Goodbye and Good Luck

---

---

Five years ago, I was a John Edwards supporter.

I had one of his bumper stickers on my vehicle, and I believed he was the best hope for the country.

The economic meltdown hadn't happened yet, and my assessment at that time, in the summer of 2007, was that the American public simply wasn't ready to elect a black president — or a female president.

I was a Democrat at the time, and I did not think either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton was the answer for the nation.

I believed the time would come for that, but the time wasn't right. I still didn't think the time was right when the meltdown happened in the autumn of 2008, and the major parties had already nominated Obama and John McCain.

That meltdown completely changed the nature of the 2008 campaign — and I think it is clear that it will heavily influence the 2012 campaign as well. But that is another story.

The story today is about Edwards' acquittal on one count and the jury's deadlock on the other counts in his corruption trial in Greensboro, N.C.

Much of the post–trial discussion has concerned whether the prosecution will attempt to re–try Edwards on the other five counts.

I do not think that is going to happen. I mean, the prosecution spent a lot of money on this trial and came away empty–handed. Many of the jurors probably will be interviewed now, and the weaknesses of the case will be revealed — which could, conceivably, lead prosecutors to pursue a conviction again with a new strategy.

But a Raleigh defense attorney told the Greensboro News–Record that he, too, thinks that is unlikely — and for the same reason as I do.

"They got their best witnesses, their best evidence and the judge ruled in their favor on all major evidentiary issues," he said. "The jury didn't believe them."

The jurors clearly didn't go for the case presented on the third count, which dealt with money that was given to the campaign by a wealthy heiress. It was the only one on which they all agreed.

And the prosecution's case on that count was probably the strongest one it had — which really isn't saying much. I'm no lawyer, and I didn't watch and/or read every report on this case, but I never felt the prosecution established its case. And I'm dubious that it will be able to do so in a do–over.

When I was a reporter covering trials in the county where I lived and worked, I learned a lot about the judicial system, lessons that seem to be repeated over and over again.

One lesson I learned was that there is no reliable way to predict what a jury will do. Don't believe me? Ask the experts who believed O.J. would be convicted of a double homicide or who were convinced that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter and there was no way she would escape the long arm of the law.

But both were acquitted.

And there are other such cases, some that only get local attention and are not the subjects of national attention but are still astonishing when they result in unanticipated verdicts.

Veteran court watchers look at jurors' body language during testimony and closing arguments and try to interpret what they are thinking, whether they have made up their minds. And I remember that such veterans did not hesitate to tell me, when I was a reporter, what they thought a quick verdict meant or what one that took several days' worth of deliberations to reach meant.

But, at best, their conclusions were and are only educated guesses.

Prosecutors may one day bring Edwards before a new jury and charge him with the remaining counts, but don't look for that right away. Their gun is out of bullets and, unless they come up with a new bullet that is sure to bring down their prey, I don't expect to see him in court on these charges again.

Another thought struck me as I watched Edwards' press conference this afternoon.

He said all the right things. His problems were of his own doing, he said, no one else's. In spite of that, though, God is not finished with him yet, he said. "I really believe he thinks there's still some good things I can do."

Perhaps Edwards is right. Perhaps God is not finished with him.

But I am.

What Might Have Been

I happened to overhear something last week that started me musing.

I was standing in line at the grocery store, and two women were ahead of me. I'm not sure what their relationship was — friends, neighbors, sisters? — but they appeared to be purchasing items for a summer cookout.

Anyway, they were talking about the debt ceiling debate while waiting their turn to check out.

It's such a shame, one said, that the two sides can't put aside their partisan bickering and put the interests of the nation first.

Yes, the other agreed. This would never have happened if Hillary Clinton had been nominated instead of Barack Obama.

The first one nodded. Hillary would have been a better president, she said.

I didn't hear the rest of the conversation. It was their turn to be checked out, and their attention turned to that. I presume the what–if discussion continued after they transferred their groceries to their car and began driving wherever the cookout was going to be held.

But I had started thinking about the proposition, and I am still thinking about it a week later.

