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| Nationality | American |
|---|---|
| Image name | John Edwards in Portsmouth.jpg |
| Imagesize | 200px |
| Caption | Edwards campaigning in Massachussetts |
| Jr/sr | United States Senator |
| Alongside | |
| State | North Carolina |
| Party | Democratic |
| Term start | January 3, 1999 |
| Term end | January 3, 2005 |
| Preceded | Lauch Faircloth |
| Succeeded | Richard Burr |
| Birth date | June 10, 1953 |
| Birth place | Seneca, South Carolina |
| Birthname | Johnny Reid Edwards |
| Profession | Attorney Politician |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Edwards (1977–present) |
| Children | Wade (1979–1996) Cate (born 1982) Emma Claire (born 1998) Jack (born 2000) Frances Quinn Hunter (born 2008) |
| Alma mater | North Carolina State University University of North Carolina School of Law |
| Religion | Methodist |
| Signature | JRE Signature.svg |
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is a former American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.
He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina's 1998 Senate election. Towards the end of his single six-year term, he sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. He eventually became the 2004 Democratic candidate for vice-president, the running mate of presidential nominee Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. In 2010, Edwards publicly revealed that he had an affair with aide Rielle Hunter and fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was fighting metastatic breast cancer.
After Edwards and Kerry lost the election to President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.
A football star in high school, Edwards was the first person in his family to attend college. He attended Clemson University and transferred to North Carolina State University. Edwards graduated with high honors earning a bachelor's degree in textile technology in 1974, and later earned his Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law (UNC) with honors.
Wade was killed in a car accident when strong winds swept his Jeep off a North Carolina highway in 1996. Three weeks before his death, Wade Edwards was honored by First Lady Hillary Clinton at The White House as one of the 10 finalists in an essay contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Voice of America for an essay he wrote on entering the voting booth with his father. Wade, accompanied by his parents and sister, went on to meet North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who entered Wade's essay and his obituary into the Congressional Record. Edwards and his wife began the Wade Edwards Foundation in their son's memory; the purpose of the non-profit organization is "to reward, encourage, and inspire young people in the pursuit of excellence." The Foundation funded the Wade Edwards Learning Lab at Wade's high school, Broughton High School in Raleigh, along with scholarship competitions and essay awards.
On November 3, 2004, Elizabeth Edwards revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated via chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and continued to work within the Democratic Party and her husband's One America Committee. On March 22, 2007, during his campaign for the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidency, Edwards and his wife announced that her cancer had returned; she was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer, with newly discovered metastases to the bone and possibly to her lung. They said that the cancer was "no longer curable, but is completely treatable" and that they planned to continue campaigning together with an occasional break when she requires treatment. After John's January 21, 2010, admission that he fathered a child with his mistress, Elizabeth has legally separated from him and intends to file for divorce after a mandatory one-year waiting period.
In an August 8, 2008, statement, and an interview with Bob Woodruff of ABC News, Edwards admitted the affair with Hunter in 2006, but denied being the father of her child. He acknowledged that he had been dishonest in denying the entire Enquirer story, admitting that some of it was true, but said that the affair ended long before the time of the child's conception. He further said he was willing to take a paternity test, but Hunter responded that she would not be party to a DNA test "now or in the future". Initially, campaign aide Andrew Young claimed that he, not Edwards, was the child's father. Young has since renounced that statement, and told publishers in a book proposal that Edwards knew all along that he was the child’s father; Edwards pleaded with him to accept responsibility falsely.
In the proposal, which The New York Times examined, Young claims to have set up private meetings between Edwards and Hunter. He wrote that Edwards once calmed an anxious Hunter by promising her that after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band. On February 2, 2010, Young released a book detailing the affair.
In May 2009, newspapers reported that Edwards' campaign was being investigated for conversion of campaign money to personal use related to the affair. Edwards said that the campaign was complying with the inquiry. The relevant US attorney refused to comment. In the same month, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News reported that members of Edwards' staff had told him that they had planned a "doomsday strategy" to derail Edwards' campaign if he got close to the nomination. Joe Trippi, a senior advisor to the campaign, said the report was "complete bullshit". In August 2009, Rielle Hunter appeared before the grand jury investigating this matter. On March 15, 2010, Rielle broke her silence during an interview with GQ magazine and provided new details about the affair.
