White House
Nancy Richardson - 09:48 am Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1224 of 1481
I am unaccountably and uncharacteristically moved and teary over such a development.
And I think I have picked my candidate(s).
Sky Bluesky - 09:50 am Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1225 of 1481
Yeah. I think I'm just about there. I like Obama, but I think I'm in love with the Edwards.
McCamy Taylor - 12:50 pm Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1250 of 1481
This is so sad.
I am going to tell the honest truth here, which is that if I was a friend of the family I would advise the Edwards to drop out, even though I am pretty sure that Elizabeth is the one who wants them to push ahead, and it is good for people with terminal diseases to have something to live for, so in a way this is part of her therapy.
The country is lucky to have Edwards still running, and the me that looks at the field of Democratic contenders (minus Gore who will not get his butt into the race where it belongs) is glad that they are still in it.
I guess the best thing is if they make this the purest, most noble presidential campaign ever, so that win or lose, they both feel like they accomplished something just by being in the field.
Otto Hemi - 01:23 pm Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1253 of 1481
They just didn't want to look like quitters. A week, a month, Elizabeth worsens, and Edwards '08 will be all over.
I'm losing all my guys: first Feingold, then Warner, then No-Comeback Kerry, now Edwards. Add Never-Back Gore, and all my top-tier candidates are pretty much kaput.
With only Hillary and Obama left, I'm feeling pretty disheartened by this whole thing. Sure they're fine candidates and, win or lose, I'll be proud to have cast my vote for either of them, groundbreaking as that vote will be.
And, it will be an entertaining election (precisely why the media is so hot on them). But I'm going to feel a lot less entertained if I don't win.
Kristine M - 01:33 pm Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1257 of 1481
I think (hope?) John Edwards is taking a wait and see approach. I'm fairly certain he'd drop out right away if she worsens.
On the other hand, if he quit today, it implies that she's dying and there's little hope so he wants to spend every last minute with her. Which is a bad implication for Elizabeth to be on the other end of. And let's face it, it's not like John can try to run again in 2012 if he drops out now. If he's really running for all those apple pie, make-America-a-better-place kind of reasons and not for vanity, this election is his only shot. And Elizabeth is a big part of why (I think) he's sincerely interested in making America, and the world, a better place for everyone and not just a better place for the people that would vote for him.
Scheduler - 06:55 pm Pacific Time - Mar 22, 2007 - #1266 of 1481
I cried hard during the press conference. However, I have a dear friend who is living with chronic breast cancer that spread to her bones. She lives a normal life, albeit with regular treatments. Elizabeth Edwards' reoccurance was caught a lot earlier than my friend's -- this is really not necessarily a death sentence, nor does it mean that the campaign needs to stop.
Hopefully she can get her treatments at whatever hospital she is near, or just fly home regularly. Treatment has come a really long way in the past several years -- she can still beat this and live a long long time.
estherc - 12:11 pm Pacific Time - Mar 24, 2007 - #1300 of 1481
This is heartbreaking news.
I do think that Elizabeth Edwards is much more engaged in the battle than any other political wife that I've seen. With her posting on the blogs etc I think she's as much of a political junkie as we are. Do you think anyone else's wife would even know who Jane Hamsher is? I think she's the one that has been reading on the internet and knows the minutiae of how bad these bastards really are. I don't think the rest of the mainstream dems really realize it.
Elizabeth could live for years or she could live for months. I think when someone is faced with a diagnosis like that they ask themselves "what do you want to do with your life in the short time you have left so you have no regrets about things left undone." Her answer is obviously "I want John to be president because I think he's the best hope for the future of my country."
They have limitless financial resources. They can do this without the campaign interfering any more than any other job would in their family time together. They can get a motor home as big as any of our houses and put the kids and a hospital bed, a nurse if needed etc in it. Or John could fly home every evening after campaigning in a private jet if need be.
This is what Elizabeth wants for her family. She wants a better America for her young children to grow up in.
Kalinakka - 10:57 am Pacific Time - Mar 26, 2007 - #1373 of 1481
Geez ... somebody ought to have reminded Couric (and all the others who keep bringing up the younger Edwards kids) that what kids need is stability and normality -- the continuation, as much as possible, of the family routine. To the Edwardses, I have no doubt that what is "normal" is to have Mom and Dad actively involved in politics -- the way John and Elizabeth have been all their lives. This is life as those kids know it. To suddenly have Elizabeth home with the blinds down, & John hanging around the house to see if she "needs" anything would be, I would think, profoundly disturbing.
Does anyone really think, knowing what Elizabeth had to go through to have those two kids, and having seen the loving relationship between John, Elizabeth and the kids during the 2004 campaign, that the Edwardses didn't think long and hard about the effect on Jack and Emma Claire when they made their decision?
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