If you recall, that was what the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination came to be about — when the only candidates still standing were Clinton and Obama. In the final weeks of the battle for the nomination, it wasn't about the economic collapse (which really didn't occur until after the party conventions) or six–digit monthly job losses. It was about misogyny vs. racism.

This much was certain. The Democratic ticket would be historic. It would be symbolic. But that was about all that was certain as the primary campaign entered the homestretch. Would the nominee be the first black or the first woman?

Racism won out — which, I have heard it said, was the reason why John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate. He hoped to win the support of disaffected female voters.

I don't know if that is true or not, but, if it is, I suppose that, by the same logic, McCain would have chosen a minority (a black man or, perhaps, an Hispanic) if Hillary had been the nominee.

That's speculation, of course — a little gentle musing — just as it is speculation, at this time, knowing what we know in 2011 that none of us knew in 2008, to suggest that someone else would have done better than the president who was elected.

We'll never know, of course, because Hillary and John Edwards — and all but one of the others who sought the '08 Democratic nomination — didn't win the prize. Obama did.

Yet, it does become progressively more difficult to rationalize what has happened during this presidency — and, as it does become more difficult, I guess it is only natural to think of the paths that were not taken.

A different president might have faced different conditions by this time, but the conditions upon entering the presidency would have been the same for anyone — and a different president might still have called for some sort of economic stimulus.

There was a lot of pressure at the time for the new president to do something to give the economy a boost, and I think it is reasonable to assume that the new president would have pressed for a stimulus package. The amounts and priorities probably would have been different under different presidents, and it is a matter of speculation how those differences might have affected the economy of 2011.

As I have written here before, I was a supporter of Edwards early in the campaign. Given the revelations about him that have surfaced in recent years, it is hard not to imagine him being a weak chief executive at this point in his term.

I don't know what kind of stimulus package he might have pressed for, or what kind of bargains he might have been willing to make to get them — but, considering the kind of information about his private life that he almost certainly would have wanted to keep from the voters, I can't help thinking he would have been vulnerable to considerable manipulation in office.

Hillary would have been a different matter. Her life had been an open book in America for more than 15 years (and in Arkansas for more than a decade before that). She had been first lady for eight years. She didn't need to introduce herself to the American public.

Maybe what she would have needed to do in the general election campaign is re–introduce herself to the public — as a potential president.

One of the concerns about Hillary's candidacy that I heard expressed time and time again in 2008 was the suggestion that electing Clinton would mean that, from 1988 through (presumably) 2012 (at least), the United States would be governed by two dynasties, the Bushes and the Clintons. It was time for a break from the two families that had been running the country for the last two decades, I heard Hillary's critics say.

I suppose that Hillary would have had to constantly reassure voters that she, not her husband, would be setting policy.

And there was a segment of the electorate that was worried about former President Clinton being on the loose in the White House with no responsibilities, free to approach any intern in the West Wing at any time.

Issues about being the first woman president might have come up as well, but my memory of the 2008 campaign is that little was said about Obama's race. Most of the attention was on the economic disaster. Perhaps the gender issue wouldn't have been raised.

One thing that seems sure to be mentioned, at some point, is the squabble over the debt ceiling limit that appears to be the main reason why S&P lowered the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.

Some people have mentioned the 14th Amendment and asserted that Obama should have invoked it to end the impasse, thus avoiding the impression that S&P got that Americans have allowed their politics to run wild, creating an unstable economic environment.

Perhaps they have, but that is the kind of thing a leader is supposed to prevent from happening. And a lot of people think Obama could have done that by invoking the 14th Amendment — which most people may remember for being the post–Civil War amendment that overruled the Dred Scott decision on citizenship, but, in fact, it also stated that the public debt, duly authorized by Congress, "shall not be questioned."

Legal experts disagree over the powers that clause gives a president. There are those who felt a demonstration of firm presidential leadership was what was called for while others contend that anything Obama did would have been overturned as unconstitutional.

Although he taught constitutional law before being elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama appears to be in the latter camp, convinced that the issue is resolved — although it really isn't.

