"Running before makes you focus on something different. Instead of focusing on how crowds respond to you and what everybody seems to love of you. That's not the test for being president. The test for being president is are you the best person to occupy the Oval Office and be the leader of the free world? Because literally the future of the world is at stake here. This is not about popularity and excitement."
The Raleigh News and Observer says Edwards "seemed to have little trouble fielding questions, ranging from the war in Iraq to his relative lack of foreign policy experience to his political ties to organized labor." At one point, host Hardball Chris Mathews complained to the audience during a commercial break, "This is not hardball, this is batting practice. This guy is killing me. He couldn't do this four years ago."