Everybody's got the breaking news headlines, but the story is pending.
Interesting since the talking heads, at least on CNN, were sure that Edwards was in it to the convention. I think an Edwards endorsement would be more valuable for Obama as it might help him a little with the union and old white people cons uencies in the party.
Obama/Edwards is looking more and more likely.
I think Obama would benefit more from a sitting governor as his VP candidate. But his camp may view an endorsement from Edwards as being worth it. I think a Clinton-McCain matchup would go to McCain, but it's a bit cloudier if it's Obama-McCain. It's hard to say that the GOP base would be as energized against Obama. Given the base's lukewarm to antagonistic view of McCain, if you have a non-Clinton opponent who's not that all unlikable and who has appeal to moderates and independents, many of them could stay home.
Plus you have to consider the effect a McCain candidacy would have on the Democratic base. McCain is the closest thing to W running a 3rd time for them, particularly with regards to Iraq. Obviously McCain would try to make the campaign about fighting al Qaeda and paint Obama as a lightweight, but if Obama runs a competent campaign then Iraq will be the issue and a majority of Americans want to GTFO while Johnny Mac wants to stay there for a century.
Obama would unite the GOP too, because his record is extremely liberal which scares the heck out of republicans. the key will be can he get the independents over McCain.
Short of nominating former Georgia senator Zell Miller there is not a Democrat who the GOP base is going to view as anything other than a "liberal".
There is not the personal animous towards Obama among the GOP base that there is towards Clinton. The base doesn't like McCain. If Clinton is on the ballot the GOP could nominate Ron Paul and he'd get at least 45% of the popular vote simply due to the Clinton hate. If it's McCain v Obama, the base would actually hate McCain more. Not a good recipe if you need them to win. Which McCain would, with, as you point out, Obama's appeal to independents and the middle.
And frankly the difference between the Democrats and Republicans is not all that great. We like to pretend that it is and that's why the federal government continues to sodomize us.
Obama is not near the negative unifying force for the GOP that Hillary Clinton would be; she's perhaps the only person that could get hardcore conservatives to vote for McCain in droves. Obama's crossover appeal to independents and moderate Republicans is remarkable for someone with his liberal record. Maybe as the media shined a brighter light on his record, he would lose that cons uency, but I suspect his position as a positive unifying force across political lines is cemented. The real question is whether the Democratic base will accept that in the primaries and vote for him.
Edwards' dropping out helps Clinton. I don't care if Edwards goes so far as to kiss Obama on the lips, his supporters will jump to Clinton, not Obama.
People will go to the polls specifically because they hate Hillary Clinton and want to vote against her. Obama is just as liberal as she is, but he does not conjure up the personal animus she does. I wish people voted solely out of dispassionate regard for the issues, but you know as well as I do that such is mere fantasy.
Congrats to John Edwards, the one who shaped the dialogue in this election and it's policies, who brought out the dialogue of poverty in America, to be the leader and 1st candidate to come out with a Universal Health care plan for ALL Americans in this election, to be the first to come out and say we should raise minimum wage to 9.50 an hour.
Congrats to John for being the 1st candidate to release an Economic Stimulus Package and most aggressive plan to getting all troops out of Iraq. Congrats to John Edwards for the attention and care he gives to the middle class and the poor. John Edwards was the leader in this race and the others followed not only in policies but in their speeches as well.
I thanks him for bringing light to these issues, where if he hadn't run in this election, these proggressive issues would have been ignored. So Edwards had a big hand in the policies whatever Dem should be nominated. He did good.
I appreciate his inspiration and the fight he has in him for justice for the people who have no voice. Congrats to his strong wife Elizabeth Edwards. She is truly a blessing for John Edwards to have.
This was always a biased race in the media slanted toward Hillary and Obama and considering that, I think he did very well. If this race had been about the issues and not celebrity and of equal air-time, I believe completely that John Edwards would have been the next President of the United States.
Edwards always stayed true to his word. He never forgot about New Orleans as most have. He will give his speech where he began his Presidential bid, in New Orleans, where poeple have been forgotten. He's got nothing to gain by giving his speech there, no matter what critics say, ending poverty is John Edwards cause.
After today the media and everyone will forget about the truth and importance of what he has to say today at 1pm. But I congratulate him for his courage and backbone to fight for what's right whether it gets him votes or not. It is Edwards who reminds me of a Kennedy. Notice how the media will talk more about Edwards dropping out today more then they ever did during the entire race about his issues. Notice how the media covered Obamas endorsement of Kennedy's daughter, but didn't cover the support of Edwards by Martin Luther King Jr.'s son.
Congratulations John. I heard you.
I look forward to John being the VP nominee.
I am an Edwards supporter and I am disappointed to see this.
I agree.This was always a biased race in the media slanted toward Hillary and Obama and considering that, I think he did very well. If this race had been about the issues and not celebrity and of equal air-time, I believe completely that John Edwards would have been the next President of the United States.
^^Sigh.....no accounting for "you hear what you want to hear".
Guess SA210 didn't pay attention to Billary's UHC back in Clintons
first term. And did John boy happen to mention the Dimms
part in New Orleans? Just checking.
Edwards spoke one way and voted the other as a US Senator. The only way he had a shot in this primary was if there wasn't another candidate capable of drawing a hefty chunk of the union and near illiterate vote.
Edwards was my first choice... oh well hopefully clinton wins so the resident right wingers will explode.. I actually would take pleasure in their misery if Clinton won.. I really would.
