His bid ends where it began: on positive note

RALEIGH, N.C. - Johnny Reid Edwards came home yesterday.

He returned to the high school gym where his son Wade once played before he died in an automobile accident, upending Edwards's life. The North Carolina senator came to announce what the world already knew: His White House quest was over. But it was hardly a somber affair. High school students in flip-flops and shorts fiddled with lacrosse sticks. Locals marveled aloud about Edwards's run, their heads shaking. One held a sign: ``John Edwards, Homeboy.''

It was an apt close to a campaign built, more than anything, on biography, on Edwards's Southern roots and modest upbringing. But he wasted little time sentimentalizing, instead lavishing praise on Democratic nominee Senator John F. Kerry, who happens to be in the market for a running mate.

He called the Massachusetts senator ``a man who is a friend of mine. Somebody who I believe has great strength and great courage.''

Then, minutes later: ``I want to say a personal word about my friend John Kerry, who I know very well - John Kerry has what it takes right here,'' he said, pointing to his gut, ``to be president of the United States. I, for one, intend to do everything in my power to make him the next president of the United States.''

But Edwards's address at Broughton High School before about 700 people was not all political posturing. He effusively thanked his family, staff, and supporters, telling them: ``The truth is, all my life America has smiled at me. And today I'm smiling back.'' And he horsed around on stage with his sandy-haired 3-year-old son, Jack. Edwards spent much of the day receiving calls from well-wishers and admirers.

The 50-year-old politician entered this political season virtually unknown. He leaves it with national stature. And though he is a new face on the national scene, his campaign, in many ways, was old-fashioned. Edwards refused to stage pancake-flipping, baby-kissing photo ops. He refused to talk about his deep religious beliefs in public. His son's death was strictly off-limits.

Instead, he doggedly adhered to his campaign speech, which his staff fondly called ``The Closing Argument,'' a tightly-knit tale of modest beginnings, folksy aphorisms, populist rage, New Age consoling, Southern-fried humor, and plain moralizing. Many Democrats deemed it the best stump speech in a generation.

But more than the speech, Edwards's theme of ``two Americas'' riven by class and wealth harkened to an older era of politics in a bid to return the Democratic Party to its roots. Edwards believed the key to future Democratic wins was reversing the major shift in US politics over the last five decades: the migration of working-class whites to the GOP. The shift has allowed the GOP to dominate the South and run ever stronger in the Rust Belt.

Edwards did seek to appeal to a wide variety of voters, but the heart of his message was directed at men and women who use their hands to make goods and farm the soil - a shrinking and somewhat beleaguered portion of America.

``When you talk about work, not jobs but work, you transgress on Republican territory, '' said Ted Arrington, chairman of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Where the Republicans had connected to the working class largely through cultural issues, Edwards sought to use economic concerns: raising the minimum wage, providing health care, contesting free trade agreements, strengthening unions, and taxing the rich to help the poor. And, by insistently repeating tales of his hardscrabble youth as the son of a mill worker, he sought to say to them: I am one of you.

Exit polls in states with open primaries, where Republicans and independents could vote with Democrats, indicated Edwards was able to attract these swing voters, much more so than Kerry.

Howard ``Dean brought a certain vehemence and enthusiasm with a tinge of anger. Edwards brought a sense of the soul of the Democratic Party - the idea of work and the ennoblement of work, which is a very Southern tradition,'' said Arrington.

But Edwards had one glaring hole in his resume: no military or foreign policy experience. In his stump speech, he never mentioned the Iraq war or uttered the word ``terrorism.''

His withdrawal yesterday ends a process that began virtually upon his introduction into the US Senate in 1999. Talk of a Southern John F. Kennedy filled Washington parlors and newsrooms. But the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, caused a major shift in American politics that left Edwards somewhat less appealing to Democratic insiders. Nonetheless, they still considered him the best campaigner.

Then last summer, Dean rose to prominence, and Edwards became virtually invisible, dwelling in the single-digit poll numbers. He campaigned assiduously, in small towns all over Iowa and New Hampshire, holding more than 100 Granite State town hall meetings, often when only 15 or so people showed up. As Dean rose higher, Edwards developed a plan: outlast the others and become the sunny Southern alternative to the Vermont firebrand.

With Iowa, the political map changed again. Dean sunk, while Kerry and Edwards rose, winning a surprising first and second, respectively. Edwards decided to stick to his strategy, only replacing Dean with Kerry, whom he considered another awkward New Englander perceived as liberal.

He finished far behind Kerry in New Hampshire, then bested him in South Carolina, while the Massachusetts senator won five other states. Next came a fight over Virginia and Tennessee, and retired Army General Wesley K. Clark attacked Edwards vigorously. Edwards finished second in both states, and with Clark's subsequent exit, he got the two-man race he sought and a full week to stump in Wisconsin.

By then, Kerry was the presumptive nominee, but Edwards finished a close second in Wisconsin, reviving his bid. Most telling, exit polls indicated that Edwards again was outdrawing Kerry among Republican and independent voters. Edwards could argue that it was he who was electible.

But Super Tuesday was only two weeks away. Edwards had little time to campaign in 10 far-flung states, including the giant prizes of New York and California. His money dwindled, and Kerry's momentum became overwhelming. Still, he campaigned intensely. At a dismal event Feb. 23 at a municipal Cleveland airport, fewer than 100 people showed up. The writing was on the wall.

Edwards still delivered the closing line to his speech that had moved so many before, the very credo of his campaign: ``What we believe - what I believe - is that in our America, the family you're born into or the color of your skin will never control what you're able to do,'' he said, his voiced lowered. ``I can't change this country by myself, but I know that, together, you and I can do it. And I know that for one simple reason: Because I believe in you. And you deserve a president that actually believes in you.''

Kerry trounced him in eight of the 10 states voting Tuesday, with Edwards drawing close only in Georgia. (Dean won Vermont.)

Kerry has said he will consider Edwards seriously as a potential running mate, though the decision could be months off. Edwards will return to Washington, D.C., to finish the last year of his Senate term. He will not seek reelection. The North Carolina governorship was filled recently. Other than the vice presidential slot, it's unclear what role Edwards could play in Democratic politics.

"I think his expiration date will pass by 2008 if he's on the sidelines,'' said Dante Scala, a professor at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. ``Four years is an awful lot of time to sit on the sidelines.''

But few people at his good-bye event yesterday said they thought they'd seen the last of Edwards.

"He led a very positive campaign. His message was so uplifting, about what America could be,'' said Dail Perry, 52, who lived just blocks from the Raleigh high school where Edwards spoke. ``He's going to be around for a long time.''

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.