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DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - The front porch conjures up images of rocking chairs, lazy summer afternoons and icy drinks. But not in election-year politics as Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards use the setting to reach out to voters in choreographed events with miked candidates and hand-picked audiences. "The most important thing you can do as a political leader is not to talk, but to listen," Edwards said Monday from the front porch of the split-level home of Durham's Democratic mayor, Bill Bell. It might have looked as though Sen. Edwards just stopped by for a folksy chat in this...

Scramble, scramble, scramble! Freepers man your planes!The Ketchup Commie is inbound to your sector! Here is your intercept data:Friday, July 09 - West Virginia A New Team for a New America Rally The event will be at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport in Beckley. Tickets for preferred viewing are available at: Democratic Headquarters 1802 Harper Road Beckley, WV Kerry Campaign Headquarters 602 Virginia Street East, Suite 100 Charleston, WV You can pick up tickets today, Thursday, July 8th, from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and tomorrow, Friday, July 9th, from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. Gates open at: 11:30 AM...

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John Edwards will bring their presidential campaign to Raleigh this weekend. Both senators will hold a rally Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the Court of the Carolinas on the campus of North Carolina State University near the Bell Tower. Gates open at 1 p.m. Parking is available in the campus garages and lots. Around 3 p.m., Kerry and Edwards are scheduled to arrive at RDU International. Meanwhile, free tickets to Saturday's rally in Raleigh are available on the North Carolina Democratic Party's Web site. Tickets are also available at several distribution centers...

Even though Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has been criticized for a dearth of minorities among the top advisers to his presidential campaign, he can point to the fact that his campaign slogan was inspired by the late African-American poet and writer Langston Hughes. In fact, Kerry wrote the preface to a new collection of Hughes’s poems that will be published by Vintage this month, just in time for the Democratic National Convention. The paperback edition will feature nine Hughes poems “about freedom, brotherhood and the American dream.” In May, Kerry invoked the first two lines of Hughes’s poem “Let America...

Now the Democrats have a ticket, and that ticket has a pro-Israel position paper that, like the candidates' voting record, is reportedly "second to none." Festooned with the obligatory button with his name in Hebrew, John Kerry sent out a paper that could have been written for George W. Bush. So those concerned with Israel's security can breathe easy, right? Let's take a closer look. Kerry's paper claims he "has been at the forefront of the fight for Israel's security during his 19 years in the US Senate." Indeed, he has signed on almost every pro-Israel letter and voted for...

Good for John Kerry. By picking John Edwards he has given the voters a real choice. The conventional wisdom in Washington held that Kerry would be smart to pick someone who underscored his national security credentials. Picking a Wesley Clark or even a Dick Gephardt would signal that Kerry wasn't going to let the Bush team out-hawk him on the war on terror and foreign policy. By picking Edwards, Kerry has made it clear that he doesn't think this election should be framed on Bush's terms and that he wants to make a very different case to the American people....

JOHN Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his vice presidential candidate is getting predictable but sincere applause from Democrats, relieved that some charisma will enliven their presidential ticket. But the initial positive reaction may not last long as the Bush campaign zeroes in on Edwards' vulnerability: his presidential campaign contributors. During his run for the top job, John Edwards relied heavily on leading trial lawyers. Twenty-two of his top 25 donors were trial attorneys. And those donations likely cloak a multitude of sins and violations of the campaign-finance laws.

http://www.nea.org/vote USERNAME: nea PASSWORD: vote4kids My wife received a very nice, colorful flyer from the NEA this weekend recommending John Kerry for President. The flyer contained some quotes from Kerry and concluded that NEA members should vote for him. I wonder how much money the NEA spent to send this crap to its 2.7 million members? I checked out the website that the flyer references to see what they are saying about Kerry and Bush. Here is why the NEA feels its members should vote for John Kerry: John Kerry: A Record of Respect and Support For Teachers and Education...

The selection of Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee has swelled the budding rivalry between him and Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), who is believed by many to be eyeing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008. Observers, including those close to Edwards, say that his place on the ticket has secured a political future that had been endangered by his decision earlier this year to retire from the Senate to focus on his White House bid. But Clinton’s allies, while enthusiastic about Edwards’s selection and the possibility of knocking President Bush out of office, say Edwards will have...

The John Kerry-John Edwards ticket is the "most gay-supportive in American history," a homosexual advocacy group proclaimed on Tuesday. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute says it has analyzed Sen. John Edwards' positions on 13 issues important to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and found that while Edwards was "supportive" in nine categories, his positions were "unclear" in three others. The group says Edwards opposes a Federal Marriage Amendment, but to their disappointment, "he does not support extending equal marriage rights to same-sex couples." Nevertheless, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute is highlighting...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Edwards rose to political prominence criticizing President Bush for creating "two Americas," one for the privileged and one for everyone else. A look at his finances shows he's one of the privileged. Edwards, tapped Tuesday by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to be his vice presidential running mate, is a multimillionaire former trial lawyer with wide-ranging investments in mutual funds, stocks of major American corporations and bonds of North Carolina educational and governmental organizations.The North Carolina senator's financial disclosure statement shows that he made more than 200 trades of stocks, bonds and mutual funds last year, while...

It didn’t take long. Minutes after John Kerry picked John Edwards for this fall’s Democratic ticket, the sharp knives were unsheathed Tuesday. “Who is John Edwards?” The Republican National Committee responded. “A disingenuous, unaccomplished liberal and friend to personal injury trial lawyers.” Politics are politics, but we hope remarks like those aren’t a sign of things to come during the next four months. See the complete Pilot, exactly as in print - View stories, photos and ads - E-mail clippings - Print copies Log in or learn more Email this Page Print this Page Get Email Newsletters We fear they...

Homosexual Lobby groups are delighted at the prospect of the John+John Democratic Presidential ticket. The National Stonewall Democrats, a leading Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered actvist group issued a statement on Tuesday stating that, "the selection of Senator Edwards solidifies the most pro-gay ticket in the history of presidential politics." Lengthy statements of support were also issued by Human Rights Campaign, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Business groups reacted tepidly to Sen. John Kerry’s choice of a running mate yesterday, citing concerns that Sen. John Edwards had consistently voted against pro-business bills in Congress and that his background as a trial attorney made him a natural adversary of business interests. The selection of Edwards also sent a clear message that Kerry would not seek to appease business groups by adding a pro-business candidate to the ticket. “Kerry decided not to signal accommodation to the business community,” said Michael Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, adding that earlier Democratic presidential tickets had been...

Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards don’t make for a diverse presidential ticket. Both are filthy-rich middle-aged white males – words of horror to the liberal establishment, though offset by their left-wing voting records. Both have flip-flopped on many issues, the latest of which is their opinions of each other. Edwards repeatedly said he would not be Kerry's running mate, though it has been obvious for months he was running for the No. 2 job. Will he be honest in the future, or did his denials in fact expose his character, or lack thereof? Kerry, meanwhile, sniped at Edwards even...

John Edwards, Sen. Kerry's newly chosen running mate is no friend of America's taxpayers, says taxpayer advocate Grover Norquist. Moreover, the choice of Edwards as Kerry's running mate carries with it a lot of negatives for Bill and Hillary Clinton - and any democrat who has his eyes on the White House. Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C., and is considered one of the shrewdest political, observers in Washington told NewsMax.com in an exclusive interview: “One week ago, the United States transferred power to a sovereign government in Iraq. By choosing John Edwards over Dick Gephardt,...