Bill Clinton, on the other hand, said he wouldn't hesitate to use it — and, if a similar debt ceiling debate had occurred in a Hillary Clinton presidency, one can logically assume that he would have urged her to do so as well.

Obama could have helped better define the role of the president by invoking the 14th Amendment, as well as possibly sparing the nation the first decline in its credit rating history. Eventually, it might all have been overturned by the courts, but there is nothing, beyond some legal opinions, to suggest that is absolutely what would have happened.

If nothing else, Obama might have shaped the rules for the next debate on the debt ceiling, possibly saving himself or his successor another long, destructive legislative battle in the near future.

Sometimes presidents must be creative, must think outside the box.

They must be leaders.

The Last Words

Today, I have been watching the funeral service for Elizabeth Edwards.

I don't really have much to add to what I've already written this week, just some observations.

• I can empathize with Edwards' children and their loss. I, too, lost my mother, as regular readers of this blog know, and I think it is a pain that never goes away.
  
  But neither do the lessons that your mother teaches you. They will stay with her children for the rest of their lives, just as the lessons my mother taught me remain with me today.
  
  And for that, they will be grateful. Perhaps not today, because there is still much pain, much heartache today, but someday. Someday ...


• Regular readers of this blog also don't need to be reminded that, initially, I was a supporter of John Edwards' presidential bid in 2008.
  
  I publicly apologized for that in January.
  
  In recent days, though, I have been reminded of something that Spencer Tracy (as Henry Drummond) said of Florence Eldridge (as Sarah Brady) in the 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind," when Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady found themselves on opposing sides.
  
  Drummond, of course, was based on Clarence Darrow. Brady, who was played by Fredric March, was based on William Jennings Bryan, a three–time presidential nominee.
  
  In hindsight, the Drummond character told Mrs. Brady, he didn't think Brady would have made a good president.
  
  "But I would have voted for him for king," he said, "just to have you for queen."

I don't know if that particular exchange really took place. So much of the dialogue in "Inherit the Wind" was invented, anyway. The play was merely based on the story of the Scopes trial, not a faithful telling of the events.

But I guess that exchange sums up how I feel about Elizabeth Edwards. In hindsight, I don't think her husband would have been a good president.

But I'm sorry we couldn't have Elizabeth Edwards as our queen.

Mea Culpa

In August 2008, John Edwards acknowledged that the rumors that had been circulating for almost a year that he had had an affair were true.

He continued to deny that he was the father of a child who was born to his lover. But today, he admitted it.

I guess that was his mea culpa.

I don't want to dwell on this topic too much — except to say this.

Until January 2008, when Edwards dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, I was one of his supporters.

When he finally confessed to the affair in August 2008, I observed that "The voters of America can be very forgiving if a candidate is honest about these matters when they come up. But they tend to be less forgiving of liars."

Consequently, I have to believe that, if Edwards continued to believe that he might someday be a contender for his party's presidential nomination — and continued to deny that his lover's child was his in the belief that he might yet have a chance to occupy the Oval Office — this revelation has to bring any such hopes to an end.

But, even if it doesn't end his hopes of running for president again, it has ended any chance that I will support his candidacy again.

This is my mea culpa.

You see, in my life, I've been lied to by the best — Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Joe Isuzu. Edwards is a rather artless liar, even worse than Nixon although he did follow Nixon's lead. He steadfastly refused to tell the truth until he was absolutely forced to do so.

I take no pleasure from saying this. A few years ago, I thought Edwards was the best choice to be president. But Edwards himself has proven that conclusion to be wrong.

One more thing.

Edwards was appropriately contrite when speaking of the daughter he refused to acknowledge for so long. "It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter," he said, "and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me."

I hope she will forgive him, too. But for her sake. Not his.

If 'Ifs' and 'Buts' Were Candy and Nuts ...

We have the latest entry in the "what-if" contest.

(A friend of mine sent me the link to this story, and he included this observation in his e-mail: "Interesting theory."

(That's about all it is, I think. A theory.)

