NEW ORLEANS — Democratic candidate John Edwards has decided to drop out of the presidential primary race, giving a speech this afternoon at the same place where he began this campaign — in New Orleans.
Throughout this season, Mr. Edwards hasn’t been able to break through the dueling high-profile candidacies of Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. And he had not been able to raise the kind of funds that those two had early on.
Top advisers said that Mr. Edwards would not be endorsing another candidate today when he makes his announcement at 1 p.m. On Tuesday, Mr. Edwards canceled events in Alabama and North Dakota, opting instead to fly to New Orleans late Tuesday night. His press aides told reporters that he would make a “major policy speech” on poverty, in the city where Mr. Edwards announced his candidacy in December 2006.
He placed a distant third last night in Florida’s primary. And even more disappointing, as a native of South Carolina, he finished in the mid-teens there, as Mr. Obama won overwhelmingly. Mr. Edwards had campaigned heavily in Iowa for months and months, fine-turning a populist message and issuing many proposals, including one on health care, long before his rivals issued theirs. In the caucuses, he finished second, but just around a percentage point ahead of Mrs. Clinton.
As the primary season headed toward Super Tuesday, and several of the big Southern states, Mr. Edwards was expected to draw a swath of white voters his way.
John Edwards ran a pretty scrappy campaign here, but he was just unable to break through the two front-runners of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, with the exception of his surprising second-place finish in Iowa. With Edwards dropping out now, I doubt that he is going to play king-maker at the convention, although he may have some influence in promoting his populist policies within the Democratic platform. But now this is a race between Hillary and Obama--a race between the first women candidate and the first African-American candidate.
May the best woman, or man, win.
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