Inside The Decision: The Gleam Team

In May 2001, when Washington's political wags were the only ones playing the parlor game of presidential prospects, John Kerry, who has learned the value of forward observation in war and politics, went on a scouting mission. He and his wife Teresa invited John and Elizabeth Edwards over for an intimate gathering at their Georgetown mansion, along with half a dozen other guests. Peter Yarrow, of the folk-singing group Peter, Paul and Mary and an old Kerry buddy from his Vietnam protest days, was there. And so was Georgia's then Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in that war. Dining just one floor below a collection of Dutch masters and beyond a perfectly tended rose garden, the Senator from Massachusetts had reason to be worried that the golden-tongued Senator from North Carolina, who had the raw talent that people were saying they had once seen in Bill Clinton, would steal the show. But as guests recall, it was Kerry who was relaxed and Edwards who was eager to impress.

And when the conversation turned naturally to Vietnam, Edwards could only listen respectfully to the reminiscences of men with lined faces and battle scars. After dinner, Yarrow grabbed a guitar and started a sing-along of his old standards like This Land Is Your Land and If I Had a Hammer, and the potential for embarrassment was high. But Elizabeth knew all the words, and Cleland chimed in with special intensity. When pressed by the table to demonstrate his developing guitar skills, Kerry demurred, and everyone walked away with the picture of a man confident of his instincts--one who had no intention of coming in second.

Perhaps Kerry also sensed after that dinner that Edwards, who would become his most dangerous rival in the primaries, was a man who would respect his elders and tackle with relish the often thankless work of a vice-presidential nominee. The pick clearly thrilled his party after Kerry announced it last week in 21st century fashion with an e-mail to supporters, but Kerry too seemed all smiles and hugs about it. He chose the fresh face that his party had wanted all along, over others who offered him longer resumes and a more comfortable personal chemistry; then he launched their joint venture almost flawlessly, bathing it in the light of values and optimism, stretching the media coverage across three days and introducing the country to a camera-ready blended family that includes what are surely the two cutest children to stand on the national political stage since Caroline and John-John.

By the time Kerry and Edwards sat down for an interview with TIME on Friday morning--in a cluttered conference room along the Hudson River piers where they had just raked in $2.2 million from exultant New Yorkers in back-to-back fund raisers--their romance had blossomed to the point where they were finishing each other's answers and sounding as though this was always meant to be. Kerry described a connection of two former adversaries who came to realize they "really understood each other"; Edwards talked of "a powerful and growing trust between the two of us."