BOWING OUT OF THE RACE for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination last week, John Edwards addressed a crowd of cheering supporters outside a high school in Raleigh, North Carolina. What he chose to talk about mainly was his warm admiration for the party’s freshly minted de facto nominee, John Kerry–whom Edwards had attacked repeatedly in a television debate only three days before.
A lot can change in 72 hours. “I want to say a word about a man who is a friend of mine,” Edwards told the crowd. Kerry, he explained, is a man who has “strength and great courage.” Kerry is a “fighter.” He has fought for the things “all of us” Democrats “believe in,” like “more jobs” and “cleaner water.” He “has what it takes” to be president. And he is, Edwards said again, “my friend.”
Edwards was offering the classic olive branch to the winner who’d defeated him. And he may have been signaling a desire to be Kerry’s running mate. But his remarks were also something more. They were an acknowledgment from Edwards, however tacit, that his political future is now tied to Kerry’s. As several Democratic strategists explained last week, if Edwards is not Kerry’s running mate, or if Kerry loses the election and thus forfeits any chance of nominating Edwards to a position in his administration, chances are that the North Carolina senator has run his last campaign.
Which may come as a surprise to some, given the pro-Edwards punditry of recent weeks. After Edwards placed a distant third in the New Hampshire primary on January 27, many labeled the senator a favored presidential prospect for 2008.
For example, on Super Tuesday (March 2)–a day when Edwards failed to win a single primary–Tim Russert of NBC News called him well “positioned to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 if in fact John Kerry is not successful in the fall.” Susan Molinari, the former Republican congresswoman turned CNBC political analyst, has said Edwards is “a viable candidate against Mrs. Clinton perhaps in 2008.” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough agrees. As does Republican commentator Leslie Sanchez. As does conservative activist Bay Buchanan. As does CNN political analyst Carlos Watson.
But Edwards would face significant obstacles should he decide to run for president in 2008. For one thing, he will be out of a job in 10 months, having chosen to forgo a Senate reelection bid this fall in order to focus on his presidential campaign. He won’t be able to run for governor of North Carolina until at least 2008, at which point, according to Russert, he will be a presidential candidate again. He has no political constituency outside the Senate, no movement or cause that he represents–as Ronald Reagan did in the 1970s, Pat Buchanan did in the 1990s, and Howard Dean does now. He also has few laurels to fall back on. As Democratic consultant Peter Fenn put it, “Edwards’s résumé is pretty thin.”
Especially when it comes to electoral politics. Remember that Edwards has won only two elections–ever. In 1998, he was elected to the Senate with 51 percent of the vote. And he won this year’s South Carolina primary, with a plurality of 45 percent. According to the Los Angeles Times, Edwards’s average vote share in this year’s Democratic primaries was just 19 percent. “In modern presidential history, no one in either party has ever gone so long on so little,” says Larry Sabato, who heads the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Democrats say that Edwards’s appeal as a presidential candidate, and as a potential running mate for Kerry, lies in his southern background. But it is hard to argue that Edwards would draw much support from the South in 2008, considering how little he drew in 2004. Polls showed Edwards losing a race against President Bush even in his home state of North Carolina. And in primaries in Virginia, Georgia, and Tennessee, Edwards lost to a consummate northerner, John Kerry.
Edwards does have political strengths, to be sure, all of which could help him in a 2008 presidential bid. Over the last year, he’s become a national political figure. He’s built a political organization and formed alliances with potential donors, especially his fellow trial lawyers. And he’s received the most favorable media coverage of any presidential candidate this cycle: A Center for Media and Public Affairs study showed that a whopping 92 percent of Edwards’s press was favorable. (Kerry came in a distant second, with only 65 percent favorable coverage.)
Democratic strategists say Edwards’s youth–he’s 50–is another advantage. They say he has, pound for pound, the most developed policies of any Democratic presidential candidate. And there is no denying his charisma. “He is the best stump speaker, at least in this cycle, for the Democrats,” says Tom Schaller, a political scientist at the University of Maryland.
But can these gifts carry Edwards through four years in the political wilderness? The historical record provides reason to be skeptical. In recent memory, there have been two presidential primary campaigns that left a losing candidate well set up for the next electoral cycle. In 1976, Ronald Reagan won primary after primary, even selecting a running mate weeks before the brokered convention that nominated President Gerald Ford; the day the convention opened, Reagan had 1,063 delegates, Ford 1,102. And in 1984, Gary Hart defeated Walter Mondale in so many states that he came to be seen as a credible Democratic nominee; going into the convention, Hart and Mondale each had over 1,000 delegates. But that wasn’t the case this year. According to CNN, on March 3, the day he dropped out of the race, Edwards had won 513 delegates. Kerry had 1,557.
“Hart and Reagan laid a credible claim to the nomination by doing so well and coming so close,” says Larry Sabato. “This is not close at all.”
The picture grows darker still for Edwards. Suppose he becomes Kerry’s running mate, but the Democratic ticket loses in November. Edwards still won’t be a lock for 2008. Joe Lieberman was the vice presidential nominee in 2000, but that didn’t help his campaign four years later, notes Tom Schaller. “Edwards would have to figure out a way to stay relevant, and if there’s no Kerry administration, he’s going to have a hard time sticking around.”
Matthew Continetti is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
