Once a rival, Edwards staying close to Kerry

WASHINGTON -- He lost his presidential bid and decided against seeking reelection this fall, so the energetic operation that Senator John Edwards has set up in an office just five blocks from the White House is not, technically, a political campaign.

Amid the moving boxes, secondhand furniture, and computers, Sky Gallegos runs the North Carolina senator's newly formed One America Committee. Aaron Pickerell handles political affairs. Jennifer Swanson raises money as she did during Edwards's presidential campaign. Kim Rubey is the spokeswoman, fielding media inquiries on the phone, or via her BlackBerry handheld e-mail device when traveling with the senator to Ohio, Minnesota, and other battleground states. Nick Baldick, who ran Edwards's presidential campaign, checks in regularly.

The committee's stated purpose is to provide money and logistical support as Edwards stumps for Democratic candidates for Senate across the country, and for John F. Kerry, the party's presumptive nominee for president.

But there's another, unstated mission: to help Edwards emerge as the most attractive choice for vice president, and to have a campaign up and running should Kerry select him to be his running mate. More than any other potential number two, Edwards is waging a passive-aggressive bid for the vice presidency.

Top advisers now believe Kerry will choose his running mate a week or two before the Democratic National Convention in Boston, which begins July 26. Ask the Edwards aides if their boss is angling for the slot and they'll smile and offer a prototypical Washington nondenial.

''He just wants to help John Kerry in any way he can," says Rubey. Like her colleagues, she has yet to unpack or hang anything on the wall, so uncertain is she of her political future.

While hoping not to appear overeager, Edwards has been demonstrating his value to Kerry as a campaign surrogate and, at Kerry's request, surrendering his people to the presumptive nominee's campaign organization.

The senator's former chief of staff, Miles Lackey, now works at the Kerry headquarters, plotting domestic policy. Gallegos is about to head to California to serve as Kerry's state campaign director. Jennifer Palmieri, Edwards's chief campaign spokeswoman, has just landed in Ohio to handle the same task for Kerry in that key state. David Ginsberg, another top Edwards communications hand, is helping back at headquarters. Additional Edwards aides work in Kerry's speechwriting shop and at the Democratic National Committee's fund-raising office.

Edwards also has the unique advantage of subtle-but-sure support from Kerry's seatmate, Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The fellow Massachusetts Democrat quietly backed Edwards over Kerry in the 2000 derby to be Al Gore's running mate, according to former aides.Today, Kennedy professes no other loyalty than to Kerry's interests. At the same time, his former chief of staff, Mary Beth Cahill, is now working as Kerry's campaign manager, and his longtime media adviser, Robert Shrum, is serving as Kerry's media consultant and ad maker. Both are among the handful of people Kerry is consulting over the selection of a running mate.

In an interview, Kennedy denied any favoritism towards Edwards, but acknowledged he had counseled the senator, as well as the other potential running mates who sought him out, to campaign hard on behalf of Kerry. He said it would unify the party, rally the candidates' respective bases, and show Kerry their potential on the stump.

''I think each of them have obvious strengths," Kennedy said of the field. ''I'm for the strongest candidate who will help him win."

To date, the list of potential running mates is thought to include Edwards; Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri; Governors Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, and Mark Warner of Virginia; Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana; and retired Army General Wesley K. Clark of Arkansas.

A common refrain among those in each candidate's camp is that Kerry would turn to Gephardt for help in the Midwest, Clark if national security continues to be a dominant issue, and Edwards if the base needs a jolt of energy and the campaign wants to force the Republicans to defend territory in the South.

The Democrats' Senate caucus has also generated a couple more names recently, chiefly those of Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Everyone involved in the process, however, has been loath to speak about it publicly, in no small part because Kerry has said he wants to handle it with privacy and dignity.

Edwards has already been scrutinized by Kerry campaign lawyers, a process shortened because he had already been vetted in 2000 by Gore. Aides say Edwards has also spoken at least twice with James A. Johnson, the Washington banker heading Kerry's search, including once at the Edwardses' home in Georgetown, which is a block away from Kerry's.

During the primaries, Kerry and Edwards had a prickly relationship. Kerry openly questioned Edwards's electability, once saying he could not even carry his home state of North Carolina. The veteran senator also questioned the former trial lawyer's pursuit of the presidency after less than one term in elective office. ''And people call me ambitious?" a Globe reporter once overheard Kerry asking an aide. Edwards largely left any criticism of Kerry to his staff, although the son of a mill worker did say he disagreed with Kerry's vote in favor of the North American Free Trade Agreement and challenged Kerry several times in their final two debates.

Since then, Edwards has professed unqualified support for Kerry, doingwhatever is asked of him to help the campaign.

In March, Edwards took the unusual step of personally introducing Kerry to his top donors after gathering them for a thank-you party at a Washington hotel. In April, the senator created the One America Committee expressly to support his travels on behalf of Kerry and the Democratic Congress he would need to be successful as president. In early May, Edwards was on CNN, arguing on behalf of Kerry with a passion that made him sound like his running mate.

''If John Kerry had been president of the United States for the last two years, we would not be in this place," Edwards said, speaking of the Iraqi war.

Already this month, he has sent out a fund-raising appeal to his own donors on behalf of Kerry. ''You and I together can help change this country by helping John Kerry win back the White House," Edwards wrote last week. There are at least two websites, run by people not affiliated with either man advocating a Kerry-Edwards ticket.

Since ending his own presidential candidacy in March, Edwards has also traveled to Ohio and Minnesota at the request of the Kerry campaign. Next weekend, he kicks off a three-week stretch in which he will speak for Kerry at state party gatherings in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Iowa.

In a sign of his enduring popularity with party activists, Edwards is often the second choice of speakers after Kerry himself.

''There are few national surrogates who are automatic draws and John Edwards is one of the them," said Mike Erlandson, chairman of Minnesota's Democratic Party. ''There's no question that the energy that he brings to the campaign trail would be a good addition to a presidential campaign that's already being well-received around the country."

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.