http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051030/ap_on_...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Edwards Works on Possible Bid in 2008
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

John Edwards came downstairs and found 5-year-old son Jack on the floor, arranging toy trucks in a column.

"What are you doing?" the former North Carolina senator asked.

"Making a motorcade," came the exuberant reply.

A year after Democrats John Kerry and Edwards lost the White House election, young Jack still may think about the heady days of last fall. His father, however, has moved on — without a Secret Service escort.

_He is traveling the country, trying to rally college students to the cause of fighting poverty in the U.S.

_He is presiding over a new poverty center at the University of North Carolina.

_He is laying the groundwork for a possible return to the political spotlight as a presidential candidate in 2008.

A little bit of all three was on his mind when he made a stop at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

"I'm in a very forward-looking, positive state of mind," said Edwards, while hundreds of students began to assemble in a nearby common. "I mean, being able to take on a big cause in a really serious way is an extraordinary thing."

A year ago Tuesday, Edwards and Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, were in Boston, awaiting the general election results. There was uncertainty about the outcome, especially in Ohio. At 2 a.m., Kerry sent his running mate to address the waning crowd in Copley Square.

"John Kerry and I made a promise to the American people that in this election, every vote would count and every vote would be counted," Edwards said. "Tonight, we are keeping our word and we will fight for every vote."

Hours later, the senators agreed the cause was lost and conceded defeat. Almost simultaneously, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Two months later, Edwards surrendered his Senate seat.

Today, Elizabeth Edwards has successfully completed her cancer treatments and is regaining her strength. The couple sold their Washington town house and built a new home in Chapel Hill, N.C.

Edwards is focused on poverty, a theme that emerged from his childhood as a son of a mill worker. It was the basis for his stump speech about the "two Americas" he saw emerging as the wealthy pulled away from the less fortunate.

"When I saw up close what was happening to them, honestly I remember thinking to myself, man, given my personal background, without a little luck, I could be in the same place a lot of these people are," Edwards said.

Hurricane Katrina, he believes, opened the rest of the country's eyes to the plight of the hidden poor in places such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"The hard question is will that window of opportunity stay open or will it close?" Edwards said. "I think whether it stays open depends on whether we have people like these college students who take it on as a cause."

Altruism aside, the poverty work also provides Edwards a platform to maintain his political viability.

He spoke this year at the annual steak fry organized by Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin (news, bio, voting record) in first caucus state Iowa.

Also, Edwards has avoided making the pledge that Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., made after he and presidential nominee Al Gore lost the 2000 race to Republicans George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: Edwards refuses to declare that he will forgo his own White House bid in 2008 if Kerry decides to run again.

There is a simmering rivalry between the two, ignited by Edwards' postelection remarks in which he said he had unsuccessfully urged Kerry to fight back after the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the summer of 2004 challenged Kerry's Vietnam record.

Just last month, Edwards and Kerry competed for media attention on the same day as they delivered dueling speeches decrying the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Last week, when Edwards came to Massachusetts, he made a special point to call Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., and tell him he was in the state. No such call was made to Kerry, although Edwards said the two are friends and still talk regularly.

"This is my cause now," Edwards declared, dismissing the political talk for another day. "This is what I'm spending my energy and life blood on, and if I can do something serious, I'll be very happy with what I've spent my life on."

I begin to wonder if we're going to be looking at basically the same field of candidates as we had in '04.

Hope there's one big exception to that, though.

Our "exception" would wipe the slate clean!! :clap: :clap:

So Edwards still wants to run eh? I like him ok but can't visualize him winning the Primary, even without Gore in the race.

My main problems with him were his lack of experience and also I got very tired of his one-track message (the two Americas thing, which was catchy but got tired very quickly because there was little else along with it).

We can do better than Edwards. I've always seen Edwards as a "lesser of two evils" candidate, rather than a guy I would truely love to see as President. What does he bring to the table? When somebody asks me why I support Gore, I can explain a list of reasons; with Edwards, it's more of a "He's not a republican."

I pretty much agree with that, greyfox. He strikes me as a lightweight.

Why would Edwards even bother???? Although I have nothing against him, I don't feel he has a chance of winning. I want them all to just go away, this belongs to AL GORE.

Agreed earthmother i got tired of that as well and plus he didn't even win in his own home state. Edwards had his shot as the VP candidate so why bother running again in '08.

Wow, Kerry got big time burned there!

Why would Edwards bother? Maybe because he thinks he can do good for the country and has a chance at winning it. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but they all have the right to try. Your last sentence was just unreal.

Well, neither did Gore, but that's irrelevant.

If Edwards runs he'll do as well as Quayle did in 2000. It's very hard for someone who was on the losing ticket last time out to come back. Kerry may try again but I get the feeling that he's only saying so to not give up his position as the party's standard bearer.

I get so tired of hearing that. Have you greyfox, ever looked into the truth about AL GORE and his homestate in 2000 election? There was just as much voter fraud and harassment of African-American voters in Tennessee as there was in Florida and we all know AL won Florida. It was swept under the rug because of everything that was going on in Florida, so all I hear is AL GORE 'lost' his homestate. Not neccesarily true.

Don't be too sure of that... remember Nixon?

