John Edwards to Leave Race

By now, I'm sure everyone has heard that John Edwards reportedly plans to drop out of the presidential race. Right now, he's giving a speech in New Orleans where he is expected to announce his decision. It's fitting, as New Orleans is where his campaign began—and it remains the central front of the war on poverty in America, perhaps the place most representative, in so many different ways, of the current administration's failures.

An aide said Edwards does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.

A top Edwards aide said the former senator contacted Obama and Clinton on Tuesday, telling them he was considering dropping out of the race and asking them to make poverty a top issue of their campaigns and -- if either reaches the White House -- a central part of their administration.

Both candidates agreed, the aide said.

But, of course, neither of them is running the kind of campaign John Edwards was running. Neither of them is working on a Habitit for Humanity project today, as Edwards is scheduled to do, and has been long before this announcement was planned. Neither of them took public financing, though they both say they believe in it and will "fight" for that particular "change." Neither of them refused to employ lobbyists in their campaigns. Neither of them refuses money from lobbyists. Neither of them speaks with passion about the growing blight on the American landscape that is unchecked corporate avarice—and neither of them got ignored by the megacorporation-owned media for their troubles of siding, really and truly, with the American people.

Only John Edwards was running that kind of campaign.

I continue to believe that our nation needs John Edwards at this time, and I am profoundly sad that we will not have him. I believed in him; I believed in his message; and I hope that he will take Waveflux's sage advice and find a role for himself as the vital and vibrant leader he is and can be, in the mold of Al Gore. And I hope we will assess why our two finest statesmen cannot find their way to the White House, and realize how bereft of genuine, tangible, spirit-lifting change we will be without them.

I was proud to support you, Senator Edwards. Thank you for trying.