Would Edwards win N.C.?

Would Edwards win N.C.?
ROCKY MOUNT - I was speaking to the Rotary Club here last week when a gentleman asked an interesting question: If John Edwards gets the Democratic nomination for president, would he carry North Carolina?I was asked a similar question nearly three years ago by Cameron Kerry, the younger brother of Sen. John Kerry and a close political adviser, after he invited me to meet privately at a North Raleigh coffee shop. At the time, Kerry was considering whether to put Edwards on the ticket as the vice presidential candidate, and his brother wanted to know whether I thought Edwards would carry North Carolina for the ticket.
In both cases, I answered truthfully: I don't know.
The facts are not in dispute. The Kerry-Edwards ticket lost North Carolina in 2004 to the Bush-Cheney ticket, 56-44. That's about the same as the 2000 result, when George Bush defeated Al Gore 56-43.
After that it becomes a matter of opinion.
The spin from the Hillary Rodham Clinton camp is that Edwards didn't help the ticket in North Carolina.
The Edwards camp spin is that the Kerry-Edwards campaign wrote off North Carolina early, choosing not to advertise here. Besides, voters focus on the presidential candidate, not the veep candidate.
Any Democratic presidential nominee would find North Carolina hard to crack. The last time the state went Democratic was 1976, when it voted for Jimmy Carter, although Democrats came close in 1980 and 1992.
Edwards, the former senator and trial lawyer who now lives in Chapel Hill, has never been a beloved North Carolina politician. He didn't work his way up the system like Jim Hunt, Terry Sanford or Mike Easley.
Edwards' stint in the Senate was short and was dominated by his pursuit of the presidency. Even some Democrats think Edwards got above his raisin' by beginning his White House effort just two years after arriving in Washington.
Edwards has also moved to his political left as he has refocused his efforts from his North Carolina constituency to the much more liberal world of national Democratic primary voters. That is not unusual for presidential candidates, with Republicans such as John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney all moving to their right as they prepare their White House runs.
Given North Carolina's Republican leanings in presidential races, it is far from certain that Edwards would carry North Carolina. Gore lost Tennessee in 2000, you might remember.
But Republican critics have consistently underestimated Edwards, who is a rare political talent and a dogged, tough campaigner. They doubted he could win the Senate in 1998, doubted he would emerge as a serious presidential contender in 2004, and thought he was finished politically and would be a nonfactor in 2008.
Whether Edwards could carry North Carolina in a presidential election depends on a number of factors. Who will be the Republican nominee? Will we still be fighting in Iraq and, if so, how will the war be going?
But first there is the small matter of Hillary Clinton.

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