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As always, Edwards aimed high. When he told his mom he was running for the Senate, she asked, "The state senate?" No, said Edwards, the one in Washington. In 1998 Edwards challenged G.O.P. incumbent Lauch Faircloth, then 70, who did his best to portray Edwards as an ambulance chaser. Edwards was prepared for that and worse, according to pollster Harrison Hickman in an interview with the New York Times. When Hickman warned the novice candidate about the ugly nature of politics, Edwards replied, "I appreciate your saying all that to me. But I have to tell you, if you have ever had to climb up on the examining table in the medical examiner's office and tell your son goodbye, there's nothing they can do that's worse."
The first-time candidate vowed to improve public education and the environment and win a patients' bill of rights. He swore off political-action-committee money and donated $6 million to his own campaign. Edwards told consultants he would fire--and then sue--them if they used Wade's death during the campaign. Though he does not talk about him on the stump, Edwards wears his son's Outward Bound pin on his lapel. Edwards won a resounding victory in the primary and survived Faircloth's attacks in the fall, winning 51% of the vote.
True to form, "Edwards hit the Senate like he was running the 100-yd. dash," says Senator John Breaux, a Louisiana Democrat. As soon as Edwards arrived, in January 1999, the courtroom virtuoso was tapped by Tom Daschle to defend Bill Clinton in the impeachment proceedings. Edwards dazzled members of both parties with his no-notes defense of the President during the trial. He took a seat on the sleepy Banking Committee, which matters in North Carolina, but switched a year later to the more visible Commerce Committee. By the summer of 2000, Edwards had scooted to the top of Al Gore's short list for a running mate and dropped off only at the end. When Bush won, Edwards was invited to take over the coveted Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--coveted because its chairman gets to meet every fund raiser in the nation. But Edwards declined, a sure sign that he was going to run for President.
Edwards' legislative record is thin. To earn some foreign-policy credentials, he sought and won a seat on the Intelligence Committee in 2001. He met with Democratic wise men and in the summer of 2001 called terrorism the gravest threat facing the nation, though hardly anyone heard him. He helped move a retooled patients' bill of rights through the Senate in 2002--a gift from his friend Ted Kennedy, who authored the original bill--only to see it die in conference committee. And he narrowly failed to round up enough votes in 2003 to block the Bush Administration from easing air-pollution rules for factories and power plants. He changed committees again in 2003, jumping to Judiciary, the home of hot-button issues dear to liberals. His striving didn't always wear well, however. Republicans snickered about Edwards' ambition. Montana's Conrad Burns was known sometimes to sing a friendly "Hello, Mr. President" whenever Edwards stepped into a Senators-only elevator. Democrats quietly gritted their teeth. As John Kerry once put it, "And you think I'm ambitious?"