The Stump Speech: Edwards Promises a Positive Vision and to Change the ‘Two Americas’ By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, NYTimes

Voters say, ” `You haven’t been in politics all your life, you haven’t even been in Washington that long, how in the world are you going to change this country?’ ” Mr. Edwards said here. ”Here’s my question to you: You think people who have been in politics all their lives, have been in Washington for decades, you think they’re going to change America?”

Mr. Edwards portrays doubts about him as the work of cynics and of the privileged whom he is campaigning against.

He says that when he was young, the son of a mill worker, the doubters said of him: “You really think you’re going to college? You’re going to be a lawyer? How in the world is that ever going to happen?”

“Then, when I walked into courtrooms and these armies of these big corporate lawyers, much older and more experienced than me, they would be in there and they’d say, `What’s that young fellow doing in here? What? Does he think he’s going to take us on?’ And over and over and over I won those fights.”

“How many times in your life has somebody said something like that to you? Think about that for a minute.”

Mr. Edwards cites his 20 years as a personal injury lawyer suing corporate America as proof he is tough enough to challenge Mr. Bush, seeking to answer doubts among some voters. “We need somebody who has been fighting these fights and winning these fights their whole lives,” Mr. Edwards said.