With two weeks before their national convention, several prominent Democrats are saying Edwards must publicly address anonymously sourced National Enquirer stories that claim he had an affair with a campaign worker and fathered her baby.

Democrats gather in Denver on Aug. 25 and Edwards, as the 2004 vice presidential nominee and a presidential candidate who won delegates this year, ordinarily would be a speaker.

Instead some Democrats say convention organizers will try to avoid the lingering questions if Edwards himself doesn’t talk.

“He absolutely does have to [resolve it]. If it’s not true, he has to issue a stronger denial,” said Gary Pearce, the Democratic strategist who ran Edwards’ 1998 Senate race. “It’s a very damaging thing. ... The big media has tried to be responsible and handle this with kid gloves, but it’s clearly getting ready to bust out. If it’s not true, he’s got to stand up and say, ‘This is not true. That is not my child and I’m going to take legal action against the people who are spreading these lies.’ It’s not enough to say, ‘That’s tabloid trash.’ ”

The national convention is intended to showcase party unity and rally Democrats around the party’s nominee.

Primetime speakers generate enthusiasm for the candidate and the party’s platform. Edwards is widely regarded as a rousing speaker, particularly on poverty, and still has as many as 19 delegates pledged to him, making him a logical choice for a high-profile role under normal circumstances.

Convention organizers said only that the schedule of speakers has not yet been announced.

Edwards’ decision not to take questions about the alleged affair has allowed doubts to linger and political bloggers to speculate. The National Enquirer has reported he met with the former campaign worker in a Beverly Hills hotel last month. He made no response to the National Enquirer’s Internet posting on Wednesday of what it said was a photo of Edwards and his child. The photo was blurry, making it difficult for people familiar with Edwards to confirm it was he.

Two weeks ago, after the Enquirer ran the story about the hotel liaison, he dismissed a reporter’s question in Houston and used the “tabloid trash” line. Edwards brushed off a Charlotte Observer reporter in Washington last week: “Can’t do it now, I’m sorry.”

His designated staffer for press contacts has not responded to e-mail requests for an interview.

No one answered a reporter who rang a buzzer at the gate of Edwards’ Orange County home on Wednesday.

Friends and former staffers refuse to comment now, though they helped Edwards last fall by dismissing the Enquirer story of a sexual relationship between Edwards and a campaign videographer when it initially broke. “Sorry cannot help you on this one,” wrote Jennifer Palmieri, a former top Edwards aide, in an e-mail.

Father’s identity

The Enquirer published a story in October, citing unnamed sources, claiming that Edwards was having an affair with a woman who had filmed a series of videos during his presidential campaign. The tabloid later reported she was pregnant. Two weeks ago, the tabloid posted a story online chronicling how Edwards had visited the woman, Rielle Hunter, and their child July 21 at a Beverly Hills hotel and that the paper’s reporters confronted him afterward.

Hunter posted an online statement at the time denying the October story. In December, a campaign worker for Edwards, Andrew Young, claimed paternity of the woman’s then-unborn child.

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