Edwards not missed by N.C. delegates

DENVER — North Carolina’s Democratic delegates aren’t losing any sleep over John Edwards’s absence at the Democratic National Convention.

The former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004 wore out his welcome with his peers earlier this month when he confirmed news reports that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with a former campaign aide in 2006. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have since receded from public view.

{mosads}To North Carolina delegates attending the convention, Edwards’s absence from the event and the campaign trail means little to politics in their state or to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) chances at winning the White House.

“I think Obama does very well speaking for himself,” said Obama delegate Penny Knight.

“It’s a lack of another voice that certainly had a constituency,” said North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek. Nevertheless, “I didn’t see it having any real political implications, either in North Carolina or nationally,” he said.

If Edwards had won the Democratic primary only to be brought low before November, the effect would have been devastating, but the delegates said they haven’t thought about that.

Some would rather remember the attention Edwards brought to working-class people and those hit hardest by the economy during the Democratic primary.

 “His presence is missed,” Obama delegate Denise Adams said. She praised Edwards for invigorating the 2008 presidential campaign early, saying, “His voice was the voice everybody heard before the other two,” she said, referring to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

But, Adams added, Edwards’s political downfall is less significant because she always viewed Obama and Clinton as alone at the top of the heap. “I knew, and I think most of us knew, he wasn’t going to be [the nominee],” she said.

Knight said that Edwards, the scandal and his absence at the convention are not of much interest to the state’s delegates.

“It’s unfortunate that has happened,” Knight said of the Edwards scandal, “but I don’t think it’s going to affect the campaign.”

Edwards was the subject of speculation about being Obama’s running mate earlier this year but Knight never took that seriously. “I don’t think he was even in the running for vice president,” she said.

Before Edwards’s confession, he was expected to campaign for Obama’s presidential bid against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “Obviously, that’s not a possibility now,” Meek said.

The one-term senator started building his 2008 presidential campaign apparatus soon after he and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) failed to unseat President Bush. Despite those preparations and significant support among labor unions and other groups, Edwards’s candidacy faltered early.

After a surprising second-place finish to Obama in the Iowa caucuses, where he bested Clinton, Edwards finished third in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the state of his birth. Shortly after, he left the race.

Though Edwards did not endorse Obama until the nomination was all but sealed in May, his ties to organized labor and working-class white voters – two camps that Obama has not fully won over – were thought to be assets to the Obama campaign.

But a series of stories by the National Enquirer and other outlets about the affair dogged Edwards, eventually forcing him to make a public confession and apology.

“It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry,” he said in statement issued earlier this month.

Bruce Peterson, a Clinton delegate who was seated at the Pepsi Center with his wife, Buncombe County Commissioner Carol Peterson, an undeclared superdelegate, were active in Edwards’s 2008 campaign.

“We’ve been very close with Sen. Edwards. We were with him when he first filed,” Bruce Peterson said. “We’ve campaigned for him in several states. Obviously, right now we’re a little bit disappointed. Time will heal those wounds.”

What upset Meek most was that Edwards brought people on board with his campaign “when he knew there was something like this that could be problematic,” he said. “I know very well a lot of people who were called upon by Sen. Edwards.”

Adams said that forgiveness is a given. “There was anger” and a sense of “How could you?” she said, but added, “We still — we respect and love Sen. John Edwards. That doesn’t change.”

Adams predicted North Carolina Democrats will not hold a grudge and would forgive their former senator.

“That not just the Democratic way. That’s the American way. We are forgiven,” Adams said. “There have been a lot of other people, I’m sure, who have done a lot worse.”