In 1984 Edwards was assigned to a medical malpractice lawsuit that had been perceived to be unwinnable; the firm had only accepted it as a favor to an attorney and state senator who did not want to keep it. Nevertheless, Edwards won a $3.7 million verdict on behalf of his client, who had suffered permanent brain and nerve damage after a doctor prescribed an overdose of the anti-alcoholism drug Antabuse during alcohol aversion therapy. In other cases, Edwards sued the American Red Cross three times, alleging transmission of AIDS through tainted blood products, resulting in a confidential settlement each time, and defended a North Carolina newspaper against a libel charge. who was disemboweled by the suction power of the pool drain pump when she sat on an open pool drain whose protective cover had been removed by other children at the pool, after the swim club had failed to install the cover properly. Despite 12 prior suits with similar claims, Sta-Rite continued to make and sell drain covers lacking warnings. Sta-Rite protested that an additional warning would have made no difference because the pool owners already knew the importance of keeping the cover secured.
In his closing arguments, Edwards spoke to the jury for an hour and a half and referenced his son, Wade, who had been killed shortly before testimony began. Mark Dayton, editor of North Carolina Lawyers Weekly, would later call it "the most impressive legal performance I have ever seen." The jury awarded the family $25 million, the largest personal injury award in North Carolina history. The company settled for the $25 million while the jury was deliberating additional punitive damages, rather than risk losing an appeal. For their part in this case, Edwards and law partner David Kirby earned the Association of Trial Lawyers of America's national award for public service. He also supports "College for Everyone" initiatives.
Although Edwards initially supported the Iraq War, he later changed his position and in November 2005 wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he said he regretted voting for the Iraq War Resolution, and discussed three solutions for success in the conflict. He has denounced the "troop surge" in Iraq, is a proponent of withdrawal, and has urged Congress to withhold funding for the war without a withdrawal timetable.
On social policy, Edwards supports abortion rights and has a universal healthcare plan that requires all Americans to purchase healthcare insurance, "requires that everybody get preventive care," and requires employers to provide health care insurance or be taxed to fund public health care. He supports a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
He has endorsed efforts to slow down global warming and was the first presidential candidate to make his campaign carbon neutral.
During President Bill Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial in the Senate, Edwards was responsible for the deposition of witnesses Monica Lewinsky and fellow Democrat Vernon Jordan, Jr. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Edwards was on Democratic nominee Al Gore's vice presidential nominee short list (along with John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, Gore's eventual pick).
In his time in the Senate, Edwards co-sponsored 203 bills. Among them was Lieberman's 2002 Iraq War Resolution (S.J.Res.46), which he co-sponsored along with 15 other senators, but which did not go to a vote. He voted for replacement resolution (H.J Res. 114) in the full Senate to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, which passed by a vote of 77 to 23, On October 10, 2002, he stated that: }} He defended his vote on an October 10, 2004, appearance on Meet the Press, saying "I would have voted for the resolution knowing what I know today, because it was the right thing to do to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein...I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that's why [John Kerry and I] stand behind our vote on the resolution". However, he subsequently changed his mind about the war and apologized for that military authorization vote. Edwards also voted in favor of the Patriot Act.
Among other positions, Edwards was generally pro-choice and supported affirmative action and the death penalty. One of his first sponsored bills was the Fragile X Research Breakthrough Act of 1999. He was also the first person to introduce comprehensive anti-spyware legislation with the Spyware Control and Privacy Protection Act. He advocated rolling back the Bush administration's tax cuts and ending mandatory minimum sentencing for non-violent offenders. Edwards generally supported expanding legal immigration to the United States while working with Mexico to provide better border security and stop illegal trafficking.
Edwards served on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary, and was a member of the New Democrat Coalition.
