Edwards favored as Kerry's veep

WASHINGTON — Sen. John Edwards, the smooth-talking populist who emerged from the nominating campaign as John Kerry's chief rival, is favored among registered voters to be the Democratic vice presidential candidate, according to an Associated Press poll.

But his name on the ticket does not automatically boost Democratic prospects.

A Kerry-Edwards pairing ties with the GOP tandem of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, which is no better than Kerry's current showing in head-to-head matchups against Bush, according to the AP poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

Kerry has made overtures to at least one potential candidate, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who rejected the offer to forge a bipartisan alliance against Bush, The Associated Press reported Friday. Two officials familiar with the conversations said Kerry stopped short of formally offering McCain the job, sparing the Massachusetts senator an outright rejection that would make his eventual running mate look like a second choice.

A hypothetical Kerry-McCain ticket had a 14-point advantage over Bush-Cheney among registered voters, 53 percent to 39 percent, according to a recent CBS News poll.

Democratic strategists cautioned against reading too much into any poll before Kerry selects a running mate.

"Polling information on potential running mates is soft and unreliable, because it's all about name identification and hypothetical," said Doug Sosnik, a top adviser in the Clinton White House. "Eventually, we'll have a campaign when people will get to know them. Right now, it's just mush."

The AP poll showed that more than one-third of registered voters — 36 percent — said they would most like to see Kerry choose Edwards.

Among Democrats surveyed, Edwards fared even better: 43 percent preferred him over three other Democrats.

The first-term senator from North Carolina remained in the primaries longer than any other major candidate and won over thousands of Democratic voters with the positive tone of his campaign.

The poll showed that 19 percent of registered voters wanted Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, the longtime Democratic leader who is retiring from the House. Eighteen percent chose retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a political newcomer from Arkansas, and 4 percent picked Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a relative unknown on the national scene.

About 23 percent said they were not sure, or they offered another name.