Edwards Is Praised as Able Stand-In for Kerry on Stump
By Vanessa Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 18, 2004; Page A04
LOS ANGELES, July 17 -- As the week wound down on the solo tour of the newly chosen Democratic vice presidential candidate, the old John Edwards was finally getting cranked up.
He brought a room of 700 Latino activists to their feet, whooping and clapping after a speech in which he asked them to envision a woman whose husband has been deployed to Iraq indefinitely and she is left to work two jobs to support her children.
"She thinks that she's alone. . . . Here's what we want to say to that woman and women like her all over this country. She is not alone. We see her, we feel her, we hear her voice, we will embrace her and we will lift her up," said Edwards, a freshman senator from North Carolina. And if Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is elected to the White House this fall, Edwards promised, that struggling woman "will have a president and a vice president who cares about her, who will fight for her. . . . Doesn't she deserve that?"
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Audiences found Edwards an able stand-in for Kerry during four days of stumping, beginning with a rally on the steps of the Capitol in Des Moines and ending at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Orange County, Calif., where he spoke to 400 supporters at a resort in Newport Beach. Although most of the events were held before partisan crowds, most voters said they never had the chance to see Edwards in person and came away from the encounter more excited about the ticket.
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