Hillary Clinton's former communications director apparently tells ABC News that he believes Clinton would have won the nomination if the media had come up with the goods to force John Edwards out of the race when the story of his affair was first making the tabloids late last year.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Howard Wolfson told ABC.

If you recall, Edwards edged past Clinton for second place in the Iowa caucuses way back on January 3. We don't have actual vote totals, just percentages.

And caucuses are handled differently in each state — in Iowa's Democratic caucuses, as I remember, a preliminary vote at a caucus only serves to eliminate those candidates whose support level can't reach a certain percentage in that particular caucus location.

A second vote is taken without the candidates who couldn't clear the bar — and that is the vote that is reported from that location.

Anyway, when all had been said and done, Barack Obama had 38% in Iowa, Edwards had 30% and Clinton had 29%.

There were five other candidates (Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich) who accounted for 3% as a group — I presume they were all removed from consideration in the elimination round at most of Iowa's caucus locations.

Wolfson clearly believes that Clinton would have won most of Edwards' supporters.

He has the right to believe what he wants to believe, but I don't think it's quite that cut and dried.

• Just taking the figures that we have, by removing Edwards' name, we suddenly have nearly one-third of Iowa's caucus participants who are left without a candidate.
  
  In order for Clinton to pull even with Obama, she would have to win nearly one-third of Edwards' supporters. That would still leave two-thirds of his supporters for Clinton, Obama and the other five candidates to fight over.
• Who would have won at that stage of the campaign? By most accounts, Clinton was the front-runner going into the caucus. Obama had not yet emerged as the anti-Clinton.
  
  Would Obama have outdueled Clinton for the majority of the remaining Edwards supporters?
  
  Or would one of the other Democrats — Richardson, perhaps, or Biden — have benefited from Edwards' withdrawal?
  
  See, I don't think it's a given that Edwards' withdrawal would have meant that all his supporters would automatically gravitate to any particular candidate.
  
  I also don't believe the Edwards supporters were ready for the race to be narrowed to Obama vs. Clinton at that point.
  
  If anything, I got the impression from Edwards' supporters (and I was one of them) that they were looking for a break with the past. But, like any large group, the individuals had their own ideas of what kind of break they wanted.
  
  For some Edwards supporters, Clinton would have been an acceptable alternative — as indeed she was for some former Edwards supporters in the primaries and caucuses that came after his actual withdrawal in late January.
  
  For other Edwards supporters, Clinton wasn't enough of a break with the past. Her husband was president for eight years, and she's been in the Senate for the nearly eight years since the end of his administration.
  
  Sixteen years in Washington doesn't make you an outsider.
  
  These Democrats were wary of adding to the Bush-Clinton dynastic duel that has been going on now for 20 years (longer if you include the elder Bush's eight-year president-in-training period as Ronald Reagan's sidekick).
  
  Some, if not all, of the former Edwards supporters in Iowa might have decided that neither Obama nor Clinton were satisfactory. They might have breathed new life into Richardson's campaign — or Biden's — or Dodd's.
• I am reminded of the 1992 election. At the time, I was living in Oklahoma, a rock-ribbed Republican state where Clinton ran stronger than Democrats usually do, although George H.W. Bush prevailed — as Republican nominees inevitably do in Oklahoma.
  
  Many of the Republicans with whom I spoke about the election believed that, if Ross Perot had not been in the race, Bush would have been re-elected. As you may recall, Perot finished an extremely strong third with nearly 19% of the vote nationally (that was nearly 20 million votes).
  
  Those Republicans made the same mistake Wolfson makes. They assumed that a large bloc of suddenly uncommitted voters would naturally support their candidate.
  
  But the exit polls I saw after that election were not conclusive.
  
  Exit polls of those who voted for Perot indicated that, if Perot had not been on the ballot, about 40% would have voted for Clinton, another 40% would have voted for Bush, and the remaining 20% would not have participated at all.
  
  Whether we're talking about Ross Perot in 1992 or John Edwards in 2008, the fact is that the people who supported them supported changing the status quo.
  
