Is Running for President the Best Route to Senate Re-Election?
How are we going to keep our U.S. Senate seat if John Edwards wont decide what he is going to do? You would hear this question being muttered if you were listening to some North Carolina Democratic Party regulars. Here is why they are worried. They think that if Edwards waits until late this year or early next year to decide whether he is running for president or the U.S. Senate, or both, it may make it impossible to beat the presumptive Republican senate candidate, Congressman Richard Burr. If Edwards only then decides not to run for the Senate, they say, it will be too late for another Democratic candidate to mount a strong campaign. What galls some of them is their belief that other Democrats, like last years Senate candidate, Erskine Bowles, would stand a better chance of beating Burr than Edwards would. Edwards, they believe, has torpedoed his chances with moderate North Carolina swing voters by his appeal to the more liberal Democratic voters whose support is necessary to win pre
