Edwards during his Senate term, 1999–2005He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in North Carolina's 1998 Senate election and toward the end of his six-year term sought the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election.
He eventually became the 2004 Democratic candidate for vice-president, the running mate of presidential nominee Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. After Edwards and Kerry lost the election to incumbents President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, Edwards began working full-time at the One America Committee, a political action committee he established in 2001, and was appointed director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law. He was also a consultant for Fortress Investment Group LLC.
Edwards was born June 10, 1953 to Wallace Reid Edwards and Catharine Juanita "Bobbie" Edwards (née Wade) in Seneca, South Carolina. The family moved several times during Edwards' childhood, eventually settling in Robbins, North Carolina, where his father worked as a textile mill floor worker, eventually promoted to supervisor; his mother had a roadside antique finishing business and then worked as a postal letter carrier when his father left his job.[2]
