The boyish-looking, 51-year-old, single-term senator from North Carolina confronted a major challenge in accepting his party's nomination to be vice president:

He had to convince a country that barely knows him that he and Kerry can provide superior leadership through perilous times, and that he's capable of serving as commander in chief, should it come to that.

"They (Republicans) are doing all they can to take this campaign for the highest office in the land down the lowest possible road," Edwards said. "This is where you come in.

"Between now and November — you, the American people — you can reject the tired, old, hateful, negative politics of the past. And instead, you can embrace the politics of hope, the politics of what's possible, because this is America, where everything is possible."

A millionaire who made his fortune as a trial lawyer, Edwards was Kerry's last major challenger for the nomination; now he's Kerry's partner as they challenge George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for the White House.

He was introduced by his wife, Elizabeth.

"I married the smartest, toughest, sweetest man I know ... ," she said. "But none of the things I have mentioned are the reason I married John Edwards. I married him because he was the single most optimistic person I have ever known."

Shortly after Edwards' speech, delegates were to conduct the traditional roll call of states, expected to stretch past midnight. After each revealed the considered opinion of the "great state of fill-in-the-blank," Kerry would be the Democratic Party's official nominee for the office of president of the United States.

"This is a gift," Kerry said after a water taxi carried him across the harbor from Logan International Airport, where he arrived yesterday, into Boston. "But most important, it is a responsibility and challenge, and it's not one that I bear. It's one that we, all of us together, bear as the privileged citizens of the freest, greatest democracy on the face of the planet."

As he arrived, Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" rang from the loudspeakers.

"Bruce Springsteen has it right," Kerry said. "No retreat. No surrender. We are taking this fight to the country, and we are going to win back our democracy and our future."

Kerry speaks to the nation tonight, as the four-day convention reaches its climax. He was expected to concentrate on national defense, personal responsibility and the need to reduce the nation's dependence on Mideast oil.

In a particularly moving section of his speech, Edwards spoke about the nation's debt to those who are fighting in Iraq — and he linked them to Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran.

"Some of our friends and neighbors saw their last images in Baghdad," he said. "Some took their last steps outside of Fallujah. And some buttoned their uniform for the final time before they went out to save their unit.

"Men and women who used to take care of themselves, they now count on others to see them through the day. They need their mother to tie their shoe, their husband to brush their hair and their wife's arm to help them across the room.

"The stars and stripes wave for them. The word 'hero' was made for them. They are the best and the bravest ... and they deserve a president who understands on the most personal level what they have gone through — what they have given and what they have given up for their country."

The address was based largely on his "Two Americas" stump speech that asserts that Bush has divided the nation into two parts, "One for people who have lived the American Dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans who work hard and still struggle to make ends meet."

He shared a shopping list of promises — more Special Forces troops and new equipment for the military; more access to healthcare; better schools; help for those in poverty; a higher minimum wage; good-paying jobs.

Edwards didn't say what all that would cost, though he said it would be financed by rolling back tax cuts for wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, closing "corporate loopholes" and reducing wasteful spending.

Speaking in Salt Lake City, Cheney questioned Kerry's ability to protect the country.

"Recently, Sen. Kerry told us that his decision to oppose funding for our military personnel was 'complicated,' " Cheney said, according to a White House transcript. "But funding American troops in combat should never be a complicated choice. It's wrong to vote to commit our troops to combat and then refuse to provide them with the resources they need."