A Politician in a Hurry Lands at Kerry’s Side

Sen. John Edwards’ selection as John F. Kerry’s running mate is the latest leap in a breakneck political rise by the North Carolina Democrat, who has made a career of defeating more experienced rivals and beating the odds.

Edwards’ quick march through the political world has taken him from unseating an incumbent Republican senator to finishing second in this year’s crowded field of Democratic presidential candidates -- all in six years.

Now, Sen. Kerry has chosen him over several seasoned politicians with more gravitas and longer resumes.

Propelling Edwards to the front of the pack are many of the same qualities that have shaped his life: a bewitching way with words that he honed as a trial lawyer, a driving ambition that catapulted him beyond his modest mill-town origins and a willingness to take risks, which has allowed him to move gingerly from one career steppingstone to another.

All that -- and an occasional dose of good luck -- has helped Edwards elbow his way past more cautious and traditional politicians, who often are less skilled than the 51-year-old at galvanizing an audience.

Republicans and Democratic rivals have criticized Edwards for the sparseness of his government experience. But even some Republicans acknowledge that Edwards has set himself apart from other politicians with his unusual path into politics, including his decision to run for president after less than a term in the Senate.

“He has taken some very big gambles in his career, and they have paid off,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.

Edwards, born in 1953 in South Carolina, made his life story a central part of his presidential campaign.

The son of a millworker, Edwards was raised in a tiny North Carolina town. On the campaign trail he liked to draw the contrast with President Bush’s privileged background, saying, “I hope we still believe in America that the son of a millworker can beat the son of a president.”

He became the first in his family to go to college, graduating from North Carolina State University. He went to law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he met Elizabeth Anania, who would become his wife.

From there, he plunged into a lucrative career as a litigator, shattering records for jury awards in the state as he represented injured plaintiffs against corporations. In the courtroom he perfected his trademark ability to speak at length without notes, to distill complex subjects for a lay audience and to move his listeners.

His most famous case involved a girl gruesomely injured by a faulty swimming pool drain. He won a $25-million judgment, the biggest award of his 20-year career as a lawyer. In holding out for that jury verdict, Edwards displayed his penchant for rolling the dice: Even though no one was sure what the jury would decide, he had rebuffed an offer by the manufacturer being sued to settle the case for $17.5 million.

A personal and professional turning point came in 1996 when his 16-year-old son, Wade, died in a traffic accident. Edwards said in his book, “Four Trials,” that he did not return to work for six months. When he did, he began making plans to leave law for politics, embracing the lessons of civic engagement that he and his wife tried to instill in their son.

Edwards aimed high: He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1998 against Republican incumbent Lauch Faircloth. It was an uphill fight in a Republican-leaning state.

When Edwards joined a crowded Democratic primary, he was viewed with skepticism. The party favorite at the time was D.G. Martin, a prominent lawyer and lobbyist for the University of North Carolina. But Edwards’ courtroom skills and willingness to invest his personal fortune in the race soon made him the front-runner.

Martin and Faircloth tried to portray the trial attorney as an inexperienced lightweight, but Edwards won both the Democratic nomination and the general election with 51% of the vote.

He was one of only two Democratic Senate challengers to beat a Republican incumbent that year, which gave him cachet in the Capitol.

Two things quickly became clear to his colleagues: that Edwards was a standout as a speaker, and that he was going places in politics. “This is a man who is very able at the fundamental art of politics: standing up and speaking to people,” said Mark Patterson, a former aide to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). “Not all politicians have that, so when someone comes along who is effortlessly skilled at oratory, people take notice.”

In a stroke of luck, the issues thrust upon the Senate in his first year in office played to Edwards’ strengths.

Just as he was sworn in, the Senate in January 1999 was embroiled in trying the impeachment case against President Clinton. Daschle, needing a good lawyer to guide Democrats through the politically dicey proceedings, tapped Edwards to be one of six senators to take depositions from key figures in the scandal.

During the Senate’s closed-door deliberations on the charges, the freshman senator wowed his colleagues with a speech for Clinton’s acquittal.

Another top Democratic priority that year was a subject on which Edwards was well versed: the regulation of health maintenance organizations. Daschle encouraged Edwards to take the lead on legal issues, drawing on the knowledge he had gained in lawsuits against insurance companies.

The Democrats’ Patients’ Bill of Rights passed the Senate but never became law because of differences with the House and White House.

Other than that bill, Edwards had few major legislative accomplishments.

Nonetheless, Al Gore put him on the short list of possible running mates in 2000. Gore eventually tapped Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), but the episode gave Edwards a taste of the allure of national politics.

When Edwards began considering his own presidential bid, advisors and friends urged him to wait until 2008 or later. Then, they argued, he would have more government experience and would not necessarily have to run against a Republican incumbent.

Edwards eschewed that approach and launched a presidential bid that most analysts considered quixotic. He took the further risk of announcing he would not run again for his Senate seat, which is up for election this year, regardless of the outcome of the presidential primary.

Edwards defied conventional wisdom by showing so much political staying power that he was the last major candidate to drop out of the race.

After leaving the race on March 3, he continued to travel the country for Kerry. In the process, he made the case for himself as persuasively as he ever made a case before a jury.

“No one is better at arguing a case than John Edwards,” said Walter Dellinger, a lawyer who is a friend of Edwards’. “The case he is going to undertake to argue now is why John Kerry should be president of the United States.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

John Reid Edwards

Born: June 10, 1953, in Seneca, S.C. Grew up in Robbins, N.C.

Residence: Raleigh, N.C.

Personal: Met his wife, Elizabeth, in law school. Children: Cate, a recent Princeton graduate; Emma Claire, 5; and Jack, 3. Son Wade, 16, died in 1996.

Education: N.C. State University, bachelor of science, 1974. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, law degree, 1977.

Career: Attorney, 1978-98. Opened his own Raleigh practice, 1993. U.S. senator, 1999-present.

A closer look:

* Edwards’ father, Wallace, worked in a textile mill, and his mother, Bobbie, was a shopkeeper and postal employee. Edwards was the first in his family to attend college.

* In 1997, Edwards won a verdict of $25 million, the largest damage award in North Carolina history, prosecuting a pool drain company after a 9-year-old girl was critically injured by a faulty drain.

* Edwards won his 1998 Senate campaign against incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth, 51% to 47%. Edwards spent $8.3 million -- three-quarters of that his own money -- on the race.

* The freshman senator oversaw the depositions of key witnesses, including Monica S. Lewinsky and Vernon E. Jordan Jr., in President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial, dramatically raising his political profile. This, in part, prompted Al Gore to include the one-term senator among his running-mate finalists in 2000.

* The self-made millionaire sold his Raleigh law practice for $5 million in 2002.

* Edwards and wife, Elizabeth, established a scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill in honor of her father, a former lacrosse player and coach at the university, and built a computer lab in Raleigh in memory of their son, Wade, who died in a car accident.

* Edwards has completed three marathons.

Sources: The Almanac of American Politics, www.johnedwards2004.com, Senate Historical Office, Congressional Quarterly, Christian Science Monitor. Graphics reporting by Susannah Rosenblatt

Times staff writers Peter Wallsten and Scott Martelle contributed to this report.