CLEVELAND – The folks in Hollywood could not write a script like this. The casting is strong, the conflict clearcut. The 2004 vice presidential debate Tuesday night will pit youth against experience, charisma against gravitas, outsider against insider. It stars an ex-trial lawyer who made big money suing corporations, against an ex-CEO who made big money helming a corporation. It features a glib master of the stump speech, against a phlegmatic master of the power game.

The clash between John Edwards and Dick Cheney probably won’t sway this election – running-mate debates never do – but it’s likely to underscore the strengths and vulnerabilities of the men who top the tickets. Edwards’ job is to make the case for John Kerry, and sustain the Kerry momentum triggered by the Miami debate (he often sells Kerry better than Kerry sells himself); and Cheney’s job is to provide ballast for President Bush (who surely needs it, after his Miami miasma).

Democrats have been fantasizing for months about how the former superstar of the North Carolina bar would employ his courtroom skills to put this scion of the establishment on the stand and eviscerate the guy (especially on his rationales for war in Iraq), thereby producing the kind of galvanizing moment that John Grisham might deliver on the 400th page.

And the Republicans expect him to try; as Cheney strategist Mary Matalin said Monday, “He’s the man with the golden tongue.” Actually, Cheney might be a little rusty for combat; his campaign itinerary consists of rallies in front of fawning spectators who are pre-screened for Republican loyalty, and, back in 2000, his vice-presidential debate against Joe Lieberman was a languid affair that spanned 90 minutes but felt twice as long.

For the Democrats, however, a few caveats: Cheney has been playing Washington hardball since a long-haired Edwards was lugging law books to class; Cheney, if suitably provoked, has amassed some anti-Edwards weaponry of his own; and the debate format decrees that the two men shall be seated in chairs, conversing at a table – thereby depriving Edwards of the opportunity to punctuate his points with the body language that wowed juries and works today on the stump.

Still, Edwards will roll out the Kerry domestic agenda for the first time in these debates, previewing what Kerry himself will say in St. Louis on Friday, during his second meeting with Bush. Kitchen-table issues – health care, jobs, tuition costs – are traditional Democratic turf. Edwards will paint a picture of middle-class angst (despite bullish economic statistics touted by the GOP) and contend that Bush and Cheney are out of touch with the real world, that they have “crushed the American dream.”

But Edwards, mindful that security issues are paramount this year, will seek to underscore Kerry’s argument that Bush has made America less safe. And that means going after Cheney on the war.

Consider:

Why has Cheney repeatedly claimed that there was “overwhelming evidence” of an important link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, when, in reality, there was no demonstrable evidence? And why has he refused to renounce his claim, now that the 9/11 Commission has concluded that there was no “established, formal” relationship?

Why, in August 2002, did Cheney say “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” even though there was strong dissent inside the government, particularly on the issue of nuclear capability? And was Cheney citing faulty intelligence, or ignoring good intelligence, when he predicted in September 2003 that “my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators”?

But if Edwards, seeking to underscore voter qualms about the war, pursues these kinds of questions, Cheney will sonorously skewer Edwards with a few inconvenient facts: namely, that Edwards, just like his running mate, voted for the Bush war resolution back in 2002, and that he never disputed any of Cheney’s statements at the time.

In fact, here’s what Edwards said about Saddam in September 2002: “We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today. … Every day he inches closer to his longtime goal of nuclear capability – a capability that could be less than a year away.” And even though Edwards and Kerry are saying today that Iraq undermined the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Edwards said in 2002 that “Our national security requires us to do both, and we can.”

The Cheney camp, in other words, is prepared to argue that both Kerry and Edwards have been inconsistent and therefore too irresolute to command in wartime; as Cheney contends on the stump, citing the fact that Edwards joined Kerry last year in voting against the $87 billion Iraq package, “I don’t think that’s an acceptable pattern of behavior.”

And at times he’s likely to bypass Edwards and assail some of Kerry’s debate remarks from last Thursday, thereby previewing the Bush counterattack in St. Louis. High on the list: Kerry said early in the debate that Bush’s invasion was “a mistake,” but later, when asked by Jim Lehrer whether U.S. soldiers are “dying for a mistake,” he said no. That strikes the GOP as another inconsistency.

And, at another juncture, Kerry said that a U.S. preemptive attack must meet “a global test,” which, to Republican ears, sounds like Kerry would give a veto to the dreaded French.

All told, Bush campaign pollster Matthew Dowd said Monday, “Edwards will have to defend Kerry’s record of being on various sides of important issues, and shifting whatever way the wind blows.” He also said that Edwards will be compelled to defend Kerry’s Senate record, because Kerry has voted to hike taxes “more than 350 times.” (Dowd is behind the curve on that one. The Bush campaign Web site used to say “350,” but in August, the campaign revised it, and decided that Kerry voted to raise taxes 98 times.)

Edwards, for his part, may try to compel Cheney to defend his tenure as the CEO of Halliburton, which has reaped major contracts in Iraq. Halliburton is a big issue with the Democratic base, and the Kerry campaign ran an ad in September charging that Cheney, “as vice president,” received $2 million from his former company – thereby implying a conflict of interest. But the ad was incorrect; records show that he essentially received this deferred compensation before he took office. His representatives said Monday that he gave the money to charity, and nonpartisan analysts say there’s no solid evidence that he greased the wheels for Halliburton in Iraq.

Edwards could shine Tuesday night, and still lose with Kerry. But it would not have been for nothing. A strong showing would set him up nicely for the 2008 primaries against another seasoned Washington insider: Hillary Clinton.

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