Cate Edwards and Scholastic Student Reporter David Rush in Manhattan recently. (Photo: Suzanne Freeman)

October 2004—Scholastic Student Reporter David Rush, 13, of New York, recently sat down with Cate Edwards to talk about her dad, the election, and life on the campaign trail. Cate is the 22-year-old daughter of vice-presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth. She has a younger brother and sister—Jack, 4, and Emma Claire,6—and is a recent graduate of Princeton University. Since graduating in May, she has been on the campaign trail, speaking mainly at college campuses around the nation. Here's what Cate had to say to Scholastic News Online, just a few days before her father debated Vice President Dick Cheney.

SN Online: What kind of relationship did you have with your father when you were growing up, and what's the status of your relationship today?
Cate: When I was growing up, my dad and I were really close. I was sort of a daddy's girl, and I kind of had him wrapped around my finger. I could pretty much get whatever I wanted from out of him when I was little. He was my soccer coach and my basketball coach, and we took trips. I would go with him on trips sometimes. He's just a really great dad. We talk more on an adult level and about more complex issues than we did before. But we're still very close, and I talk to him every other day. He's very inspiring to me in a lot of ways. I'm just very proud of him.

SN Online: You say that your dad would be the right choice for Vice President, not only because he's your dad, but also because he's going to do the right things for this country. And you also said that if he gets elected Vice President, he's going to help you make your future brighter. How exactly is he going to do that?
Cate: I think he's very optimistic about this country and the things that we can achieve in this country. He wants to invest in things like education, and he wants to invest in jobs and the economy, and things that really do affect our lives. And I just think that he believes that anybody in this country should have the opportunity and the capacity and the help from the government to do what it is that they have the potential to do, and to achieve their highest goals.

SN Online: You have said that education is the most important issue. What exactly would you do to help reform education, and do you support the No Child Left Behind Act, or do you think it needs changes? What exactly would you do to make education the best it can be in this country?
Cate: It's not even about what I would do as what my dad would do, but I agree with my dad on this issue entirely. He represents my view, as well, which is that No Child Left Behind is not fully funded. That's the major problem—that it's not actually giving money to schools and giving them the ability to achieve the goals that it sets for them. So, to fully fund it so that schools can have the resources that they need. To change the way that we're doing testing so that it's not just bubble tests and it's not so rigid. To target schools that are marked "failures" and actually help them out and invest in those schools to make them the same quality as other schools in the country. And also, just increasing teacher pay so that we're bringing good, quality teachers into the profession so that young people like me or like you actually would want to be teachers and are inspired by their teachers, and so that they can really do their jobs properly.

SN Online: You've also said that your mother isn't into being in the spotlight. Would this affect her ability to be the wife of the Vice President, who obviously would get a lot of the spotlight?
Cate: I think she's gotten used to it in a lot of ways. She's out there every day talking to people and doing interviews. She's very good at it. She's a great campaigner. I think in a lot of ways, she has gotten used to it, and I think that's important. But I don't think she wants to be famous. I think she just wants to be a mom and a wife and sort of just be herself and have her privacy in a lot of ways. But she's certainly willing to give that up if that means that my dad is the Vice President, because I think she believes in him so much that she would certainly give that up.

SN Online: As a whole, have you enjoyed or disliked your experience of campaigning? In other words, are you just doing it because your dad is campaigning for Vice President, or are you doing it because you really like doing it?
Cate: Of course, I started out doing it because my dad is running, but it's not just that. It's because I felt this incredible opportunity to be part of something so huge, so important. It's a chance to change this country and to change history, and I truly believe in my dad and I believe in John Kerry.

SN Online: Now that your dad is running for Vice President, you probably have to deal with fan mail, people saying "I want to marry you," and other kinds of celebrity-status stuff. And you even admitted that all this has had a major impact on your identity. How do you cope with many people thinking of you as John Edwards's daughter instead of as Cate?
Cate: It is hard. It is a strange thing to be known as the offspring of someone, as opposed to just being yourself. I think the important thing, though, is that my friends will never think of me like that. They'll always think of me as Cate. And my family, I think they keep me grounded in so many ways. Coming back to New York, for example, and seeing my roommates and spending time with my friends, is a really important part of this entire process because they keep me grounded. They've been so supportive and wonderful throughout this whole process, and I think you can usually tell the difference between people who are thinking of me as John Edwards's daughter and the people who are thinking of me as Cate. Just real, true friendships help you get through that entire weirdness.

SN Online: You've been touring college campuses to speak to young voters. Do you think student votes are going to be critical in this election?
Cate: In the last election, only 40 percent of my generation voted. That's so much lower than the rest of the population. We have the ability to decide this election. There are 48 million of us across this country, and if we mobilize, we can make the difference, clearly, because that's such a huge population. Five hundred and thirty-seven votes decided the election in Florida the last time around. That's so few people. It's important that we know, as young people, that our vote really does count, because I think that's something that dissuades some young people from voting, thinking, "It's not really worth my time to go to the polls. I'm just one out of a bazillion votes." But I think it really does matter, and that was proven true in the election in 2000.

SN Online: During the primaries, it was still possible for your dad to win the Democratic nomination, which would have meant that you could have potentially become the first daughter. Are you upset that your father didn't win the nomination, and do you think he would have been a better nominee than John Kerry?
Cate: No. I'm not upset about it because I think we're really happy with where we are. I trust John Kerry. I believe he'll be a great leader, and I know that my dad is just really proud to be on the ticket with him. If you think about the primaries and if you think about December . . . my dad always said that back in December, nobody ever thought that anyone named John would be on the ticket. We're just thrilled to be where we are now.

SN Online: You've also said that your father's values have had a really great influence on your life. What, specifically, are these values, and how exactly have they influenced you?
Cate: I think the most important value is respect for every person. He never looks down on anybody, and he always treats everyone equally and treats everyone with the utmost respect. This is something I think he passed down to me.

I think optimism is another really important one. He believes in opportunity and that opportunity should be available to everyone. I think that belief in equality also stems from this belief in opportunity for everyone, that you can basically do whatever you want in this country. I think he had that a lot through his own life experience, but he taught me that—to be optimistic about the future and what we can achieve.

Honesty and integrity are absolutely fundamental. It's one of the number one rules in our household. If you did something wrong and lied about it, you were really, really in trouble. If you did something wrong, you were still in trouble, but the worst part about it was if you didn't tell the truth. I think that's something he certainly taught me. I think those are really basic characteristics of who he is as a person, and, of course, those values rub off on you as a child.

SN Online: What are you going to do after the campaign?
Cate: I'm going to live here in New York, and I'm going to work at Vanity Fair magazine. A few weeks after the campaign, I'll be starting there, and then in a couple of years, I want to go to law school. That's the plan.