Before the 2004 Senate election, Edwards announced his retirement from the Senate and supported Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff, as the successor to his seat; Bowles, however, was defeated by Republican Richard Burr in the election.
In February 2005, Edwards headlined the "100 Club" Dinner, a major fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. That same month, Edwards was appointed as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for studying ways to move people out of poverty. That fall, Edwards toured ten major universities in order to promote "Opportunity Rocks!", a program aimed at getting youth involved to fight poverty.
On March 21, 2005, Edwards recorded his first podcast with his wife. Several months later, in August, Edwards delivered an address to a potential key supporter in the Iowa caucus, the AFL-CIO in Waterloo, Iowa.
In the following month, Edwards sent an email to his supporters and announced that he opposed the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States. He was also opposed to the nomination of Justice Samuel Alito as an Associate Justice and Judge Charles Pickering's appointment to the Federal bench.
During the summer and fall of 2005, he visited homeless shelters and job training centers and spoke at events organized by ACORN, the NAACP and the SEIU. He spoke in favor of an expansion of the earned income tax credit; in favor of a crackdown on predatory lending; an increase in the capital gains tax rate; housing vouchers for racial minorities (to integrate upper-income neighborhoods); and a program modeled on the Works Progress Administration to rehabilitate the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. In Greene County, North Carolina, he unveiled the pilot program for College for Everyone, an educational measure he promised during his presidential campaign, in which prospective college students would receive a scholarship for their first year in exchange for ten hours of work a week. The College for Everyone program was cancelled in July 2008.
Edwards was co-chair of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on United States-Russia relations alongside Republican Jack Kemp, a former congressman, Cabinet official and vice presidential nominee. The task force issued its report in March 2006. On July 12, the International Herald Tribune published a related op-ed by Edwards and Kemp.
On April 6, 2006, Edwards joined Ted Kennedy at a rally for raising the minimum wage.
In October 2005, Edwards joined the Wall Street investment firm Fortress Investment Group as a senior adviser and consultant, a position for which a close aide reported he received an annual salary of $500,000. Fortress owned a major stake in Green Tree Servicing LLC, which rose to prominence in the 1990s selling subprime loans to mobile-home owners and now services subprime loans originated by others, but in an interview Edwards said he was unaware of this. Subprime loans allow buyers with poor credit histories to be funded, but they charge higher rates because of the risk, and sometimes carry hidden fees and increased charges over time. Upon learning of Fortress' investments, Edwards divested funds and stated that he would try to help the affected families. Edwards later helped set up an ACORN-administered "Louisiana Home Rescue Fund" seeded with $100,000, much of it from his pocket, to provide loans and grants to the families who were foreclosed on by Fortress-owned lenders.
North Carolina United States Senate election, 1998
2004 Democratic presidential primaries
United States presidential election, 2004
2008 Democratic presidential primaries
As Edwards had been building support essentially since his election to the Senate, he led the initial campaign fundraising, amassing over $7 million during the first quarter of 2003 – more than half of which came from individuals associated with the legal profession, particularly Edwards' fellow trial lawyers, their families, and employees.
Edwards' "stump speech" spoke of two Americas, with one composed of the wealthy and privileged, and the other of the hard-working common man, causing the media to often characterize Edwards as a populist.
Edwards struggled to gain substantial support, but his poll numbers began to rise steadily weeks before the Iowa caucuses. Edwards had a surprising second-place finish with the support of 32% of delegates, behind only John Kerry's 39% and ahead of former front-runner Howard Dean at 18%. One week later in the New Hampshire primary, Edwards finished in fourth place behind Kerry, Dean and Wesley Clark, with 12%. During the February 3 primaries, Edwards won the South Carolina primary, lost to Clark in Oklahoma, and lost to Kerry in the other states. Edwards garnered the second largest number of second-place finishes, again falling behind Clark.
Dean withdrew from the contest, leaving Edwards the only major challenger to Kerry. In the Wisconsin primary on February 17, Edwards finished second to Kerry with 34% of the vote.
