Edwards campaign rally to stop at UT today

3/1/2004

North Carolina Sen. John Edwards will appear at a campaign rally this morning at the University of Toledo Student Union auditorium, meeting with supporters in the same room where competitor John Kerry rallied with 1,200 on Wednesday.

Mr. Edwards, who campaigned in Cleveland on Saturday night before traveling to New York for yesterday s televised debate with the three other candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, will be making his third recent trip to Ohio. It is his first visit to northwest Ohio.

Because Mr. Edwards now has a Secret Service protective detail with him, those wishing to attend the rally should plan to arrive by 8:45 a.m. and be prepared to pass through metal detectors.

After leaving Toledo, he will travel to Dayton and Cleveland, where he will hold tarmac rallies at local airports.

Mr. Edwards, who is trailing Mr. Kerry in the race for convention delegates, has tried to narrow the gap by making an appeal to those who had supported former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean before Mr. Dean dropped out of the race.

Ohio will be crowded with presidential candidates today. Mr. Kerry campaigns in Columbus this afternoon. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D., Cleveland), who is trailing in the delegate race by a wide margin, will make several appearances in northeast Ohio, including Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Lorain, and Youngstown. He will remain in northeast Ohio tomorrow, wrapping up his campaign with an election night party at a nightclub in West Cleveland.

The fourth Democratic candidate, the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, has not mounted a serious campaign in Ohio.