I thought Feingold summed up Edwards perfectly: on every issue, he was running against his own voting record. There wasn't a bigger snake in the race.
an obama vs mccain race would marry the conservative and aryan vote.
how bout that!.......waiting for the david duke support.
Edwards expected to drop out of race today
Presidential contender steered his rivals toward progressive ideals
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22913001/
DENVER - Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters' sympathies but never diverted his campaign.
The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
Clinton said Wednesday that Edwards called her to inform her about his decision.
The two-time White House candidate earlier notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. ET event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two of his advisers.
The former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either candidate in what is now a two-person race for the Democratic nomination, said one adviser, who spoke on a condition of anonymity.
Four in 10 Edwards supporters said their second choice in the race is Clinton, while a quarter prefer Obama, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo poll conducted late this month. Both Clinton and Obama would welcome Edwards’ backing and the support of the 56 delegates he had collected.
Family duty
Edwards waged a spirited top-tier campaign against the two better-funded rivals, even as he dealt with the stunning blow of his wife's recurring cancer diagnosis. In a dramatic news conference last March, the couple announced that the breast cancer that she thought she had beaten had returned, but they would continue the campaign.
Their decision sparked a debate about family duty and public service. But Elizabeth Edwards remained a forceful advocate for her husband, and she was often surrounded at campaign events by well-wishers and emotional survivors cheering her on.
Edwards planned to announce his campaign was ending with his wife and three children at his side. Then he planned to work with Habitat for Humanity at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project Musicians' Village, the adviser said.
With that, Edwards' campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago — with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn't hear the cries of the downtrodden.
Edwards burst out of the starting gate with a flurry of progressive policy ideas — he was the first to offer a plan for universal health care, the first to call on Congress to pull funding for the war, and he led the charge that lobbyists have too much power in Washington and need to be reigned in.
The ideas were all bold and new for Edwards personally as well, making him a different candidate than the moderate Southerner who ran in 2004 while still in his first Senate term. But the themes were eventually adopted by other Democratic presidential candidates — and even a Republican, Mitt Romney, echoed the call for an end to special interest politics in Washington.
Loyal following
Edwards' rise to prominence in politics came amid just one term representing North Carolina in the Senate after a career as a trial attorney that made him millions. He was on Al Gore's short list for vice president in 2000 after serving just two years in office. He ran for president in 2004, and after he lost to John Kerry, the nominee picked him as a running mate.
Elizabeth Edwards first discovered a lump in her breast in the final days of that losing campaign. Her battle against the disease caused her husband to open up about another tragedy in their lives — the death of their teenage son Wade in a 1996 car accident. The candidate barely spoke of Wade during his 2004 campaign, but he offered his son's death to answer questions about how he could persevere when his wife could die.
Edwards made poverty the signature issue of both his presidential campaigns, and he led a four-day tour to highlight the issue in July. The tour, the first to focus on the plight of the poor since Robert F. Kennedy's trip 40 years earlier, also was an effort to remind voters that a rich man can care about the less fortunate. It came as Edwards was dogged by negative coverage of his personal wealth, including his construction of a 28,000-square foot house, his work for a hedge fund that advised the superrich and $400 haircuts.
But even through the dark days of summer and as Obama and Clinton collected astonishing amounts of money that dwarfed his fundraising effort, Edwards maintained a loyal following in the first voting state of Iowa that made him a serious contender. He came in second to Obama in Iowa, an impressive feat of relegating Clinton to third place, before coming in third in the following three contests.
The loss in South Carolina was especially hard because it was where he was born and he had won the state in 2004. But Edwards performed well enough to pick up 58 delegates.
This helps Hillary.
Wonder what she promised him.
And then there were too. I concur. The road just got harder for my man Barack and there doesn't seem to be enough to make up the ground on Hillary. I am hoping for the best but we'll have to see if the Hispanic part of the democratic party rises to the occasion and pushes forward to a new era.
Hispanics seem to love Hillary. So probably not.
Hillary has something like monolithic support among Latino primary voters, I think.
I think in the general, Obama would beat McCain or Romney, Hillary would beat Romney, but McCain beats Hillary. Remarkably, it appears that last matchup is the likeliest.
How astounding it would be, after all the Republican malfeasence in Congress, and the disastrous incompetence of the Bush Administration, if the Democrats still could find a way to lose the Presidential election.
See: 110th Congress of the United States
I think that would be entirely apropos. It's the Democrats' M.O. And don't forget what a Hillary presidential ticket would do for congressional races - say bye to many of the seats Dems picked up in the mid-term elections.
damn it
In some respects, McCain is Bush on steroids. McCain actually fought in Vietnam while W was defending the Texas coast from the Vietcong. McCain's campaign is almost exclusively about his biography and national security. The challenge for any Democrat will be to somehow extricate and highlight the issue of Iraq to McCain's detriment. Yet McCain can claim that he was not a part of the bungled post-war planning, that he was a major proponent of the increase in troop strength which has been perceived to improve the situation in Iraq.
If a voter is going to base their vote on whether or not it was a good idea to invade Iraq, McCain won't get their vote. But if they are going to base it on who can find a way to improve the situation, I think McCain will be in a good spot. I will also say that of those who say it was a mistake, many will be mollified if a way is found to improve the situation for the US. Given how Iraq has been presented in this country within the last few months by the media, the general impression is that the situation is more and more under control. This bodes well for McCain.
In the end, McCain wants this election to be about...John McCain. Nobody has his biography. Plus he's shown time and time again that he will do what he thinks is right rather than march in lock step with his party.
So McCain is the most electable, but he's not really going to provide much of a change over the previous administration, be it national security, foreign policy, or domestic policy.
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