making his case; John Edwards discovered his calling as a trial lawyer, then gave it up to become an overnight success in politics, Julia Reed writes.

Byline: Julia Reed

At the tiny depot in Sedalia, Missouri, a few hundred of its 20,000 citizens have gathered to meet the train that is currently bearing John Kerry, John Edwards, and their families through this battleground state. Though it's close to midnight, there are elderly couples, young men on bikes, mothers holding babies-all there, presumably, because they "Believe in America," the name the campaign has given this cross-country tour. But some folks-most notably a man dressed as a waffle who has turned up at almost every stop-apparently do not believe in the candidates themselves, and they are booing John Edwards. He is introducing Kerry and quoting his own stump speech, which includes a lot of courtroom-style questions guaranteed to get the answers he wants and stir up the crowd. As in: "Where we all come from, you don't measure somebody's values based on how they use that word in a political ad, do you?" This is invariably met with a heartfelt collective "Noooo!" But when he tries the same technique to silence the hecklers, he's not nearly so successful. "We would never shout down our opponents when they were speaking, would we?" But they do. And by the time the "We want Bush" chants crank up, his jaw appears clenched and the usual gleam in his eyes has become a glint that borders on icy. "I just want to say to those folks who don't want to hear from us, my children are on this train. Show them some good Missouri manners if you don't mind."

When Edwards's tussle at the depot made the news, it was portrayed as an amusing incident on an otherwise well-produced campaign trip, the maiden voyage following the Democratic convention. But those moments revealed a surprisingly steely side to the usually courtly vice-presidential candidate. For his was no aw-shucks exhortation, it was an edgy, ever-so-slightly sanctimonious rebuke-more Sam Waterston in Law & Order than Andy Griffith in Matlock-from a man who isn't used to being thrown off his game and rarely ventures from his well-memorized script. He made his name and his substantial fortune as a North Carolina plaintiff's attorney by being so well prepared before he went into a courtroom that, like a gifted actor, he could create the illusion of being entirely unrehearsed. His command of the minutiae of each case was such that he was able to give full force to his outrage and passion, making those emotions so palpable that juries almost always found in favor of his clients. On the trail, it's much the same. He never uses a single note while speaking, and he treats his audiences like the juries he tells me he connected with by "trying to speak their language." At each stop, he brings up the negative attacks by his opponents and asks, "We know what's coming, don't we?," followed always by the same perfectly timed beat and yet another question: "Aren't you sick of it?" The only problem, as in Sedalia, is that he can't always control a campaign rally as well as he can a courtroom. And his Q&A approach is telling because it forces his listeners to respond to him-but never, ever vice versa. Kerry, on the other hand, is constantly rewriting his script, leaning over to hear what the people he talks to tell him so he can repeat it and react-once, to her eternal embarrassment, it was a marriage proposal to his daughter Alexandra. When the hecklers that so ruffled Edwards started in on Kerry, he managed a grin while trying to silence them.

In every campaign, the candidates' roles are assigned early on by the press, by the pundits, by the campaigns themselves. Last go round, Bush was the inexperienced former frat boy who needed Cheney's granite-like gravitas. This time, Kerry was supposed to be the serious one, the craggy New Englander with the dour demeanor, and Edwards the antidote, the breath of fresh air from the sunny South whose role was to make the nominee more human. There is no question that Edwards has notable charisma-he radiates youth and vigor, and, more important, sincerity to the crowds ("John is as clear a glass of water as you're ever going to get," says his wife, Elizabeth). But, surprisingly, it's Kerry who seems most at ease working those crowds, constantly slapping backs and holding up babies, while for a politician Edwards gives his well-wishers a remarkable amount of personal space. Kerry can get positively-even infectiously-goofy onstage, rolling up the sleeves of the checked shirts that are part of his daily wardrobe, making lame jokes about his and his running mate's similarities: "He was chosen as People magazine's sexiest politician; I read People magazine." Edwards does not joke; despite his easy grin, he is described by close friends as "serious," "solid," "quiet." When I ask his best friend and former law partner, David Kirby, if Edwards is ever loose, he says, ...