Young Edwards Children Shine in Spotlight

Sen. John F. Kerry was about to introduce his running mate, a prospect that had hundreds of sweaty supporters who had gathered in a humid airport hangar Thursday morning to see the new Democratic ticket whooping with anticipation.

But first he talked about Sen. John Edwards’ kids -- Emma Claire, 6, and Jack, 4.

They “came into our house with a special kind of energy,” Kerry told the crowd, recalling his visit with the Edwards family Tuesday night.”What really impressed me is that [they] are unbelievable in math,” the Massachusetts senator said. “So I’ve given them a special duty in this election: We’re sending Jack and Emma Claire down here to help those Republicans in West Palm Beach count those votes!”

As Kerry barrels around the country on his debut run with Edwards, he invokes the North Carolina senator’s two youngest children nearly as much as he talks up their father.

He relates how Emma Claire, home with her father in Washington, was the first to inform her mother back in North Carolina of Edwards’ selection. “John Kerry picked Daddy,” the young girl said over the phone, before her father could speak. And Kerry jokes that he is naming Jack his new campaign manager after witnessing the boy’s spirited cannonballs into the swimming pool at his wife’s farm in Pennsylvania.

The Kerry campaign has been rolling out the new Democratic ticket this week as a family affair. It started Wednesday with a Kennebunkport-like family portrait with seven of the candidates’ children on the lush green expanse of Rosemont, Teresa Heinz Kerry’s 88-acre farm, where the 50-some news cameras were positioned toward the rustic Allegheny hills and away from the columned manse.

Intended or not, the playful antics of Emma Claire and Jack reinforced the campaign’s broader message of optimism.

A wide-eyed Emma Claire shyly hid her head in her parents’ legs as dozens of cameras snapped photos of the families. Jack covered his ears and grimaced as Kerry began touting his swimming prowess for the second time. At one point, when rain began to spatter down during an outdoor rally in Cleveland on Wednesday, the boy toddled over to Heinz Kerry, lugging an oversize umbrella.

Showcasing the Democratic ticket against the week’s choreographed backdrop has been made easier by Kerry’s affection for children.

Those close to Kerry say that with both his daughters and three stepsons grown, the senator lavishes attention on the children of aides, his sister Peggy’s daughter and the young daughter of Heinz Kerry’s eldest son.

During the families’ first evening at the country estate, Kerry joined the children in the pool, reaching out to catch Jack as he repeatedly jumped into the water. At dinner with Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, Kerry and his wife recounted how after they married in 1995, they contemplated adopting a child from Vietnam, until Kerry realized he faced an unexpectedly tough Senate reelection campaign.

Kerry’s 30-year-old daughter, Alexandra, said her father was “really playful and silly” with children, as he was with her and her sister, Vanessa, when they were young. He invented games, made them pancakes in the shapes of animals, and weaved stories about his childhood and the Knights of the Round Table during long car trips.

“He’s probably one of the few politicians who actually enjoys holding babies,” she said in an interview Thursday. “I think it comes back to a connection with a certain level of truth, that kids operate completely spontaneously.”

Such was the case Wednesday afternoon, as young Jack sat with the presidential candidate and his father as their campaign plane flew across Ohio.

Both men convulsed into laughter as the boy announced, apropos of nothing: “I’m just thinking about Oreos. Because I love them.”