  In 1992, George H.W. Bush represented the status quo. It never seemed logical to me that nearly 20 million people who voted for Perot (and, as a group, adopted the rebellious "United we stand!" as their motto) would have voted to retain the status quo if Perot's name hadn't been on the ballot.
  
  It always seemed more logical to me that they would have looked for another option or they wouldn't have voted at all.
  
  I've always given Perot credit for bringing millions of Americans into the political process. I hope many of them have continued to participate.
  
  But I never bought the idea that he took more votes from the status quo candidate than he did the challenger.
  
  In 2008, Hillary Clinton represented the status quo in her party. She had been first lady for eight years. She had been in the Senate for eight years. And she was the front-runner for her party's nomination.
  
  I'm not sure she would have been the beneficiary of Edwards' withdrawal before the Iowa caucus.
  
  But neither is it certain that Obama would have been the recipient of that (pardon the expression) windfall.

Let's assume, just for a minute, that Edwards was forced out of the race in early December. No one had won anything yet. No one had momentum (the "Big Mo," as George H.W. Bush famously said) — other than whatever momentum Clinton had from the perception that she was leading the pack. Edwards' supporters would have been in a position to alter the dynamics of the race. If, as Wolfson suggests, the majority of them had piled on Clinton's bandwagon, we might be anticipating her nomination later this month. Or perhaps they would have gravitated to Obama. He might have secured the nomination earlier than he did. Or perhaps they would have opted to support someone else. They might have rallied behind Bill Richardson — would he have proven more popular among Iowa's caucus goers than Obama or Clinton? He might have, considering the political résumé he brought to the table. Or they might have lined up behind Joe Biden. His experience in foreign affairs might have seemed particularly appealing, even timely, considering the fact that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated just a week before the Iowa caucus (and gas prices hadn't yet careened out of control). But Biden has been a part of the Washington establishment for more than 30 years. He might have been seen as too much of a status quo candidate. And that doesn't even consider the possibility that another Democrat — perhaps a prominent one, like recent nominees John Kerry or Al Gore — might have decided to enter the race. Gore, who won the popular vote as the Democrats' 2000 nominee and won the Nobel Prize last year for his efforts against global warming, seems like a particularly plausible prospect. But both Gore and Kerry might have been seen as too entrenched in the establishment — even though Gore has held no elective office since leaving the vice presidency. And a movement to persuade Gore to run was launched by supporters in October. If Edwards had withdrawn before the Iowa caucus, that might have been the nudge Gore needed to try again. To me, this is another example of the truth of the old adage, "Timing is everything." It's a what-if that can't be resolved. And it's pointless, at this stage, to try. My gut feeling is that Clinton wasn't going to win in Iowa. And Jon Cohen appears to agree with me in a Washington Post blog entry. "It is a pure hypothetical, of course, and the entire dynamics of the contest would have been different without Edwards," writes Cohen. "But the public data do not bolster the notion that Clinton would have won." Want some facts?

1. Obama will be nominated later this month. He will give his acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.
2. Hillary Clinton will speak at the convention. She will address the delegates about a week after the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in the United States.
3. It seems doubtful to me that she will be chosen to be his running mate.

That's reality.

Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa?

---

---

Back in 1884, when it turned out that Democratic presidential nominee Grover Cleveland had fathered a child outside of marriage, it was part of one of the most vicious presidential campaigns in American history — to that point.

The Republicans had won the White House in six consecutive elections, ever since Abraham Lincoln was first elected in 1860.

In nearly a quarter of a century, the only Democrat to be president was Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's second vice president who became president when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865 and thus served most of that term. Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant handily won the 1868 and 1872 elections for the Republicans.

But in 1884, at the end of a four-year term that had seen the assassination of the duly elected president (James Garfield) and the lackluster presidency of his successor (Chester Arthur), the country seemed ready to elect a Democrat.

Cleveland's opponent was Maine Sen. James G. Blaine, who had been denied his party's nomination in the two previous elections because of a scandal that had erupted over the discovery of the "Mulligan letters" — correspondence from Blaine that showed he was guilty of selling his influence while in Congress.

The "Mulligan letters" had been found by a Boston bookkeeper named Mulligan in 1876 and made public. Blaine refused to admit that he had written the letters.

