The Martinez factor may limit the mileage Bush can get out of the "trial lawyer" tag in the critical swing state of Florida. And nationwide, it's not at all clear that the tactic will be useful with average voters. In an NBC News poll released last week, 69 percent of registered voters said that Edwards' trial-lawyer past wouldn't influence their vote one way or another, and another 14 percent said it would actually make them more likely to vote for him.

Bush plainly understands that his anti-trial-lawyer posture plays a lot better with his big business supporters than it does with voters. The tension has caused him to flip-flop. He opposed a patients' bill of rights in Texas, vetoed it when it was passed, then -- faced with a veto-proof majority in the Texas Legislature -- let it become law without his signature. He then took credit for the patients' bill of rights while running for president, only to have his Justice Department challenge it in the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It's a triple flip-flop," Carl says. Carl says Bush is trapped: Voters want the right to sue their HMOs, they want to be able to hold corporations accountable for their misdeeds, and they don't see tort reform as a priority on par with the war in Iraq, terrorism, healthcare costs or the economy. Putting caps on damage awards, cracking down on forum shopping -- "these things aren't on most people's minds," Carl says.

But these things are very much on the minds of Bush's biggest corporate supporters. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has ostensibly remained neutral in presidential campaigns, may endorse Bush in order to fight off Edwards. Meanwhile, the American Tort Reform Association, a trade group funded in large part by insurance companies, is doing what it can to keep Edwards away from the White House. During the Democratic primaries, the association launched an Edwards watch site that characterizes the candidate as a "wealthy personal injury lawyer whose agenda is controlled by a handful of 'Learjet Lawyers' whose litigation-driven agenda is bad for America's consumers, taxpayers, and patients."

Olson, of the Manhattan Institute, says that the business community is hearing the call. "The business involvement [in the campaign] is being announced in a remarkably combative way," he said. "The phrase I keep hearing about Edwards is, 'This means war.'"

The war has already begun on Capitol Hill, where the parties have fought bitterly over class-action reform this session. The class-action legislation stalled in the Senate, meaning the issue is alive only as campaign fodder this year. Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is already planning a "lawsuit abuse week" that will underscore Edwards' trial lawyer past.

How it all plays will depend on the image of Edwards that ultimately prevails. If the Republicans can paint Edwards as an ambulance chaser -- just as they have marked Kerry as a "flip-flopper" -- then the Democrats' hurdles grow a little higher. But if voters looking at Edwards can see in him the face of Valerie Lakey, then George Bush may need a team of lawyers all over again if he hopes to stay in the White House.

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