?

I agree with the thrust of your comment, but I'm talking about what Edwards will be able to sell to Gullibulus Americanus.

[RightWhale]

Here's another:
When Clinton/Gore took office they were talking about adding 30 million new jobs to America. Did that happen? This new candidate seems to be typical for a politician, long on meaningless promises. He has caught on quick for a rookie.

[Howlin]

I hope you're bookmarking all that Edwards stuff; we're gonna need it.

You are still the absolute BEST at finding stuff.

Dog, did you see this stuff kcvl found on Edwards?

[Dog]

How about this.....before you crown someone else the best researcher....:-)

Edwards'04

[kcvl]

I was wondering where you were? You know more stuff than most of us on pretty boy. lol.

[kcvl]

Is that your site Dog? Very nice...