Edwards largely avoided attacking Kerry until a February 29, 2004, debate in New York, where he characterized him as a "Washington insider" and mocked Kerry's plan to form a committee to examine trade agreements.
In the Super Tuesday primaries on March 2, Kerry finished well ahead in nine of the ten states voting, and Edwards' campaign ended. In Georgia, Edwards finished only slightly behind Kerry but, failing to win a single state, chose to withdraw from the race. He announced his official withdrawal at a Raleigh, North Carolina press conference on March 3. Edwards' withdrawal made major media outlets relatively early on the evening of Super Tuesday, at about 6:30 p.m. CST, before polls had closed in California and before caucuses in Minnesota had even begun. It is thought that the withdrawal influenced many people in Minnesota to vote for other candidates, which may partially account for the strong Minnesota finish of Dennis Kucinich. Edwards did win the presidential straw poll conducted by the Independence Party of Minnesota.
After withdrawing from the race, he went on to win the April 17 Democratic caucuses in his home state of North Carolina, making him the only Democratic candidate besides Kerry to win nominating contests in two states.
Kerry's campaign advisor Bob Shrum later reported in Time magazine that Kerry said he wished he'd never picked Edwards, and the two have since stopped speaking to each other. Edwards said in his concession speech, "You can be disappointed, but you cannot walk away. This fight has just begun."
National polls had Edwards placing third among the Democratic field beginning in January 2007, behind Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. By July 2007, the Edwards campaign had raised $23 million from nearly 100,000 donors, placing him behind Obama and Clinton in fundraising.
Edwards was first to boycott a Fox News-sponsored presidential debate in March 2007. Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, and Barack Obama followed suit.
That year, another defective pool-drain-related accident similar to the one that disemboweled Valerie Lakey (see "Legal career" above) occurred in Minnesota. The victim was six-year old Abigail Taylor. Edwards pushed to have federal pool-safety laws strengthened and played a part in the passage of the Virginia Baker Pool Safety Act.
, Jackson Browne, and Peter Coyote at a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire ]]
On January 3, 2008, in the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the nomination process, Edwards placed second with 29.75 percent of the vote to Obama (37.58 percent), with Clinton coming in third with 29.47 percent of the vote. On January 8, Edwards placed a distant third in the New Hampshire Democratic primary with just under 17% (48,818 votes). On January 26, Edwards again placed third in the primary in South Carolina – his birth state – which he had carried in 2004, and he placed third in the non-binding January 29 vote in Florida.
in New Orleans, Edwards announced his withdrawal from the 2008 United States presidential race.]] On January 30, 2008, following his primary and caucus losses, Edwards announced that he was suspending his campaign for the Presidency. He did not initially endorse either Clinton or Obama, saying they both had pledged to carry forward his central campaign theme of ending poverty in America. In April 2008, he stated that he would not accept the 2008 Vice Presidential slot if asked. On May 14, 2008, Edwards officially endorsed Senator Obama at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
On June 15, 2008, Edwards stepped back from his initial outright denial of interest in the position of the Vice President, saying, ”I’d take anything he asks me to think about seriously, but obviously this is something that I’ve done and it’s not a job I’m seeking." On June 20, 2008, The Associated Press reported that according to a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the names of Edwards and Sam Nunn were on Obama's vice presidential shortlist. Ultimately, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware was tapped to become Obama's running mate.
;Record
;Speeches and statements
Category:American Methodists Category:American podcasters Category:Anti-poverty advocates Category:Democratic Party (United States) politicians Category:Democratic Party (United States) vice presidential nominees Category:North Carolina Democrats Category:North Carolina lawyers Category:North Carolina State University alumni Category:People from Chapel Hill, North Carolina Category:People from Raleigh, North Carolina Category:People from Oconee County, South Carolina Category:People from the Research Triangle, North Carolina Category:United States presidential candidates, 2004 Category:United States presidential candidates, 2008 Category:United States Senators from North Carolina Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni Category:United States vice-presidential candidates, 2004 Category:Writers from North Carolina Category:1953 births Category:Living people
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