Washington: Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina is dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, two sources inside his campaign said on Wednesday.
Edwards has told top advisers about his decision. It is expected he will announce it in a speech at 1300 hours (ET) on Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana.
An Edwards aide said the candidate was not getting the media attention that he needed to get his message out and win delegates, especially with races coming up in 22 states next Tuesday.
Edwards has amassed 26 delegates for the Democratic nomination. Campaign money was not an issue, the aide said. New Orleans is the same city in which Edwards declared his run to be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.
Edwards' campaign website said he was to deliver an address on poverty and work on a Habitat for Humanity project on Wednesday in New Orleans.
Edwards has trailed Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois in the early contests, including a third-place finish in Tuesday's Florida primary with 14 per cent of the votes. He also came in third in key races in New Hampshire and South Carolina.
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. Reacting to the expected announcement, Obama praised Edwards. "At a time when our politics is too focused on who's up and who's down, he made a nation focus again on who matters — the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington," Obama said on Wednesday.
Some political pundits predict Edwards' supporters are more likely to lean in Obama's direction. "The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama will pick up maybe 60 percent of them, and in some places, that makes a huge difference," former presidential adviser David Gergen said.
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Time magazine journalist Joe Klein said, "I don't think he endorses Hillary Clinton. The question is whether or not he endorses Barack Obama."
Klein contends that Clinton "represents a lot of the things that [Edwards] campaigned against, you know, the old Washington Democratic establishment that he believes got too close to the corporations in the '90s."
Edwards had campaigned on the message that he was standing up for the little guy, the people who are not traditionally given a voice in Washington, and that he would do more to fight special interests. Commenting on his New Orleans trip, Edwards said on Tuesday that the city symbolised why he chose to run for president.
"It's a living, breathing example of the heart of my message, what I'm talking about," Edwards said. "I mean it's the failure of government to be there when people need it. It's a perfect indication of the conditions of poverty that exist in America."
In a reaction to President Bush's State of the Union address on Monday, Edwards said, "The truth is that Washington is out of touch with what's happening across the country. Between now and January of 2009, Democrats must stand up to this president, stand up for what's right, so he does not continue to forget about the middle class in this country."
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