CHARLES CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Jennifer Boggs' eyes are red with tears as she begs Sen. John Edwards to help her teenage son. The North Carolina lawmaker hugs her around the neck and whispers, "I'm here to help."
"This is exactly why I'm running for president of the United States," Edwards says as Democratic activists file out of his town hall meeting. "I want to do something about mental health care for your son, for everybody's son."
It was the kind of moment Edwards' advisers have been promising since the freshman lawmaker began his longshot bid for the presidency.
Though one of the most inexperience candidates in the nine-person Democratic field, Edwards comes equipped with some of the tools that vaulted Bill Clinton to the presidency -- Southern charm, an up-from-the-bootstraps biography, good looks and ability to convince voters that he feels their pain.
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This month he began airing about $500,000 worth of ads in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states where Democrats will make their first choices early next year. The ads, scheduled to run for about four weeks, focus on his working-class upbringing, his policies to help the middle class and his argument that President Bush favors wealth over hard work.
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He is combating the criticism with a set of policy initiatives that may be the most creative and detailed of the field. Edwards wants to offer free tuition to freshman college students willing to work 10 hours a week. Parents would be required to insure their children under a health care plan that offered them tax incentives.
Both initiatives trace Clinton's effort to appeal to the Democrats' middle-class roots by offering new government programs while assuring swing voters that accountability comes with the spending.
Family on board
Still, the campaign is driven as much by Edwards' personality as his policies. That is why his schedule is loaded with town hall meetings that put him in close contact with voters. It may also be why his bus tours include his wife, Elizabeth, and two of their children -- Emma Claire, 5, and Jack, 3.
Emma Claire interrupted her father's speech Thursday by pulling free of her mother's arms and tapping her father on the hip. Edwards tousled her hair as he spoke to 45 people at an Elks Club in Iowa Falls.
A few minutes later, Emma Claire tiptoed to her father again. "Let Daddy talk, sweetie," he said as the audience cooed.
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http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/08/14/edwards.ap/*****
Wonderful article about this fantastic candidate.