A short interview with

and a full segment with

Senator John Edwards was born in Seneca, South Carolina and raised in Robbins, North Carolina, a small town in the Piedmont. There John learned the values of hard work and perseverance from his father, Wallace, who worked in the textile mills for 36 years, and from his mother, Bobbie, who ran a shop and worked at the post office. Working alongside his father at the mill, John developed his strong belief that all Americans deserve an equal opportunity to succeed and be heard.
A proud product of public schools, John became the first person in his family to attend college. He worked his way through North Carolina State University where he graduated with high honors in 1974, and then earned a law degree with honors in 1977 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For the next 20 years, John dedicated his career to representing families and children just like the families he grew up with in Robbins. Standing up against the powerful insurance industry and their armies of lawyers, John helped these families through the darkest moments of their lives to overcome tremendous challenges. His passionate advocacy for people like the folks who worked in the mill with his father earned him respect and recognition across the country.
In 1998, John took this commitment into politics to give a voice in the United States Senate to the people he had represented throughout his career. He ran for the Senate and won, defeating an incumbent Senator.

In Congress, Senator Edwards quickly emerged as a champion for the issues that make a difference to American families: quality health care, better schools, protecting civil liberties, preserving the environment, saving Social Security and Medicare, and reforming the ways campaigns are financed.
As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Senator Edwards worked tirelessly for a strong national defense and to strengthen the security of our homeland. He authored key pieces of legislation on cyber, bio, and port security.
Senator Edwards brought a positive message of change to the 2004 presidential primaries. During the primary season he spoke about the two Americas that exist in our country today: one for people at the top who have everything they need and one for everybody else who struggle to get by. This powerful message resonated with voters all across America.
After the Democratic primaries, Senator John Kerry picked Senator Edwards to serve as his running mate in the 2004 general election, and Senator Edwards crisscrossed the country and campaigned tirelessly on Senator Kerry's behalf.

He is the former Director of the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Senator Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, whom he met when both were law students at Chapel Hill, were married in 1977. They have had four children, including: their eldest daughter, Catharine, who is attending law school; nine-year-old Emma Claire; and a seven-year-old son, Jack. Their first child, Wade, died in 1996.

Walter Frederick ("Fritz") Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota on Jan. 5, 1928, the son of Theodore Sigvaard Mondale and Claribel Cowan Mondale. He spent his boyhood in the small towns of southern Minnesota, where he attended public schools. After he helped manage Hubert H. Humphrey's first successful U.S. Senate campaign in 1948, he earned his B.A. in political science from the University of Minnesota in 1951. After completing service as a corporal in the U.S. Army, Mondale received his LL.B (cum laude) from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1956, having served on the law review and as a law clerk in the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Mondale practiced law for the next four years in Minneapolis. In 1960, Minnesota Gov. Orville Freeman appointed him to the position of state attorney general. Mondale was then elected to the office in 1962, and served until 1964, when Gov. Karl Rolvaag asked him to fill the U.S. Senate vacancy create by Hubert Humphrey's election to the vice presidency. The voters of Minnesota returned Mondale to the Senate in 1966 and 1972.
During his 12 years as a senator, Mondale served on the Finance Committee, the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, Budget Committee, and the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. He also served as the chairman of the Select Committee on Equal Education Opportunity and as the chairman of the Intelligence Committee's Domestic Task Force.

Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale were elected president and vice president of the United States on Nov. 2, 1976. On the president's behalf, Mondale traveled extensively throughout the nation and the world advocating U.S. policy. He was the first vice president to have an office in the White House, and he served as a full-time participant, advisor, and troubleshooter for the administration. During this period, Joan Mondale served as a national advocate for the arts and was Honorary Chairman of the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities.
In 1984, Mondale was the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States. He lost to President Ronald Reagan.
Since that election, Mondale has been practicing law, teaching, studying, traveling, and serving as a director of both non-profit and corporate boards. He returned to his native Minnesota in 1987, where he has been practicing law as a partner with the firm of Dorsey & Whitney.
Until his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Walter Mondale was a Distinguished University Fellow in Law and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. In 1990, Mondale established the Mondale Policy Forum at the Humphrey Institute. The forum has brought together leading scholars and policymakers for annual conferences on domestic and international issues. For 1992-93, the forum's theme was the "The Challenge of Social Justice in a Global Economy."
From 1986-93, Mondale was chairman of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, an organization that conducts non-partisan international programs to help maintain and strengthen democratic institutions. In that capacity, he has co-led delegations to Poland and Hungary.
Mondale has also served on the executive committee of the Peace Prize Forum, an annual conference co-sponsored by the Norwegian Nobel Institute and five Midwestern colleges of Norwegian heritage. Former President Jimmy Carter, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel laureate and author Elie Wiesel, Dr. Yelena Bonner, and Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug have been among the featured speakers.

In spring 1993, Mondale was elected a director of the Council on Foreign Relations. Other non-profit boards of directors on which he served until his appointment as ambassador include the Guthrie Theatre Foundation, Mayo Foundation, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Rand Corporation, and University of Minnesota Foundation. His recent corporate board memberships included BlackRock Advantage Term Trust and other BlackRock Mutual Funds, Cargill Incorporated, CNA Financial Corporation, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, First Financial Fund and other Prudential Mutual Funds, Northwest Airlines, and Untied HealthCare Corporation.
Mondale was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to Japan on Aug. 13, 1993. He had been nominated by President Clinton on June 11, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 30. The former vice president succeeded Michael H. Armacost, who had been ambassador to Tokyo since 1989. Mondale completed his service in that role in December, 1997.
He returned to his Minnesota home and rejoined the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney as a partner.
In March, 1998, Mondale traveled to Jakarta as President Clinton's personal representative for discussions with President Soeharto and other Indonesian officials on the financial situation facing that country.

Mondale is married to the former Joan Adams. They have three children: Theodore, Eleanor Jane, and William. Mondale has authored the book The Accountability of Power: Toward a Responsible Presidency and has written numerous articles on domestic and international issues. In his free time, he enjoys fishing, reading Shakespeare and historical accounts, barbecuing, skiing, and tennis.