Kerry-Edwards Stand Together Atop Economic Platform

The latest merger to sweep financial headlines has less to do with Wall Street than it does with Pennsylvania Avenue.

Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has named John Edwards, a North Carolina lawyer and creator of the "Two Americas" tagline, as his running mate in the White House race -- and consequently, named the economy as their new 72-font campaign catchphrase.

During the primary season, Edwards repeatedly championed the middle class and working families, making their economic status a trademark issue in his own Oval Office bid. So it's no surprise that the John Duo's first joint stumping steps are the topic of discussion among just as many business reporters as their political colleagues today.

After Kerry's announcement, stories quoted political experts who agree the presidential hopeful has pinned his hopes for victory on economics with his choice of running mate.

A story in today's Los Angeles Times has reporter Ronald Brownstein postulating: "In Edwards, Kerry chose a running mate who built his own presidential bid around a tough-on-trade populism that denounced the disparities between 'the two Americas' and promised to 'cut off at the knees' Washington lobbyists and insiders. Now, analysts in both parties are wondering whether Edwards' selection signals a Kerry tilt away from his centrist, business-friendly rhetoric of the last few months."

The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei leads his story today by surmising that Kerry's and Edwards' public debut "left little doubt they will spend the next four months hammering President Bush over the economy." He explains in later graphs that the two "talked mostly about economic distress" and "vowed to shrink the gulf between the wealthy and the middle class" in the previous day's battleground march from Pennsylvania to Florida.

"By putting Edwards on the ticket," a political pundit said in another Kerry-Edwards story earlier this week, this time in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, "Kerry suggests that he wants to campaign very aggressively on the questions of downsizing and economic problems," more so than the candidates of four years ago.

Also choosing to lead with Kerry's mind on the money, reporters Jacob M. Schlesinger and David Rogers of The Wall Street Journal concurred in their story on Wednesday that the Edwards "two Americas" stump speech spawned the single-minded focus on the economy. "The Kerry campaign considers that line of attack central to its case for replacing President George W. Bush, even as the overall economy gains steam," they wrote.

Thanks to those early economic disclosures by Edwards -- described widely as the populist one of the political group -- the economic angle here was a cinch for business reporters.

"It was easier than, say, if Kerry had picked (Iowa Gov.) Tom Vilsack," said Mark Gongloff, a senior writer at CNN/Money. "Then I would have had to work a lot harder to find an angle. Then when I would have picked up the phone that morning, I would have found fewer analysts on the other line tell me what the economic implications were."

Gongloff wrote a story hours after the announcement, outlining the proposed Democratic promise for the national economy -- middle-class tax cuts, better trade enforcement and deficit cuts.

"They may also repeal some of the tax cuts that benefited the wealthiest Americans, and may not support the legal reforms the Bush administration favors, meaning a Kerry-Edwards victory in November could be met with grumbles on Wall Street," his story read.

Other stories suggest the cons of choosing a running mate who's been so vocal on his economic stance. A Wall Street Journal story from Tuesday's paper, the day Kerry announced his decision, detailed the fears of business CEOs of a trial lawyer-turned-vice president. Another Reuters story, appearing on the wire Tuesday afternoon after the announcement, asserted the two Democrats differed in their past votes on trade legislation.

Even Edwards' own finances became part of the business story. A Bloomberg story after the announcement described the day after Edwards married, when he was short $2 and had to wait hours for his in-laws to help pay a $22 motel bill for his honeymoon.

And yet, an Associated Press story that same day shows how times have changed. Reporter David Pace told of a different Edwards than the public-schooled son of a blue-collar Southern family. "A look at his finances shows he's one of the privileged," he wrote after poring through the vice presidential candidate's financial holdings and investments, which prove him a multimillionaire today.

Though they varied in direction, this political story revealed clear economic paths from the beginning, Gongloff says. "Finding that is a matter of not only talking to editors and talking to experts, but also looking at what other people are writing."

Though, when in doubt, business reporters can always look for the eBay connection.

"The biggest loser in Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's tightly controlled choice of John Edwards as his running mate is apparently the New York Post," read a story in Crain's New York Business on Tuesday. "In echoes of 'Dewey Beats Truman!' the tabloid's erroneous cover 'exclusive' in Tuesday's late city final edition naming U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt is selling on eBay for upwards of $5.74 or 2,200 percent over the 25-cent cover price. Unfortunately, the Post reaps none of the profits on the auction sales."

Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism