For Edwards, a relationship that never quite fit

The two men could hardly have been more different. Mr. Kerry was the craggy Brahmin raised in privilege, Mr. Edwards, smiling, Southern and self-made. Mr. Kerry had all the gravitas Mr. Edwards was often accused of lacking, but Mr. Edwards charmed colleagues and connected with voters in a way that Mr. Kerry could only envy.

Mr. Kerry had spent a career in the Senate, where success depends on accommodating all sides of an issue; he called friends ceaselessly to solicit different points of view until aides seized his cellphone. Mr. Edwards had built his career by choosing a side and not relenting; he was well known for turning down big settlement offers because he was confident he could win his case.

But Mr. Edwards had support in the Senate, and two of Mr. Kerry’s consultants, Robert Shrum and Tad Devine, were pushing for him, too — they liked how he polled in crucial states like Florida and Missouri, and they liked his optimistic populism.

Mr. Edwards and others believed he had done surprisingly well in the primaries because he refused to go negative. Staff members gave away opposition research to other campaigns, one said, because he would not use it.

At the Democratic convention in late July, Mr. Kerry’s advisers encouraged Mr. Edwards to reprise his theme of the primaries, a pledge to bridge the gap between two Americas, one rich, one struggling. Preaching “the politics of hope,” Mr. Edwards mocked the negative campaigning the Republicans were sure to deliver: “Don’t you just hate it?”

‘Pundit lines’
But the convention was barely over when the attacks began, starting with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth accusing Mr. Kerry of lying about his military record. Kerry aides complained that Mr. Edwards would resist or try to tone down language when they asked him to deliver negative lines — “pundit lines,” as one of Mr. Edwards’s aides scoffed. He argued it was more important to talk about what the Democrats would do differently rather than what the Republicans had done wrong.

He objected to anything more than the most generic attacks on the Bush administration. After weeks of battering by the Swift boat group, he called only for the president to “stop these ads.” When Mr. Cheney said voting for the Democrats would invite a terror attack, Mr. Edwards called it “un-American.”

“We were getting our heads taken off and he was still talking about two Americas,” said David Morehouse, Mr. Kerry’s traveling chief of staff.

“We were constantly negotiating backwards,” said Marcus Jadotte, a Kerry deputy campaign manager who was assigned to travel with Mr. Edwards. “He refused to get to a place where they were truly in concert.”

As prominent Democrats began calling for Mr. Edwards to be more aggressive, Mr. Kerry met with him in Springfield, Ohio, on the last night of the Republican convention and implored him to be tougher on the Republicans.

Mr. Edwards soon stepped up his rhetoric, particularly in his debate with Mr. Cheney. But the Kerry people saw it as a draw at best.

Some campaign aides speculated that Mr. Edwards was trying to protect his reputation so he could run for president again. Others concluded that he believed the lesson of the primaries was that staying positive worked.

“He thought that the right way to win a campaign was to be about hope and a positive message, and in many ways he’s right,” Mr. Jadotte said. “The reality is, that’s the job of the presidential nominee, not the vice-presidential nominee.”

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