Democrats liked to attend Blaine's speeches in those days and chant, "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine!"

When Blaine finally got the Republican nomination in 1884, his party thought it had found the personal character issue that would level the playing field against Cleveland:

"Grover the Good," as Cleveland was known, had been involved with a woman and allegedly fathered a baby with her. The child had gone to an orphanage, and, according to the story, the woman had flipped out and been committed to an asylum.

In fact, the woman didn't flip out. And she had received child support from Cleveland, even though, at the time of her relationship with him, the woman was involved with several other men as well.

No one ever knew who the actual father of her child was, and it was believed by many that Cleveland took responsibility because he was the only bachelor with whom the woman was involved.

Cleveland's instructions to his staff were simple. "Tell the truth." Thus, the campaign decided the best way to handle the issue was to be candid about it from the beginning.

No awkward denials of having a relationship with that woman.

To be sure, there were some uncomfortable moments — Blaine's supporters countered the anti-Blaine chant with their own version, which has become much more famous in the annals of history — "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!"

But Blaine continued to have problems of his own.

Although Catholics would not become legitimate contenders for the presidency until well into the next century, their votes mattered in 1884, and Blaine's campaign suffered from a remark by a Republican Protestant preacher in the closing days of the campaign:

"We are Republicans," he said, "and we don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion."

If Blaine, who was in the audience, was unaware of the anti-Catholic implications of "Romanism," a Democratic operative in the audience was aware of them, and the Democrats spread the word of the slur.

It was enough to make Lee Atwater proud.

The preacher's remark was said to energize Catholic voters and motivate them to support the Democrats. In the end, Cleveland triumphed. Narrowly.

Cleveland won the Electoral College vote, 219-182, and the popular vote by less than one-half of 1%. The New York governor was elected because his home state barely gave him its 36 electoral votes — possibly on the strength of the Catholic vote.

That was an era of truly close elections. Four years earlier, Garfield won the popular vote by less than 2,000 votes (one-tenth of 1%) but achieved a wider margin in the Electoral College, 214 to 155.

The election of 1876, though, was the closest and most disputed election until the Gore-Bush election of 2000. The compromise that put Rutherford Hayes into the White House (by one hotly contested electoral vote) brought about the conclusion of Reconstruction.

When he sought re-election in 1888, Cleveland's infidelity wasn't the issue. In fact, he won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. In 1892, Cleveland was nominated for the third time and was elected, becoming the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.

I guess what I'm leading up to is simply this: The voters of America can be very forgiving if a candidate is honest about these matters when they come up. But they tend to be less forgiving of liars.

(As Dwight Eisenhower once remarked, upon reflecting on the U-2 incident in his final year as president in which his administration tried to convince America and the world that it hadn't deliberately violated Soviet airspace, "When you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, there's no point in pretending that you were out in the field someplace.")

John Edwards' campaign for the 2008 presidential nomination ended in January when he announced his withdrawal.

If it isn't clear to everyone by now — including Edwards — any chance that he could ever be nominated for president ended this week when he conceded the truth of the rumors of his extramarital affair. Rumors that have been circulating for nearly a year.

Edwards admitted the affair with a former campaign employee in an interview with ABC News' Bob Woodruff, but he said the woman's child isn't his.

The family of Edwards' former mistress wanted him to take a DNA test to remove all doubt. But Edwards' former mistress apparently has ruled that out.

The piling on has begun.

"[T]he National Enquirer, whose initial report last December set about the chain of events that produced Edwards' admission on Friday of an extramarital affair, has done what three failed national campaigns couldn't by ending Edwards' future in national politics," says Steve Kornacki of the New York Observer. "The catch is: Edwards doesn't seem to realize it yet."

Kirsten Powers of the New York Post is blunt in her assessment of Edwards: "If it looks like a phony, walks like a phony, quacks like a phony, it's a phony."

In an editorial, the Post takes aim at everything Edwards has said and done and labeled it "sleaze."

I'm not sure that's fair, but I have to admit that Edwards has brought it on himself.

