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Posted: January 30, 2008 2:01 PM
Edwards Ends Long-shot Campaign for President
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Former Sen. John Edwards suspended his campaign for president Wednesday, bringing to a close his fierce underdog campaign that had stressed a populist message of helping the underprivileged and struggling middle class.

“It is time for me to step aside so history can blaze its path,” Edwards said, alluding to the fact that Democratic Party would likely now nominate either an African American or a woman as their presidential candidate for the first time in history.

“Today I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States,” Edwards said, adding that “This son of a mill worker is going to be just fine.”

During a speech from Musicians’ Village a section of hurricane-damaged New Orleans being rebuilt as an artists’ neighborhood, Edwards called on his supporters and the Democratic Party to maintain the work of the campaign.

“We have not just the city of New Orleans to rebuild, we have an American house to rebuild,” Edwards said, urging his supporters “to not give up, to not end your work.”

In his remarks, Edwards chastised his party for “turning away from the cause of working people.”

“In this campaign we did not turn our heads. We looked them straight in the eye and we said, ‘We see you. We hear you and we are with you,’” Edwards said, flanked by his family and volunteers working to rebuild the Louisiana city.

Edwards did not endorse either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama, saying instead, “[The Democratic Party] will be strong and we will be unified and, with a little backbone, we will take back the White House.”

He added that he had spoken with both Clinton and Obama before making the announcement. He told the crowd that both candidates had pledged to make ending both “the moral shame of 37 million Americans living in poverty” and economic inequality central issues in their campaigns for the nomination.

During the race, Edwards stressed a message of helping the poor in the nation and fighting what he called the “entrenched interests” in Washington.

“The president can bring the plight of millions of Americans who are struggling to the attention of the rest of America, much as did the situation in New Orleans after the hurricane hit in New Orleans, and we saw the Lower Ninth Ward and the struggles that people were going through there,” Edwards told Ray Suarez in Oct. 2007. “The president can lead on raising the minimum wage, expansion of the earned income tax credit, changing the laws to strengthen the rights of unions to organize in the workplace, pushing national legislation to get rid of or at least regulate predatory payday lenders, changing what I think is a dysfunctional national housing policy that feeds the cycle of poverty.”

The news came with less than a week to go before some 22 states vote on Feb. 5. Edwards, who has consistently trailed both Clinton and Obama in fundraising, had said as recently as Saturday he would stay in the contest.

“I’ve said it all along: I’m in this for the long haul,” Edwards told a crowd of 1,000 supporters at Clemson University last week. “I’m very much the underdog. But if you look at what happened in Iowa, I finished between those two $100 million candidates, we were competitive in New Hampshire, and now we come to South Carolina, a place I won in 2004 and a place that I know very well.”

Earlier in the week, Edwards campaign officials had hinted that the former senator would stay in the campaign, seeking to garner enough delegates to the convention in hopes of playing a critical role in selecting the nominee.

“We’re still hoping that John is the nominee,” David Bonior, the national campaign manager, told reporters on Monday. “But with a chunk of delegates, you can leverage what you’ve been fighting for and standing for. You can raise these issues to where they should be on the Democratic agenda. We’re running for those two reasons: to get the nomination and to have his voice heard on his issues.”

Analysts said that it was unclear which of the top two Democrats Edwards’ decision would help more.

In some early contests, he split white votes with Sen. Hillary Clinton, while others say his role in the campaign could siphon votes away from Sen. Barack Obama, seen as the other candidate from outside the party establishment.

Edwards had continued his campaign despite a revelation in March that his wife’s cancer had returned, with the couple saying at the time that the race was too important to suspend while they dealt with her health.