Oregon Republicans knock Edwards.

Byline: David Steves The Register-Guard

The Bush-Cheney campaign enlisted Oregon's top Republicans on Wednesday in its national effort to discredit Democrat John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as his running mate.

In a teleconference with Oregon news reporters, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith and Rep. Greg Walden, both Oregon Republicans, took turns criticizing Edwards' relative inexperience, characterizing the first-term U.S. senator as too liberal, and dismissing the notion that adding a Southerner to the Democratic ticket would draw more support from rural voters.

"They very frankly make a very pretty package, but when you undo the bow, you find two of the most liberal voting records in the United States Senate," Smith said.

Similar efforts have been under way nationally and in other so-called battleground states since presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kerry named Edwards on Tuesday as his choice for the vice presidential nomination. Considering the favorable public response, Bush's re-election campaign has good reason for trying to convince voters that the North Carolina senator is the wrong man for the nation's No. 2 job.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday found that 54 percent of voters surveyed had a favorable impression of Edwards and 16 percent had an unfavorable impression. Among those surveyed, 64 percent thought he was either an excellent or pretty good choice for vice president.

Lisa Sohn, spokeswoman for Kerry in Oregon, said Smith and Walden would have difficulty convincing voters that they're wrong about Edwards' suitability for the vice presidency - but the Kerry campaign fully expected Bush, Cheney and their campaign's surrogates to try anyway.

"I think they're going to do everything they can to discredit the fact that we have a team that Oregonians and Americans are really going to respond to," Sohn said.

At times during the teleconference, the two Republicans echoed criticisms that Bush strategists had vowed to level at Edwards even before he was named to the ticket. For instance, Smith noted the widespread reports a few weeks ago that Kerry had contemplated asking friend and fellow Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, to be his running mate - something Kerry has not publicly confirmed.

"It's apparent that John McCain was far and away the best draw, and was Kerry's first pick, but John Edwards, by a much smaller margin, was the second-best draw," Smith said. "So politics entirely overcame his judgment when it came to the presidency, in putting a man a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Walden, who represents Eastern and Southern Oregon, said the Kerry-Edwards ticket would be hostile to the rural communities of Oregon that want logging on public lands burned by forest fires and farming areas such as the Klamath Basin, where farmers' need for irrigation water has conflicted with demands for fish protection by Indian tribes, fishermen and environmentalists.