John Edwards on the Campaign Trail

ByABC News
January 6, 2004, 8:30 AM

— -- ABCNEWS' Gloria Riviera is on the trail with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as he makes his bid for the White House. For the latest report, scroll down.

Edwards Unstilted

ATLANTA, Georgia, March 2--Way back before it all started, this whoa-nelly-we-are-a-national campaign (!), and Sen. Edwards made his inaugural visit back to reporters' quarters on the campaign plane, the visits were few and far between. He walked slowly down the aisle and often did not make it halfway before heading back to his sequestered section up front. Despite the fact that many of the reporters had been on the trail for months and were on a first name basis with the Senator, he was slightly stilted in navigating the casual, off the record environment. "How are you," he'd ask. "You guys doin' alright?" Maybe the reporters held back as well, unsure of exactly how to go from inter-acting with an ultra-disciplined, always on message candidate to the newly renovated, laid backwards Edwards.

It is stilted no more. Edwards has been back and forth on just about every leg of every trip in the run up to Super Tuesday. Instead of cautious questions that yield cautious answers, reporters and candidate (sometimes) chat with something approaching candor. While it might pale in comparison when veteran campaign reporters spin lore of candidates past, for example there are no nicknames doled out a la Bush, it is significant in another way. Edwards has learned a thing or two along the way, and in no small part that lesson has included press-candidate etiquette 101.

To provide an illustration of how far things have come from sequestered, silent candidate to now: Sunday Edwards' two young children were on board the plane. As Body Man Hunter Pruette put it, three-year-old Jack Edwards has never seen a camera he does not like. In fact he took a real liking to MSNBC embed Dugald McConnell's DV camera, sitting on McConnell's lap as Edward plopped down across from him and settled in for a chat as Jack commandeered the lens. Edwards introduced five-year-old Emma Claire to Dugald as well. This would be the Dugald whose first piece on the campaign was entitled, "Go Away Duglad" because it featured campaign staffers from the candidate on down (Elizabeth Edwards included) saying (not without reason) straight to camera, "Go Away Dugald!" What did Emma Claire have to say upon meeting the famous Dugald? Her eyes widened, "Duuu-gaaalllddd?? Your name is Duuu-gaaalllddd?" Apparently she had not heard that one before.

In fact, on and off the campaign plane, Edwards appears relaxed. It is as if he is fully enjoying this run up to Super Tuesday, despite the daunting polls and the once and for all end of the honeymoon with the national press. Tuesday he canvassed Ohio from Toldeo to Cleveland to Dayton. Attendance was between 200 and 400 at Monday's events, culminating with a Hootie and the Blowfish concert in Macon, Georgia. The concert was held in a massive hanger space, which was just about half-filled what with equipment and staff and a less than elbow-to-elbow audience.

Senator Edwards has been here before, a primary day that could make or break his campaign. But this time it has come down to two. Though the vertical on the uphill battle against Senator Kerry is clear, his stump speech reminds audiences of the hills he has climbed thus far in his life; getting to college, becoming a lawyer and "taking on the Jesse Helms political machine" when he ran for Senate.

He seems the picture of confidence. Perhaps he knows something the rest of us don't. Or perhaps he is satisfied he has already achieved what he set out to do, and it is simple. He has run a national campaign that ostensibly reached the goals he set out for himself at the outset; establishing him as a powerful force of potential within the party and having no small amount of fun along the way. No matter what happens on Super Tuesday, that much is done.

For Whom the Polls Toll…

NEW YORK, NY, Feb. 29--So what is a candidate do when he finds himself, once again, facing poll after poll boding nothing but bad news? Repeatedly cite one poll that bears good news, that's what. And so it is that John Edwards has added a new (new!) line into his standard campaign speech, citing a Survey USA poll that has Edwards beating George Bush in a general election in North Carolina. From Atlanta, Georgia to Cleveland, Ohio to Albany, New York Edwards delivered this news to crowd after crowd who reacted, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, with cheers and nods.

On Sunday evening in Albany, Anna Engle came to hear Edwards speak. "I don't understand how Kerry won in Iowa and New Hampshire," she said, "I think he drones on and on. I noticed when Edwards talked to newspapers, they started to endorse him. I wondered, 'Who is this guy?'" Engle is just the kind of person the Edwards campaign is desperate to reach in these last few days. Undecided voters who may have heard more about Kerry than their guy, but what they have heard they see as positive and inviting. Still, after seeing Edwards Engle was still not sure who she would vote for come Tuesday.

Asked by reporters over the weekend just what he makes of the uphill battle the polls present, Edwards said with a smile, "Sound like Wisconsin."

Asked by reporters if he has to win something, anything, to go on after Super Tuesday acknowledging plain old mathematics Edwards said, "We have to continue to win delegates and at some point we have to start winning more delegates than Senator Kerry."

And what is the deadline for that table to turn? One thing holding reporters back from booking post-campaign fantasy vacations is the fact that most have been here before. Two days before a primary; Edwards is down in most polls. One day before the primary; Edwards is still down. Primary day; surprise! Better than expected results open the gateway to carry on the campaign. But never has there been this many delegates or these many states at stake all in one go. Over the past week select senior aides have allowed that they believe they have a shot at winning more than one state. The agreed upon best chance for a win is Georgia, as such the campaign has decided to watch results from Atlanta. They also allow that yes, despite that fact their candidate tells reporters on the trail he does not have to win anything to go on, it would certainly be a better Wednesday run of the morning shows with a few wins to discuss with Charlie, Katie and Harry. And so we wait. Headlines announce that Bush strategists now plan for a tough fight against Sen. Kerry, but we wait. And while we wait the Edwards camp has mapped out a run up to March 9 schedule that takes their candidate through the Southern states he eyes as a very much still possible battle ground. On each of the previous primary nights except Wisconsin, Sen. Edwards and the travel press corps were off and running to the next battle ground. So it will most likely be this Tuesday. Additional evidence the campaign is determined to continue: money. Over the last week Edwards has held fundraisers in three of the four March 9 states he hopes to play in (Louisiana, Florida and Texas). Sunday the campaign announced post-Iowa funds of $5.7 millions raised, and their goal is $6 million by Super Tuesday. The campaign notes only that the majority of those funds are matchable.