Fact of the matter is, Gore lost TN and the rest of the South. Yes, i have read the post in which you're talking about.

Nixon didn't run in 1964, he waited an election cycle and came back in '68, Swifty.

My point was to prove that candidates have came back, regardless of if it was 4 years or 8 years, Americanrightshatingenvironazi.

I don't understand why you come on the Al Gore site and constantly belittle Al.

Nixon like Gore, lost a contested Presidential race, then 8 years later came back and won.

That would be John Kerry.

And Evan Bayh is going to get maybe 1/2 of one percent. He will go nowhere. No one wants him in the public. He is boring, and he votedfor the war.

Al Gore won the popular vote and many states.
john Kerry won less states.

In the 2004 primaries, John Kerry won 90 percent of them.
Al Gore won every primary but one in 2000 I believe.

I don't want to argue with you, FD, I just have a two questions for you. Now, you claim to support AL GORE, but even though it's in the past, aren't you atleast alittle bit outraged by the fact that Bush stole the 2000 election??? Next question, have you ever bother to take the time and dig into the voting fraud in Tennessee that more than likely cost AL GORE his homestate during the 2000 election???

Last time Quayle was on a losing ticket was 92.

Al Gore lost TN for a lot of reasons, among which were:

-- changing demographics

-- his stand against big tobacco (in a tobacco-growing state)

-- his stand on gun control

Gore lost his base in Tennessee. You'd think the native-son factor would've been enough to carry him, but he had powerful people working very hard against him. The gun lobby? The tobacco industry? Very hard to win that state without those people on your side.

I actually have praised Al Gore repeatedly on this site. My last post was just simply stating that Gore lost TN because he did. Ask me if he lost the election and i will say no.

Yes, you are correct, and maybe Gore will come back... well, let me re-word it, he will come back.

I beg the differ involving Bayh.

Yes, i understand that he won the popular vote and many states... not to mention the election.

ALGOREismylife, you have no idea how outraged i am about the 2000 election. The more i learn about it, the more pissed off i get. The amount of rigging that went on was/still is rediculous.

To be honest with you, all that i have read about it is the one post you posted awhile back.

I agree.

Then I think you need to educate yourself about exactly what happened in Florida in 2000. It's enough to make a person's blood boil. Read The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President, by Vincent Bugliosi. You can get it used at Amazon for 73 cents. It's the best 73 cents you'll ever spend. It'll get you working hard to get Gore to run and get elected.

Don't forget to mention that Bush outspent Gore by almost 3 to 1 in Tennessee and other Southern states.

Yes, there is that, too, although with enemies in places like big tobacco and the NRA, I'm not sure it would've mattered.

Tennessee was one of the last southern states to complete the total political realignment from Democratic to Republican party voting for statewide offices. Democrats in Tennessee were fortunate to have rather popular candidates following the 1964 Civil Rights Act that allowed the state to remain Democratic longer than the rest of the south. Al actually was the last popular federal candidate for statewide office as every Senator has been Republican since Gore's leaving the Senate. Democrats were always regarded as moderate to conservative who were elected from Tennessee. In fact, I remember Gore referring to himself as a raging moderate during the 1980s and early '90s. I doubt he is regarded as such now and explains to those not familiar with Tennessee politics why he lost the state in 2000. He was seen by Tennesseans as a favorite son who had "gone liberal" and who no longer related to them in terms of a son of a tobacco farmer from middle Tennessee.

I do not see Gore's transformation, as it were, as a bad thing though I'd love to see him make some forays into states like Alabama and Florida in the coming months if forces begin to turn to him within the Democratic party. He needs to reconnect with the blue collar, agrarian (sp) aspect of the south and convince them to no longer vote against their own interests.

Earthmother, i know quite a bit about the irregularities that happened it Florida. My last post was refering to ALGOREismylife's previous post about how Al Gore really didn't lose Tennessee.

I know AL GORE 'lost' votes in Tennessee for various reasons, but it was close and if you all would do some research on the 2000 election, you will find what I stated is true about voter fraud and harassment of Black voters in Tennessee. It cost AL thousands of votes and that would have made all the difference in the world. Somewhere here, awhile back, I posted some links about this very subject.

I wouldn't doubt that for a minute considering all that happened in Florida to Gore and to Kerry in numerous states. Absolutely pathetic isn't it?

A good way to do that would be to publically admit that NAFTA and WTO were mistakes.

Agreed. I think the weaknesses in NAFTA and WTO are evident now.

Ah. My apologies, then. It's hard to keep track of it all when you're quickly trying to catch up on a long thread like this. Sorry.

Nicholus, isn't it all fine and dandy that CAFTA was just recently passed? <_<

Oh, no... don't be sorry. I didn't mean that in a rude way; i was simply just clearing things up.

Nafta as envisioned by Al Gore and beautifully debated and won against Perot by Al Gore was a good thing.

Bush taking away the recipricals is what f'd it up. Blame Bush.

We can re-work it to make it work.
Once there is a global economy, there is no way to box it up and stop it. However, there are many ways smarter people than Bush can make things equal again.

I didn't think you meant it in a rude way. But I always apologize when I've misspoken. So we're both fine on this. :good: