John edwards

John Reid Edwards (Seneca, South Carolina, June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a United States Senator from North Carolina. He was the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He was also a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.

Edwards defeated Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth in the 1998 North Carolina Senate election. Toward the end of his six-year term, he opted to retire from the Senate and focus on a Democratic campaign in the 2004 presidential election. He eventually became the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004, the presidential candidate's running mate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Following Kerry's loss to then-President George W. Bush, Edwards began working full-time at Committee One America, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Jobs and Opportunities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant to Fortress Investment Group LLC.

Between 2007 and 2008, he again ran for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 US presidential election against Illinois Senator Barack Obama and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Although he left on January 30, 2008 after losing in all the primary elections held up to that moment, including those in his home state.

Early Years

Edwards was born in the city of Seneca, (South Carolina), into a humble family. His father, Wallace, worked as a laborer in a textile factory for 36 years. Her mother, Bobbie, moonlighted between her store and a post office.

After going through public schools, Edwards studied Textile Law and Technology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with honors. He became the first member of his family to have completed higher education.

Edwards had a brilliant career as a trial attorney in North Carolina before entering politics. He specialized in obtaining large compensation penalizing the negligence of some companies. Among his most publicized victories was obtaining the highest settlement in state history, ($25 million), for a nine-year-old girl who was injured in a swimming pool in 1997.

Senator for North Carolina (1999-2005)

He became a wealthy man practicing as a lawyer. However, the death of his son made him change his priorities and he decided to enter politics. ^{[citation needed ]} In 1998 he decided to run for the Senate for the Democratic party. He was an underdog but unexpectedly defeated Republican Senator Lauch Faircloth. With a ground-breaking campaign, centered on selling his personal story of a hard-working family man who became rich through his own efforts, he appealed to North Carolina's middle class votes.

In the Senate, he was a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Judiciary Committee, and cosponsored 203 Bills. He was the first senator to introduce anti-spyware legislation with the Spyware Control and Privacy Protection Act. And he was part of the 2002 group of 16 senators from both parties who co-sponsored the resolution authorizing the government to use force against Iraq.

He supported the H-1B Visa program, which sought to increase the number of visas granted to immigrant workers to work on US soil. He also defended the reforms to the financing methods of the electoral campaigns and to dedicate more funds to Education, Health and Defense.

He decided not to seek re-election as senator in 2004, in order to dedicate himself fully to that year's presidential campaign.

2004 Presidential Campaign

In January 2003, Senator Edwards officially announced his interest in obtaining the candidacy of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States. In September of that same year he decided not to seek re-election as senator and to dedicate himself fully to the elections 2004 primaries. He finished second in the Iowa caucus and won the South Carolina primary, becoming as of February the only alternative to front-runner John Kerry.

'This is not the time for interns,' Sen. Kerry said, referring to Edwards' few years of experience. When it became clear that the nomination would go to Kerry after his Super Tuesday win, Edwards decided to drop out of the race in early March. After a long consultation process, Kerry himself would choose him as his running mate for the November 2, 2004 elections. However, his candidacy was ultimately defeated by the Republican Bush-Cheney tandem.

Candidate for President of the United States in 2008

After the 2004 election, he formed a political action committee called One America Committee and traveled the country preparing for another run for the White House in the future. On December 28, 2006, he announced in New Orleans his intention to be the Democratic Party's candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

John Edwards chose the residence of a Hurricane Katrina victim in the devastated 9th Ward of New Orleans to make his official announcement. 'We want the people in this campaign to take action now, not later, not after the next election. Instead of staying at home and complaining, we ask Americans to help," were his words.

'It would be a huge mistake to increase troops in Iraq,' he said on 'Good Morning America,' noting that such a move 'sends the wrong signal';. He actively seeks the support of the big unions and his campaign focuses on three main ideas: eliminating poverty, fighting global warming, and providing universal health care.

With a very populist tone, his is the most progressive political program among the main Democratic candidates, although he is reluctant to pronounce himself on issues such as gay marriage, assuring that he still does not have a well-formed opinion on it.

Her campaign manager is David Bonior, a former Democratic congressman from Michigan who was the number two Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives.

Edwards managed to raise $14 million in campaign contributions in the first quarter of 2007. His campaign had planned to raise $10 million, so the numbers exceed expectations, putting the former senator with enough money to be competitive in the primaries.

However, after finishing third, behind Senators Obama and Clinton, although not always in that order, in the Iowa caucus, and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, on January 30, 2008, he announced that he was withdrawing from the race for the Democratic nomination.

Private life

In college he met his wife Elizabeth Ananay with whom he would have four children, one of whom tragically died in a car accident in 1996.

In August 2008, Edwards confessed in an interview to ABC News that he had been unfaithful to his wife in 2006 with filmmaker Rielle Hunter, who was making documentaries for his campaign. Edwards He denied being the father of Hunter's daughter, born in February 2008. Edwards had initially denied the extramarital affair when the tabloid newspaper the National Enquirer first brought it to light in October 2007.

Electoral history