Candidates' Spouses Challenge Clinton

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070720/D8QFVVNO0.html

By NEDRA PICKLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Everyone always expected the spouse of a Democratic presidential candidate to steal the spotlight. No one thought it would be Elizabeth Edwards. From a recent challenge to conservative pundit Ann Coulter to criticism of Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards' wife has embraced the role of her husband's defender while showing a willingness to utter complaints others are reluctant to say.


Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, talks about his support during her battle with cancer while campaigning in Davenport, Iowa, in this April 4, 2007, file photo. From March's dramatic announcement that Mrs. Edwards' cancer had returned to her recent challenges to conservative author Ann Coulter, Mrs. Edwards is playing a unique role as her husband's defender against female rivals, chiefly the Democratic primary front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

Clinton owes a good portion of her lead in national polls to the support of women. The Associated Press-Ipsos surveys in June and July show that 63 percent of Clinton's supporters are women. She gets 41 percent of the vote of female Democrats, while John Edwards got just 10 percent.

No wonder the Edwards campaign has dispatched his spouse to try to chip away at Clinton's advantage.

"I'm for the promotion of all women," she told an audience in New Hampshire last week, according to The Union Leader newspaper. "I'm not just for the promotion of one of us."

Taking on Elizabeth Edwards can be difficult as she has become such a sympathetic figure in her fight against incurable cancer.

She was first diagnosed in the final days of the 2004 campaign, when her husband was the vice presidential nominee, but battled the disease with chemotherapy and surgery. Doctors discovered that the cancer had returned in March, but the Edwardses announced that the campaign would continue.

FULL story at link.

[Lucinda]

1. I dint read Elizabeths comments as anti-Hillary

She just said she felt her husband had a better record on womans issues....