The Edwards effect

In 2000, both major parties chased the "soccer mom" demographic. Will John Edwards attract suburban female votes for John Kerry in November.

	[Getty Images]
	Sen. John Edwards plays with his son, Jack, now 4, and daughter, Emma Claire, now 6, last year.

BETHESDA, Md. - Anne Patterson is a registered Republican who voted for President Bush and isn't especially fond of Democrat John Kerry. But as she hopped out of her green Honda minivan during a blitz of errands last week, she said she has qualms about the war in Iraq and the president's religious zeal.

And thanks to last week's selection of Sen. John Edwards as Kerry's running mate, she might now vote for the Democratic ticket.

Edwards "at least makes Kerry palatable," said Patterson, a mother of three school-age children. "He just seems more moderate and reasonable."

As strategists for the Bush and Kerry campaigns angle for suburban women, an independent-minded group that is priceless in a close election, many of these women say Edwards has greatly improved Kerry's appeal.

Historically, the vice presidential selection hasn't held much sway in determining the outcome. The major exception was Texas Sen. Lyndon Johnson in 1960, who was instrumental in winning the South for John F. Kennedy. But in a race as tight as this one, especially in states such as Florida and Ohio, a tiny edge with a key group can make the difference.

Interviews with more than two dozen suburban women last week revealed strong support for Edwards, 51, a telegenic father who coached his children's soccer and basketball teams. While some derided him as a liberal trial lawyer or inexperienced with foreign policy - precisely the image the Bush campaign hopes to paint - most said they like his vibrancy, and many believed he understands the pressures of parenthood and the rush of suburban life better than Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Or Kerry, for that matter.

Lynne Dee Gehrke, 50, a professional nanny in Arlington, Va., is a typical suburban swing voter. Although she's a Democrat who voted twice for Bill Clinton, she voted for Bush in 2000. Lately, she has been unhappy with the Bush campaign for being too negative, but she's also uninspired by Kerry.

"He doesn't hold my attention," she said.

With Edwards on the ticket, however, she is now likely to vote for the Democrats. "He's much more charismatic than anybody in a long time," she said.

Suburban women are up for grabs in many elections because they tend to care more about a candidate's personality than party, according to Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

Their key issues also don't fit neatly within either party, he said. Sometimes they lean Democrat because they see it as "a nurturing party concerned with the social safety net," Sabato said, and they like the Democrats' historic support of Social Security, Medicare and education. But they are attracted to the masculine image of the Republican Party, which they see as anticrime, prodefense and aggressive against terrorism.

Suburban women are far more diverse than the stereotypical mom rushing to soccer games. The group includes the busy career women whose children and nannies flock to the playgrounds in Bethesda, the stay-at-home moms who tote their children to story time at the Arlington library and the single professionals who gather for martinis at BayWalk in St. Petersburg.

Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign, has identified suburban women - in particular, married career women - as a key voting bloc, along with Hispanics and rural white men. The campaign is targeting them with video ads featuring first lady Laura Bush on Web sites such as Parenting magazine and Ladies Home Journal.

Dowd said Edwards ultimately won't make much difference with any group.

"In the end, it's going to be about Kerry and where he is, and about Bush and what he wants to do the next four years," he said.

Last week, the Kerry campaign moved swiftly to emphasize Edwards' suburban appeal. His wife, Elizabeth, and their children - Cate, 22, Emma Claire, 6, and Jack, 4 - accompanied the candidates to rallies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. The family looked like they just came from your local Target.

Much to the delight of Kerry campaign officials, photos of Edwards and his kids appeared on the front pages of many newspapers. In one New York Times photo, Kerry's wife, Teresa, was caught trying to dislodge Jack's thumb from his mouth.

The women interviewed last week covered the spectrum, from Denise Kellogg, a Republican stay-at-home mom who dislikes Edwards because he was a trial lawyer ("This country is too litigious as it is," she said) to die-hard Democrats such as Madelyn Callahan, an Arlington newsletter copy editor who said the Bush administration was run by too many old men ("They are dinosaurs left over from the Reagan years," she said). Most of them planned to vote their party, if they had one, but several undecided women said they're more likely to vote Democrat because of Edwards.

One of them is Tina Piccione, a Republican who lives in the Trinity area, one of Pasco County's fastest-growing communities and home to its first Starbucks. She voted for Bush four years ago, but isn't sure she will again. She likes that Edwards' family closely matches hers - Christina, 7, and Nicholas, 4, are about the same ages as Emma Claire and Jack Edwards.

"It makes me pay attention more . . . to his campaign and think, "Wait a minute, what are his views? What does he want to change and do for us?' " said Piccione, 33.

Piccione and her husband, Paul, own a window cleaning business, so they shoulder the full cost of the family's health insurance. They worry about rising health care costs, the quality of schools and taxes.

With Edwards having young kids, Piccione said, "He may be pulling more on things that mean more to us than someone who has older kids."

Gehrke, the Arlington nanny, said she had been undecided about the November election, but she's more likely to vote the Democratic ticket because of Edwards.

She said she likes Edwards because he talks more about domestic issues than President Bush. He seems more attuned to the issues of everyday Americans and "will get things done at home and watch out for the children," she said.

Gehrke likes that Edwards has held elected office for just six years and "is fresher." She likes his optimistic speeches and the way he refrained from attacking his opponents during the Democratic primaries. The Republicans have been too negative, she said. "Instead of telling us what they'd like to do, (they) slam the other guy."

Other women said they felt Edwards was in touch with the needs of suburban families, even though he's a self-made multimillionaire. He has represented North Carolina in the Senate for one term.

"He is not so old that he's been engulfed by Washington," said Lynn Eldridge, a stay-at-home mother in Arlington. "I like that he has a family. You know he cares" about family issues.

Eldridge, a mother of two preschoolers, is an independent who has voted for candidates from both parties. But she is disenchanted with the Bush administration because she says it is run by older men who are out of touch with modern-day parents.

"Edwards did put a little bit of a fresh face on the whole thing," she said. "It's kind of nice not to have the stodgy face."

(In fact, People magazine chose Edwards as the "sexiest politician" of 2001).

In Bethesda, where stylish moms push strollers along bricked walks past pricey boutiques and cafes, it's difficult to imagine the economic angst that Kerry is trying to tap, or to fathom much umbrage over the "two Americas" that Edwards has railed against on the stump.

But what is evident here, among many Republican women as well as Democrats and independents, is growing discomfort with the president's penchant for mingling religion with policy, including his strong stands against abortion and embryonic stem-cell research.

"It's like you're back in Catholic school," said Maureen McNulty, 49, of Bethesda, a mother of two college-age girls and a Republican who voted for Bush last time.

She is not sure she will again. She is unimpressed with Kerry and Edwards, whom she described as "just the pretty boy on the ticket," but she acknowledged Edwards' buoyancy will be attractive to many women.

Patterson, the Bethesda stay-at-home mom, said she worries Kerry won't provide the support soldiers need to finish the war in Iraq. But she also complains the Bush administration is too conservative and overly obsessed with privatizing key government functions, such as mental health care.

She's not sure whom she will support in November, but she likes Edwards' optimism and says that, as a parent of young children, he'll plan for the future.

"I was thinking this will be the first time there are really young kids around the White House, and that will be a nice change," Patterson said. "The world (the elected officials) are working on now will be the world their kids inherit."

- Times staff writer Bridget Hall Grumet contributed to this report.

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