After a decisive loss in Nevada on Saturday, John Edwards said he hopes the old saying, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” proves to be true.

Edwards placed a distant third in the Nevada caucuses—earning only 4 percent of the vote and acquiring zero delegates. Clinton won 51 percent of the electorate, while Obama received 45 percent.

Addressing reporters outside a diner in Winnsboro, South Carolina, on Sunday, Edwards said, “I got my butt kicked,” and attributed his loss to the millions of dollars spent by his rivals in the state.

“I think the other candidates spent enormous amounts of money and we didn’t,” he said. “It was a caucus process. They were there for a long time organizing.”

But Edwards spent more days in Nevada than his Democratic rivals—he visited the state 17 times. Obama came 12 times and Clinton 8 times. Though the Edwards campaign never predicted he would win the state, his advisers remained optimistic that he would finish competitively.

Edwards also criticized the national media for representing the Democratic presidential campaign as a two-person race—focusing most of their attention on the “two celebrity candidates,” senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Despite his loss, he assured voters that he is in the race “for the long haul” and that 47 states have yet to be heard from.

“I’ve gotten up, dusted myself off, and I’m going back to work,” Edwards said. “I’m fighting for what I believe in.”

done

Addressing a crowd of several hundred supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Friday, John Edwards denounced an ad running in Nevada by a national labor union supporting Barack Obama.

The pro-Obama radio ad, airing on two Spanish stations and sponsored by a group called UNITE HERE (the parent union of Culinary Workers’ 266 that has endorsed Obama), calls Hillary Clinton “shameless” and says “she does not respect our people.”

Edwards condemned the ad—describing it as “malicious”—and criticized Obama for not calling on the group to stop running it.

“He should speak up,” Edwards told the crowd. “If he really means what he says—and this is not just talk—he should speak up and denounce this kind of divisive politics.”

Though Obama has not publicly addressed the ad as of yet, his campaign spokesman, Bill Burton, told reporters “it’s not our ad,” and that “if the Clinton campaign has questions, they should contact the union that sponsored” it.

Edwards took exception to the ad, he says, in part because Obama had previously criticized him for a television ad that ran on his behalf in Iowa by a 527 group—an ad the Senator said was “positive” and did not seek to slander his opponents. While he publicly spoke out against it at the time, Edwards said he did not have the legal authority to directly communicate with the individuals running it.

During Friday’s Las Vegas rally, Edwards seized the opportunity to address Nevada union members directly: “Regardless of who your political leadership chose to support or endorse,” he said, “nobody will fight for you and the right to organize and the right to collectively bargain like I will.”

“Let me say this very clearly,” he added at the end of his speech, “vis-à-vis Senator Obama, I will not divide America. I will unite America when I’m President of the United States.”

done

At a town hall event just off the Vegas strip last night, Senator Barack Obama debuted a bit of humor and a hint of sarcasm to highlight his differences with his opponents. “When I was 20 points down, everybody loved me,” he started. “Now that we’re tied, suddenly there’s all kinds of stuff going on out here.”

Referencing the debate last Tuesday, Obama told the crowd he was “laughing” when the candidates were asked to talk about their biggest weaknesses. ” I thought, you know, ’cause I’m like an ordinary person, I thought that they meant ‘Whats your biggest weakness?’” he said sarcastically. ” Obama recounted his own ‘ordinary person’ response - that he’s not a paper person. “My desk is a mess; I need somebody to help me file and stuff all the time.”

He reminded the audience his opponents’ answers to the same question: that John Edwards is “just too passionate about helping people,” and Hillary Clinton is “just too impatient to bring about change in America.” He delivered the punch line with a comedian’s panache: “If I had gone last, I would have known what the game was, and then I could have said, ‘Well, you know I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.’” The crowd howled with laughter. “Folks - they don’t tell you what they mean,” he said, hammering home his humor-wrapped point that his opponents are politicians who will say anything to get elected. “Undecideds - remember now, remember what I’m saying.”

After this anecdote, Obama had the crowd on his side when he segued into a more pointed criticism about Senator Clinton. Bringing up her answer in last Tuesday’s debate during which Clinton said she was happy the 2001 bankruptcy bill she voted for never passed, Obama said incredulously, “What does that mean? No, seriously, what does that mean?” The crowd laughed - Obama grinned. “If you didn’t want to see it passed, then you could have voted against it! People don’t say what they mean,” he repeated.

(more…)

In Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, the three candidates—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama—clashed over the issue of nuclear power and what to do about Yucca Mountain, a national repository for nuclear waste that is opposed by many Nevada voters.

The dispute began when Clinton said that Edwards voted in support of the nuclear waste facility, while she had “consistently and persistently been against” it. She also claimed that one of Obama’s supporters—the Exelon Corporation—was involved in funding the project.

In response to Clinton’s remarks, Edwards implied that he had changed his decision based on new scientific information and forged documentation that had emerged regarding the waste dump. He added that, unlike Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, he is completely opposed to the building of more nuclear power plants—a point he so often makes when addressing voters on the campaign trail. Edwards said that Obama is “open to the possibility of additional power plants” and that Clinton has said she is “agnostic” on the subject.

Obama defended himself, saying that he has long been a critic of Yucca Mountain, yet added that the country should “create a menu of energy options” in handling the storage of nuclear waste and “see where the science and the technology and the entrepreneurship of the American people take us.”

The debate over nuclear power will undoubtedly influence Nevada voters, particularly those who are undecided, in the state’s caucuses on Saturday. Polls indicate that an overwhelming number of Nevadans, both Republicans and Democrats, strongly oppose federal plans to dump the nation’s nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain—and believe it to be a key issue in deciding which presidential candidate to caucus for.