As someone who supported Edwards — and, frankly, was disappointed when he dropped out before I could vote for him in the Texas primary in March — I've been having many thoughts about this matter.

I'm no prude, but I'd like to see people who want to be the leader of the last superpower on earth show that they are committed to certain principles.

I don't want to elect a pope. I want to elect a president.

As a centrist Democrat, I was drawn to Edwards' solutions for the problems facing this country.

I agreed with his complaints about income inequality in America. The sanctimonious symbolism of the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has made no tangible difference in the quality of the lives of most blacks and women in this country.

The stability of employment and income can make a difference — for everyone — white, black, male, female, young, old.

I was also drawn to Edwards' apparently sincere appeals for affordable and accessible health care, particularly in light of his wife's cancer.

And a coherent, long-term strategy for weaning this country from its addiction to foreign oil is desperately needed. Not the blatant attempt to buy votes with a meaningless "summer gas tax holiday" or the finger-pointing (and ultimately ineffective) calls for a windfall profits tax.

But I'm dismayed that the Democrats who seek the presidency frequently have this character flaw — whether it's the ones like Edwards, Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy, who do not get the nomination, or the ones like Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who not only win the nomination but the election as well.

Clinton's infidelity sidetracked his second term.

Kennedy's infidelity allegedly led him to compromise national security secrets in his conversations with his lovers — and may have ultimately led to the death of Marilyn Monroe (if one believes the tales that have circulated about that relationship).

Roosevelt's infidelity nearly cost him his marriage — and could have kept him from being nominated for president.

Of course, Democrats aren't the only ones who have this problem.

General Eisenhower had a wartime affair.

Warren Harding had an affair with the wife of an old friend.

Even John McCain cheated on his former wife with his now current wife.

So neither side has a monopoly on this issue.

Edwards will not be the Democratic nominee in November. After the recent revelations, I don't expect to see his name on a national ticket again.

So let him fade from the national stage.

I just hope whoever is elected president this year will have the wisdom and the courage we need.

Edwards Endorses Obama

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards endorsed Democratic front-runner Barack Obama today.

Earlier in the campaign, Edwards was a candidate for the nomination, but he dropped out in January. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have coveted his endorsement in the last three months, but he waited until more than a week after the primary in his home state before announcing his decision.

I was an Edwards supporter, but I was left to make a different choice when Texas held its primary in March.

While I feel Edwards made the endorsement he needed to make to preserve any active role he will have in Democratic politics in the future, I can't help feeling he made a choice he didn't want to make.

Just as I did.

And I'm glad he waited until there was little to be gained from his endorsement -- other than perhaps to take the public's attention away from Clinton's massive win in West Virginia on Tuesday.

If anything is guaranteed to take the wind out of your sails following a blowout win, it's to have one of your former rivals endorse the front-runner.

But Clinton should roll up another large win in Kentucky next Tuesday. The surveys there have been very consistent -- her smallest lead is 25 points, 56% to 31%, in a Rasmussen Reports that concluded on May 5.

Her largest lead also came in a survey that concluded May 5. It was conducted by Survey USA, and it showed Clinton leading by 34 points, 62% to 28%.

Those surveys make sense. The numbers mirror the results in West Virginia, and the demographics in the two states are nearly identical.

It's a different story in Oregon, which is also scheduled to hold its primary next Tuesday.

In Oregon, polls have shown Obama maintaining a double-digit advantage. His smallest lead was 11 points, 54% to 43%, in a Survey USA poll that concluded May 11.

His largest lead is 20 points, 55% to 35%, in a Portland Tribune survey that concluded May 10.

So the polls indicate a split decision next Tuesday. In all likelihood, that means Obama's lead will be virtually unchanged in the delegate count.

Time is running out.

As They Prepare for the Caucus and the Primary ...

Today is Christmas, and my gift to my readers is my view of the presidential races and what is likely to happen when Iowans hold their caucuses a week from Thursday and voters in New Hampshire hold their primaries two weeks from today.

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton likes to use the word "experience" to describe her qualification to be president. But this is her first national campaign as the candidate. Previously, she was in a supporting role.

