Interview: The Two Candidates
	TIME's Karen Tumulty sits down with Kerry and Edwards
	By KAREN TUMULTY

Posted Sunday, July 11, 2004
TIME: Is it true that you sort of enjoyed this process of secret dating for the last month?

JE: I thought it was a very healthy thing. John and I knew each other anyway, and then when it became clear who was gonna be the nominee, we almost immediately started talking. I can't imagine this being done in a more personal and dignified way.

TIME: Could you pull the curtain back a bit? What was the hardest question you asked him?

JK: I can't pull the curtain back that far. I mean, I can but I'm not going to. Because this is about the future. You know I made my choice, and what's important is what we're offering America. It's not about those conversations and process.

TIME: So if this is about the future, you look at the last three presidencies and you see three very different models of what a Vice President was. George Bush was so peripheral that he could almost be believable when he said he was out of the loop on Iran-Contra. Al Gore had significant parts of the government turned over to him, like Telcom. You yourself suggested that Dick Cheney is the de facto President. So where on this spectrum does a Kerry/Edwards partnership fit?

JK: A healthy partnership that builds on the model of what you saw with Gore and Clinton.

TIME: And are there any sort of obvious areas—

JE: He hadn't finished.

JK: Thank you, John [laughs]. He's already defending my rights! I was just going to say that I want to take it to another level. I think the Vice President is a very powerful position. I don't think it has been properly utilized in this administration. I think it's been excessive, and I intend to be a President who is on top of what's happening in every regard. And final decisions—I'm not going to be pushed into them the way I sense this President was.

JE: One of the things I would add is there's clearly a powerful and growing trust between the two of us, and I thinkwe will talk constantly about issues. He'll know what I believe and what I think needs to be done. But at the end of the day, the President of the United States has to make the final decision.

TIME: Are there any areas where Senator Edwards has an expertise or a background that, policy-wise, you could see him, coming—

JK: Absolutely. And it's obvious from the things that he's been doing and focusing on and fighting on through his lifetime. But I'm not going to pigeon-hole him, and I'm certainly not going to do it today.

TIME: Even before your e-mail went out, the Republican National Committee was pounding senator Edwards as not qualified.

JK: Well I think that the "pounding" of the RNC is both pathetic and so negative that it's counter-productive and a turn-off to the American people. Let's be very clear. John Edwards brings to the Vice Presidency more experience in national affairs and governance and international affairs than George Bush brought when he ran, or than Ronald Reagan brought when he ran, or than Jimmy Carter brought when he ran, or than Harry Truman had when he became President. So this is a phony argument.

TIME: But you yourself said in December, when you were asked who you would support if you were not in this race that it would be Dick Gephardt.

JK: Where did I say that? I didn't say that.

TIME: The New York Times wrote last week that in December—

JK: Let's be very clear about this—this judgement that I made was not made last December as one of nine people running. It's made as the nominee of the party based on a meticulous, lengthy, exhaustive review of all of the candidates, and people beyond those that you ever even knew or read about and discussed publicly.

TIME: And you're going to tell us those people right?

JE: [laughs].

TIME: How do you work through your differences on an issue like the death penalty?

JK: It's not difficult. I wouldn't ask John to change on something as fundamental as that . I've watched George Herbert Walker Bush one day go from pro-choice to pro-life. Uh uh. Not this team. I would never ask somebody to do that.

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