The Edwards non-factor

You’ve got to give the ambitious John Edwards credit, even if that ambition isn’t ultimately to pay off.

The North Carolina trial lawyer, who’d never held elected office, left the courtroom in 1998 and took on and beat an incumbent U.S. senator. Before even finishing his first term, he found the chutzpa to run for president and, interestingly, did better in the primaries than many believed possible. Even though he only won a single primary – South Carolina, the state of his birth – he was able to push his way onto the Democrats’ national ticket.

Not just anybody can so successfully deploy such naked ambition. But will his selection as John Kerry’s running mate do for Kerry what Kerry himself hopes? Will Edwards give the highbrow Kerry a touch of regular? Will Edwards help deliver any part of the South, and thus possibly the White House?

By all accounts, even those of his biggest supporters, Kerry comes across as the stiff, aloof Boston Brahmin that he is. It’s an assessment that’s plagued him most of his career. His sonorous monotone makes his supposedly rah-rah stump speeches generally indistinguishable from those he gives more reverently in the ornate Senate chamber.

So when Kerry went looking for a running mate, he certainly knew he’d need someone with oomph and pizzazz, which is, perhaps, one reason he explored asking populist Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. McCain, however, isn’t one for novelty or extreme party disloyalty. He rebuffed Kerry’s overtures and today is traveling the country with George Bush and Dick Cheney, promoting their re-election.

Enter Edwards. Since his exit from the Democratic presidential primaries, he’s been stumping for Kerry in what has been a not-so-subtle, coast-to-coast, job application. Some called it shameless. After all, just four months ago he was the leading rival of the man who for the last couple of months he’s touted as the best thing since pickled pigs’ feet.

Kerry’s hope is that Edwards’ ties to the South will help secure at least a few must-have Dixie states. Remember, it’s not that Kerry needs to carry the whole South – he just needs to keep Bush from doing so. Seemingly, the only Southern states currently up for grabs are Florida and Louisiana. The Democrats would like to add Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia to their possible pick-ups, though Bush carried all three in 2000 and is poised to do so again.

One would think that Edwards’ home state of North Carolina would be in play, but Bush-Cheney seems to still be registering a comfortable lead in polls taken just days after Kerry picked the Tarheel senator for his sidekick. (North Carolina routinely votes for the GOP candidate for president, having voted for Bush in 2000, Dole in ’96, the elder Bush in ’92 and ’88, and Reagan in ’84 and ’80.) As senator, Edwards’ in-state approval ratings have been running only so-so the past couple of years, with many voters feeling he was more interested in pursuing national ambitions than representing folks at home.

The South, save Florida, may well prove more elusive to the Democrats than they think. When push comes to shove, and conservative Dixiecrats go into their voting booths, will they really pull the lever for an old-line Massachusetts liberal who favors gun control and abortion rights? Will they be able to ignore the fact that Edwards has been rated every bit as liberal by the ACLU as Kerry and Ted Kennedy?

If Edwards is not to be the boost in the South that many Democrats hope – and he truly may not – he may ring a few bells in the Midwest. His son-of-a-mill-worker rhetoric may play a bit in the Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, where post-NAFTA manufacturing jobs have been hit hard. But his influence even there may be marginal. In 2000, while Bush won only Ohio, he did so comfortably and by about as many percentage points as he lost Pennsylvania and Michigan. It’ll take an all-out effort by both camps for any of those states to swing in a different direction.

It should go without saying that the Old Dominion will continue to be a Republican stronghold for Bush. Virginians have voted Republican in every presidential election since Dwight Eisenhower’s ’52 bid, excepting LBJ’s victory here in ’64. Bush took Virginia four years ago by eight points. His victory here this year shouldn’t be far off that mark.

Kerry’s pick of Edwards apparently has done little more than make for a telegenic Democratic ticket. Many have noted that Kerry didn’t get the “bounce” in the polls most expected in the days following his naming Edward his running mate.

All of this is not to say the presidential race won’t be a close one. It will. A single state going Democratic that went for the Bush four years ago – even a small state like West Virginia with its five electoral votes or Arkansas with its six – could swing it to Kerry, all else being equal. Florida, though, has 27 electoral votes, and that’s the prize everyone wants.

Edwards may have added a little bit of sizzle to an otherwise bland Democratic nominee, but it’s a fact that vice presidential candidates simply don’t influence the way people vote. Edwards won’t help Kerry – especially in the South – much more than former Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen helped Michael Dukakis in ’88.

The 2004 presidential contest is likely to go down to the wire. But no matter who wins, John Edwards will be noted to have been a non-factor.