Edwards and press adjust to new security

ATLANTA, Feb. 23 At the end of a long day that started in New York City, leapt to Albany, Ga., and then onto Columbus, Ga., before hitting the tarmac in Atlanta shortly before 11:00 pm ET, members of the press corps formed a bucket brigade to load all the luggage from the belly of campaign plane Hair Force One into the bus to get to the hotel as soon as possible. After being surrounded by Secret Service all day, which changed the entire dynamic of the campaign trail, it was only on the pitch-black tarmac that the agents were truly missed; a few more helping hands would have been nice.

The Senator, for his part, seemed to be neither here nor there on the Secret Service verdict. He was seen very little until the end of the day when he came back to chat with press on the last leg of the trip. If he wasn't in a Secret Service SUV, he was hunkered down doing a power hour of 11 satellite interviews for audiences in Georgia, Minnesota and California. If he was not doing interviews, he was at an event separated from press (save a brief New York avail) and whisked out upon completion.

We in the press corps were warned. A memo advised cooperation and patience in adapting to the new security measures. But who would have thought some would yearn for the days of yesteryear, of high-speed minivans and events held in small town libraries across Iowa's smallest counties? Of those long and never-ending days that inherently provided more than enough time for any and all of our questions. Of hallway shots and backstage access when a simple nod to Sam Meyers Sr. or Iowa spokeswoman Kim Rubey would yield a quick one-on-one interview with the Senator before or after an event?

Gone. Instead, an eight-car caravan ferries the Senator to and from plane to campaign events well before or after the press. Luggage screened and re-screened, long lines to get into events and mandatory huddles before leaving them. Seats immediately outside the Senator's cabin on the plane, once available on to any member of the travel press corps with enough energy to get off the bus in the first wave, have been claimed by agents and are most definitely not subject to negotiation. Instead, the press corps is relegated to the back compartments and must wait for a glimpse of the candidate. No more impromptu press conferences upon lift-off, no more shadowing the candidate in the middle of enthusiastic crowds, inches away and privy to off-the-cuff conversation with voters.

Edwards' long-wished for two-man race brings similar trappings for both press and candidate. Seemingly endless in-depth scrutiny is on the horizon for us both: our equipment, his electability. Ups and downs (access or no access for us, energetic or tepid crowds for him). And finally, the uncertainty of what exactly the future will hold post-March 2.

Edwards is doing everything in his power to outpace Kerry. Despite no word from the Kerry campaign in response to his challenge for additional debates, Edwards continues to tell crowds he believes they deserve a one on one match-up. He fights his way to the front of reporters' radar screens on issues big and small, Monday pre-empting Bush's speech with his own response, before Kerry's. And his staff makes sure the press is aware of each and ever endorsement, however big or small, that comes his way. This despite the very public opinion Edwards' has of endorsements in general; in the end they are but one item on a long list of things voters consider.

Does the taste of the trail reflect his style these days? Are crowds as determined as the Senator seems to be? The crowd in New York was a more of a photo op and Q&A than a rebel raising Minnesota brouhaha. And in smaller places like Albany and Columbus, where several hundred showed up, his go-to laugh and applause lines sometimes fell a bit flat. Predictions, at this point, will remain withheld.

Edwards starts Tuesday morning in Atlanta with a fundraiser and run (the first trailed by Secret Service) before departing for Houston early afternoon.

The Wheels on the Bus

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Feb. 22 Those are the lyrics as sung by the Edwards press corps en route to the last stop of the day on Sunday aboard a yellow school bus warning: No Swearing and No Standing in the Aisle.

Sunday afternoon the Edwards press corps meandered through a crowd made up of locked out employees formerly of RMI Titanium in Niles, Ohio. Both groups waited for the Senator, watching their breath vanish into a cold February sky tinged with the smell of burning wood.

And without the routine fanfare of cheers and booming tunes of John Cougar Mellencamp, Senator Edwards strode up the road. No aides or police and accompanied only two members from Local 1255. For once, the candidate was momentarily unnoticed by the majority. And in that moment of silent pause before applause, as one by one the press and crowd caught sight of him, Edwards was already smiling and walking with purpose.

That event and the Senator's demeanor are emblematic of a weekend orchestrated to play to his strengths. From a Savannah town square under a sunny Georgia sky and framed by age-old Magnolia trees all the way to a dismal afternoon event in front of the literally and symbolically locked factory gates in Niles, Edwards was as "on" as he has ever been, seemingly consumed in a quiet, focused confidence that seems all the more so juxtaposed against downright frenzied crowds.

He is riding a wave of warm reception doled out from the national media as well as welcoming crowds in Georgia, Minnesota and Ohio. Is this the honeymoon before the storm? Do overflow crowds of Deaniacs wearing Howard pins with John Edwards' signature scrawled on top in permanent marker mean the movement has a new map? Does the addition of a second debate before Super Tuesday mean the Senator's wishes are slowly but surely coming true?