The one with the experience in a national campaign is John Edwards, and he has a network of support in place in Iowa that propelled him to a second-place finish there four years ago. The question in the caucus is whether those supporters will actually turn out this time. Are those voters as reliable in 2008 as they were in 2004?

I've heard political analysts say that only about 10% of Iowa's electorate turn out for the caucuses, so the old adage about how "every vote counts" really is true in Iowa.

I have the feeling that Edwards is poised to spring a surprise in Iowa. He can survive until the New Hampshire primary the following week, even if he finishes second again in Iowa. But to remain in the race, he needs a strong showing in one or both of those states -- if only to demonstrate his appeal and vote-getting ability outside the South.

Can Barack Obama fail to win Iowa and New Hampshire -- and still be a factor in the race? That depends on how well he does. If he loses either state -- or both states -- by double digits, it may be over for him. If he is close to the top finisher, his campaign can survive awhile longer.

If Mrs. Clinton finishes first in both states, the party is over for the rest of the field, and momentum will take over. If she loses in both states, the party may be over for her.

REPUBLICANS

I think Mike Huckabee is likely to win Iowa, where evangelical Christians represent a sizable bloc. They seem comfortable with him. He's apparently the kind of candidate those voters thought they were getting when George W. Bush first sought the nomination in 2000.

Mitt Romney will likely finish second in Iowa. I think he and Huckabee will combine for perhaps 60% of the Iowa vote. The remaining 40% will be divided up among the rest of the Republican field.

After that, Romney's main challenge in New Hampshire appears to be coming from John McCain. Like Edwards in Iowa, McCain has a strong core of support in New Hampshire from his successful primary campaign there eight years ago. But McCain must contend with questions about his age. He will be 72 when the next president is sworn in.

I think Romney may be able to pull off the win in New Hampshire, but I think he will be wounded in Iowa and may not be an effective candidate in the other primaries that are coming up in January and early February.

If he's unable to win in New Hampshire, McCain's campaign is probably finished.

I think Rudy Giuliani's best chance to win comes later in January when voters in Florida will vote. Giuliani has been polling well in Florida. American Research Group, for example, has been reporting that Giuliani consistently has been receiving between 26% and 33% in Florida, which leads the field there.

If Giuliani's support in Florida collapses in favor of McCain (following a hypothetical McCain triumph in New Hampshire), Giuliani should consider withdrawing from the race.

Fred Thompson needs to win somewhere early in order to establish the momentum he needs in the primaries to come. The super Tuesday primaries on Feb. 5 will be costly for candidates and only those with the best financing and the best organizations will be competitive that day.

One last thing ... VOTE! If you live in Iowa, participate in the caucus. If you live in New Hampshire, vote in the primary.

And a Merry Christmas to all.

Competitive Campaigns and Inevitability

Democrats who want a candidate who will be competitive in every corner of the country might want to give John Edwards a look.

Recent polls may show Edwards trailing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the nomination, but polls also show him with the best chance of winning a general election showdown against any of the potential Republican nominees.

That includes a poll showing him beating every prospective GOP nominee in Oklahoma, where no Democrat has won since Lyndon Johnson narrowly defeated Barry Goldwater there in 1964.

Many observers have eagerly hung the "front-runner" label on Mrs. Clinton. Being the front-runner and being the nominee are two very different things. Sen. Edmund Muskie was thought to be unstoppable in his bid for the 1972 Democratic nomination, but the party nominated Sen. George McGovern instead. In 1988, at various times leading up to the primaries, Mario Cuomo and Gary Hart were thought to be the favorites on the Democratic side, but Michael Dukakis captured the nomination.

George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole turned out to be the nominees, as expected in 1992 and 1996, but they had to fend off challenges from Patrick Buchanan before ultimately winning hard-fought nominations.

Let's wait until they hold the caucuses in Iowa and the primary in New Hampshire before we proclaim anyone the front-runner.

John Edwards will appear on NBC's Meet the Press, airing at 9 a.m. (Dallas time) Sunday.