The Salon Interview: John Edwards

The 2004 hopeful tells Salon why he thinks he should be president -- and how George W. Bush is "the opposite of me."

By Jake Tapper

Jan. 14, 2003 | The Democratic presidential hopeful and freshman senator from North Carolina long ago stopped using his given name, the one on his birth certificate -- "Johnny Edwards" -- choosing instead the more adult "John." And as the relatively untested Edwards is suddenly being touted as a front-runner for his party's nomination in 2004, he is doing everything he can to make sure the political world continues to take him as seriously as possible.

He's certainly got everyone's attention. He's young, bright, Southern, attractive and affable, all supreme political selling points. He's also a former trial lawyer who's only held elected office since 1998 -- both clear drawbacks. But by election time, his supporters are quick to point out, he will have held elected office six years -- the same amount President Bush had under his belt by November 2000. And he already benefited from extraordinarily adulatory early coverage by prominent liberal writers last year, including a glowing profile by the usually cantankerous Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair, and a New Yorker sketch by Nicholas Lemann that seemed to spin the conventional knock against Edwards, that he's the most successful trial attorney in North Carolina history, on its head. "Throughout much of the South," Lemann wrote, "trial lawyers are, in effect, the left: an influential group that, instead of converting populist sentiment into redistributionist legislation, converts it into big rewards for a small number of people who have stories of having been screwed by powerful, uncaring figures." Voilà: John Edwards as John Grisham hero.

That buzz has shifted to an especially high murmur after the self-removal of candidates Al Gore and Senator Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. After Edwards officially announced on Jan. 2 that he'd be running, he immediately moved up in early polls closely behind established pols like Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. (who officially threw his hat in the ring Monday), while just a month before he was trailing even the Rev. Al Sharpton in some polls.

The Republicans are surely taking him seriously. Just three days after he declared his candidacy on NBC's "Today Show" and then on his Raleigh, N.C., driveway, the Washington Post noted that "the [Republican National Committee] issued a 10-page, footnoted release that avers the first-term senator's utter inadequacy for the job," and pointing out that "the GOP has yet to send out similar takedowns of the other Democrats running for the presidential nomination." (A source familiar with RNC opposition research pooh-poohs the implication that the GOP particularly fears Edwards more than others.)

And when you talk to the camps of other Democratic hopefuls, many think the race will come down to their guy -- and Edwards. In fact, many seem to already have prepared some tomatoes to throw at the well-coiffed, 49-year-old senator. "The only point I would make," a senior aide to one of Edwards' Democratic rivals pointedly asks, "is in a post-9/11 world, is the electorate ready for an 'outsider,' a fresh face with little government experience? Does one trip to Afghanistan make you a warrior on terror?"

Says a senior advisor to another rival Democrat, "Edwards seems intent on putting at risk a promising political future by running before he's ready. If he loses the nomination, it'll be because he's too green and inexperienced and in running he'll have given up the demanding Senate job that could have prepared him to run an effective campaign in 2008."

Under this evaluation, Edwards risks being the most high-profile North Carolina flash in the pan since Danny Ferry was drafted second out of Duke, only to go on to a relatively humble NBA career. But considering the many variables President Bush faces in the next two years, and Edwards' Democratic opposition -- which could, with few exceptions, be summed up as an anonymous sea of bland -- he could very well end up being Michael Jordan.

Salon spoke with Edwards by phone last Saturday afternoon.

You haven't been in political life that long, first running for office, for the U.S. Senate, in 1998. Now, everything you say is parsed carefully -- you even drew criticism after an appearance on ABC's "This Week," when you couldn't name a favorite philosopher. Has it been a tough adjustment?

Well, it's different. But it's completely expected. I think if you decide to run for president of the United States you have to understand that people are going to look very carefully at you. They're going to look at how you say things and your answers to questions, and actually I think that's reasonable.

Senator Lieberman on Monday will declare his candidacy for president. Why should someone vote for you over Lieberman?

Well, the reason I hope Democrats will support me is that I have spent my entire life fighting for the same people I grew up with. I represented them for 20 years as a lawyer, and they're the same people I ran to represent in the U.S. Senate, and they're the reason why I want to be president. I have a very ground-level view of their lives and what needs to be done to make their lives better. But I want to be judged on the basis of my ideas and own character. I'm happy to have people make that comparison with anybody.

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