USA: John Edwards announces his bid to run for President of theUnited States in 2008.

John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004, launched a bid for the presidency on Thursday (December 28) with a call to cut U.S. troops in Iraq, reduce global warming and end poverty in America. To drive home his populist message, Edwards opened his campaign among the debris and wreckage of New Orleans' lower Ninth Ward, which was wiped out in Hurricane Katrina last year and where the storm's mostly poor victims are still struggling to rebuild. Edwards, who has opened an anti-poverty center in North Carolina and promised during his first presidential bid to be "a champion for regular people" campaigned with Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004 on closing the economic gap between the "two Americas" -- one for the comfortable and another for the struggling. He is the third candidate to formally jump into a Democratic presidential race where he ultimately might have to compete for money and support with leading contenders Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. Edwards' 2004 running mate Kerry and a half-dozen other Democrats are expected to decide in the next few weeks. Clinton and Obama threatening to soak up much of the political oxygen in the 2008 campaign, but Edwards still believes he is best serving America by running for President. "I have made my own personal decision and my family has made the decision that this is the best way I can serve my country. And if I really believe that which I do than I want to the best human beings possible to run for president of the United States. We need a great president in 2009." After his appearance in New Orleans, Edwards will fly to the crucial state of Iowa, which holds the first presidential nominating contest in January 2008, for a town hall meeting and then visit New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina for other campaign events. Edwards, the son of a millworker and the first person in his family to attend college, was one of the country's most successful and wealthy personal injury attorneys before entering politics in 1998. He left the Senate after one term to run for president, entering the primaries as a potential "fresh face" before candidates like Howard Dean and Kerry zoomed past him to lead the pack. His roots in the South, where he grew up in North and South Carolina, could be an asset for a party trying to broaden its appeal. The last three Democratic presidents -- Lyndon Johnson of Texas, Jimmy Carter of Georgia and Bill Clinton of Arkansas -- were from the South.

ITN Source | December 28, 2006

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