By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 27, 2008
In a quiet moment of an otherwise-fiery Democratic debate Monday, Barack Obama reflected on the frenzy sparked by seemingly every one of his and Hillary Rodham Clinton's utterances.
"I'm not entirely faulting the media," Obama offered. "There's no doubt that in a race where you've got an African American and a woman," then, after an uncomfortable pause, he continued, "and John . . ."
The camera flashed to former senator John Edwards, smiling bashfully amid a chorus of audience laughter, the white man on a presidential stage that until this year was dominated by white men.
"Who could have imagined 20 years ago, 15 years ago, the white guy in the race would be the afterthought?" presidential historian Robert Dallek asked last night. "It's amazing."
The debate moment crystallized the problem faced by the man who was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee four years ago, a problem reflected boldly last night in his third-place finish in the state of his birth. Edwards is simply not breaking through.
"He is a terrific candidate, the most gifted athlete on the field, but there's just not room," said one Edwards aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be frank. "It's been very difficult to overcome the celebrity of the other two."
Although Edwards has been running practically since his 2004 loss, his performance as the vice presidential nominee may be proving a major impediment. In the past, White House candidates have been offered second, even third chances. But since Richard Nixon, no one on a national ticket has lost and come back to win.
"Once you lose, the image is of the loser," Dallek said. "With the media today, it's so difficult to overcome that now, especially at a time like this, when there is a real thirst for a departure from the recent past."
Since Edwards's second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses last month, he has ended up a distant third in New Hampshire, Nevada (where he pulled less than 4 percent) and now South Carolina. He won one county yesterday -- the one in which he was born.
If Edwards could have made a move, it would have been in South Carolina, where he won the primary four years ago and where the son of a millworker could appeal to millworkers, former millworkers and descendants of millworkers just like him.
As Edwards campaigned for the nomination four years ago, he spoke poignantly of two Americas: one for the rich and well-connected and one for the struggling. This year, poignancy turned to anger as his message on inequality took on a harder edge.
It was not as though his appeal did not resonate. Edwards and Clinton split the white vote about evenly, both winning about four in 10 votes to Obama's 24 percent. Edwards easily outdistanced Clinton and Obama among white men, winning 45 percent to Clinton's 28 percent and Obama's 27 percent, according to exit polls. But Edwards picked up only 2 percent of African American votes, well behind even Clinton's 19 percent.
Ironically, the income demographic that was most favorable to Edwards was the side of America he rails against. Voters earning at least $100,000 a year gave him 24 percent of their votes; he had the backing of 15 percent of people who make less than $50,000.
The Clinton campaign did all it could to make sure she would take second. In recent tracking polls, Edwards appeared to be gaining on the former first lady, a trend ratified by exit polls that found that about half of white voters who picked a candidate in the last three days picked Edwards.
The Clinton camp tried to blunt that surge. A wave of automated phone calls yesterday reminded voters of Edwards's vote for permanent trade relations with China and accused him of making a fortune working for a Wall Street investment fund "that's been profiting on foreclosing on the homes of families."
Edwards campaign chairman David Bonior called the charges made in the calls "outrageous."
"We've been moving up, and they obviously don't want to place second," Bonior said of the Clinton campaign this afternoon.
Edwards's failure in South Carolina will almost certainly increase the pressure on him from Democratic Party officials to drop out and endorse either Obama or Clinton. The Clinton campaign also intends to ratchet up its efforts to knock Edwards out and lay claim to white, working-class Democrats.
"Both Obama and Clinton are now talking more and more about fighting special interests and championing the cause of the middle class. So, it's really decision making time," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 campaign. "My guess: When the money stops, he will call it quits."
Jennifer Palmieri, a longtime Edwards family confidante, said his third-place finish in South Carolina "isn't going to change anything." Edwards, who has raised $3 million over the Internet since Jan. 1, has enough money to stay in the race, perhaps all the way to the nominating convention in August, she said.
"Now the three of us move on to February 5th," Edwards told his supporters in Charleston, S.C., last night as he conceded defeat. "We will be there with you every step of the way."
Deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince said Edwards will travel to Georgia today and to Tennessee tomorrow. "This race is just getting going, and we're going the distance," Prince said.
Bonior cited Texas as a state where he thinks Edwards will do well, noting that the former senator earned 20 percent of the vote in the Lone Star State's 2004 Democratic primary two weeks after he dropped out of that race.
In the worst-case scenario, one aide said, Edwards will keep running and collecting delegates, as Obama and Clinton run neck and neck. Then Edwards goes to the Democratic Party convention in Denver as a potential kingmaker.
"In the cold, somber gray of defeat, who knows? Anything can happen," the aide cautioned. "But that's not what the strategy is. It's hard to convince somebody running as long as he has that he should drop out with so long to go."
Washingtonpost.com staff writers Chris Cillizza in Washington and Ed O'Keefe in South Carolina contributed to this report.
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