After months on the campaign trail, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., came home Friday night�and a crowd of thousands and a world-famous rock star were waiting there to greet him.
RALEIGH — After months on the campaign trail, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., came home Friday night—and a crowd of thousands and a world-famous rock star were waiting there to greet him.
Flashing a smile as he took the stage, the Democratic vice presidential nominee waved to supporters gathered at Dorton Arena in Raleigh for the “Bringing it Home” rally. The event, which included a special guest appearance by musician Jon Bon Jovi, was Edwards’ final stop in his home state before Election Day.
“I came here to say thank you,” Edwards said to the crowd. “North Carolina is who I am, and I will always be proud to call North Carolina my home.”
Noting that he voted just before coming to the event, Edwards told the packed house that the experience reminded him of why North Carolinians should give their support to his running mate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
“I thought to myself, North Carolina is on the ballot,” he said. “The values I learned here, the values I fought for, are on this ballot.”
Edwards then criticized his opponents—President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney—for failing to respond to the needs of average Americans during the past four years.
The candidate also responded to a tape released Friday showing Osama bin Laden speaking out against the United States. Standing before a massive American flag flanked by signs reading “Fighting for Us,” Edwards told the audience that Americans would be safer if he and Kerry were elected.
“We as a nation are united and we will win this war on terror,” he said.
Edwards, however, left most criticisms of the Bush-Cheney ticket to his wife, who spoke before him. Waving a piece of paper in the air, Elizabeth Edwards said the list of problems with the current administration was “so long” she “had to write it down.” She then criticized Bush’s education policies, connections to special interest groups and management of the conflict in Iraq.
Bon Jovi—who pumped up the crowd with acoustic versions of his popular songs—refuted the Bush campaign’s criticism that John Edwards is too inexperienced to be Kerry’s second-in-command.
“He raised a family... and made a buck the hard way,” Bon Jovi said, referring to the former trial lawyer’s work in textile mills as a young man. “That says a lot to me.”
Despite the energy permeating the rally, there is reason for the Democrats to worry about Edwards’ home state. According to a recent Mason-Dixon North Carolina poll, Kerry lags behind Bush in North Carolina by a margin of 9 percent.
Ted Benson, a rally attendee and chair of the Durham County Democratic Party, said he was still optimistic about the possibility of Kerry carrying North Carolina based on the state’s large number of first-time voters, particularly young voters.
Edwards spoke directly to the young people in the crowd during his speech, telling them their votes Tuesday could “change this country.”
While the audience in the arena chanted “Shame on Bush,” a group of protesters chanted outside, holding posters with slogans denouncing Kerry and Edwards. Others voiced their dissent outside the Edwards’ polling place, accusing the candidate of being absent too often from Capitol Hill.
But supporters far outnumbered the protesters at the rally. Ann Carrington-Smith, 62, a former manufacturing manager, said she voted early for Kerry because of his military policies, support of free speech and plans for health care—an area where she feels the current administration has fallen short.
“We take care of people in other countries. We don’t take care of our own people,” she said. “Charity starts at home.”
Several Duke students also attended the event. Freshman David Fiocco said he had voted early for the Democratic ticket at home in Wisconsin—a swing state Fiocco is confident Kerry will capture.
“He’s willing to think about things in new ways, and he’s not stuck on the same old rhetoric,” Fiocco said in support of the Massachusetts senator.
Wearing an army fatigue jacket with his name sewn on the pocket and leaning against a security barrier before the start of the rally, supporter Nathan Ishman said he became interested in politics only after serving for eight months in Iraq and Kuwait. The 23-year-old said this year would mark the first time he has ever voted.
Ishman said he prefers Kerry’s military policies because he believes the Democrat will reach out to more international allies than Bush. He also criticized the current administration’s strategy in Iraq and said “someone needs to take the fall” for the explosives recently reported missing from the al-Aqaa military compound.
Ishman added that his friends still serving overseas “support the president but not the man.”
“They don’t get all the information that we get back here,” he said.
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