US: If the Democrats want a really fresh face for the 2004 presidential election, they can find it in Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, an ambitious, good-looking, first-term Democrat who has served only four years in elected office.
Yesterday Mr Edwards (49) announced he would make a run for the White House and that he had set up an exploratory committee to begin raising money.
Senator Edwards was elected to the US Senate in 1998 after making millions of dollars as a trial lawyer by suing doctors and healthcare organisations for malpractice.
He counters charges of inexperience by saying that if elected to the White House he will have spent as much time in elected office as President George Bush had when he became president.
The North Carolina senator is the third Democrat formally to declare his intention to seek the nomination, following Vermont Governor Howard Dean and US Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.
More announcements are expected soon from outgoing House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
The race was thrown wide open last month when former Vice-President Al Gore dropped out.
Senator Edwards, who has a working-class background and is the first member of his family to go to college, said at a news conference outside his home in Raleigh that he wanted to be a "champion for regular people".
He said he favoured tax cuts for all citizens, "not just the richest Americans", and that he wanted to make a college education accessible to all.
People magazine called him the nation's "sexiest" politician but Mr Edwards has been criticised as a lightweight on foreign policy, especially after an unimpressive performance on a Sunday television talk show, Meet the Press, in May.
In a recent interview he said: "The fact that I see issues through the eyes of regular people is an enormous strength. Look at the way I reacted when I saw those planes going into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
"The first thing I asked was, 'Where is Elizabeth? Where are my kids?' "
The last two Democrats to be elected president, Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Jimmy Carter of Georgia, were southerners who were able to gain considerable support in Republican strongholds.