Minutes after he told voters at a Reno, Nevada, rally that his opponents were trying to “run [him] down,” Senator Barack Obama held a media availability today to declare truce with his main competitors - Senators Clinton and Edwards. But mainly Senator Clinton.

“I wanted to take the time to talk to all of you a little bit because I’ve been a little concerned about the tenor the campaign has been going over the last couple of days,” Obama said to a roomful of reporters. “I thought it would be useful for me to just air this out a little bit,” he continued.

“I think over the last couple days you’ve seen a tone on the Democratic side in the campaign that I think is unfortunate,” he stated. “I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We’re all Democrats.” He praised Edwards and Clinton as “patriots” who have the best interests of the country at heart, but urged all campaigns to “focus on the work that needs to get done” during this important time in our history. “I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate into so much tit for tat back and forth that we lose sight of why we are all doing this,” he said.

This unscheduled announcement came just one day after Senator Clinton accused Senator Obama of trying to distort her comments on Martin Luther King, Jr., and challenged the consistency of his position on the war in Iraq. And, lest we forget, one day after BET founder and Clinton supporter, Bob Johnson, insinuated (and later denied) that while Clintons were deeply involved in “black issues”, Barack Obama was doing drugs. [His exact quote per FOX News' Aaron Bruns was, "I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that I won’t say what he was doing that he said it in his book."]

Senator Obama took questions from six reporters - Time’s Mark Halperin asked if Senator Obama would change his rhetoric about the Clintons and Nedra Pickler from the Associated Press questioned Obama on whether he thought the Clintons had been racially insensitive in light of recent comments Senator Clinton made about Martin Luther King, Jr., and those of her husband calling the Obama campaign a “fairy tale.”

Watch Obama’s opening statement and his response to those two questions here:

done

Speaking before a predominantly African-American congregation at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Sumter, South Carolina, John Edwards criticized Hillary Clinton and her husband for comments they made last week just before the New Hampshire primary vote.

“I’m gonna say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change came not through the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, but through a Washington politician,” Edwards said. “I fundamentally disagree with that. Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long and are living in a fairy tale.”

Though he did not mention Hillary Clinton by name, Edwards sought to address a statement she recently made, which some thought gave President Lyndon B. Johnson more credit than Martin Luther King for civil rights laws. Edwards’ use of “fairy tale” seemed to be a gibe at Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” characterization of Obama’s Iraq War position.

The Clintons have since defended their remarks, claiming they were purposely distorted by rival campaigns for political gain—and were not intended to depreciate Dr. King’s influence or degrade Barack Obama.

In his address to the congregation, Edwards praised Obama for his political achievements.

“This may come as a surprise to some of you coming from another presidential candidate,” Edwards said, “but as someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel an enormous amount of pride when I see the success that Senator Barack Obama is having in this campaign.”

Edwards’ support of Obama continued: “The hopes that both Senator Obama and I have for this nation and this country that we love so much, these are not false hopes. They’re real hopes.”

At a press conference following Edwards’ speech, a reporter asked if he was running for Barack Obama’s Vice President instead of the Democratic nominee.

“I’m running for the Democratic nomination,” Edwards said in response, adding with a smile, “I think maybe he should be running for my VP.”

done

Standing in a hall where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once held meetings at the height of the Civil Rights movement, John Edwards addressed issues of racial inequality to a crowd of South Carolinians who gathered to hear him speak at the Penn Center in St. Helena Island.

“Race plays an enormous role in the economic conditions of Americans,” Edwards told the audience. “We can pretend it’s not true but decade after decade of slavery followed by decade after decade of segregation, followed by decade after decade of discrimination has an impact. It has an effect.”

The senator recited statistics to illustrate such disparities, saying that blacks “average about ten percent of the net worth of white families.”

He then focused his attention on health care problems that are endemic to the black community—such as heart disease and diabetes—and stressed the need for a universal health care plan that covers all Americans.

“You are more likely to have serious health care problems,” he said of African Americans, “and less likely to have health care coverage.”

Edwards has visited his native South Carolina more times than the other Democratic candidates. A comeback victory here, after his third place finish in New Hampshire, would be possible if he wins over the African American voters, who make up nearly half of the state’s electorate. According to exit polls from the 2004 Democratic presidential election, Edwards won 37% of the black vote in South Carolina in securing that state’s primary victory.

done

John Edwards’ Mainstreet Express began its four-day “Bringing it Home” bus tour across South Carolina on Friday to push the Senator’s populist message of strengthening the middle class—and to rally support in a state where he will need to do well in order to continue running a competitive campaign.

He also launched a new 30-second television ad titled, “Mill,” which stresses his populist campaign theme and features Edwards speaking about his upbringing in rural Carolina mill towns: “the men and women who worked in that mill with my father were worth every bit as much as the man who owned that mill.”

The ad also attempts to connect with African-American voters, who comprise roughly half of the electorate in South Carolina, and whose vote will prove critical on the day of the primary. Almost every scene in the ad shows black people listening to or cheering for Edwards alongside other white supporters. It is a demographic other presidential contenders have already begun to court—particularly Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton—in the hopes of securing a primary victory.

Edwards is scheduled to hold a town hall meeting at the historic Penn Center on St. Helena Island later today—a site that once operated as a school for freed slaves after the Civil War and later as a training site and retreat center for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Below is John Edwards’ “Mill” ad:

Following his third place finish in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, John Edwards left the snowy landscape of the Granite State for the warmth of South Carolina—the state where he was born and one that he carried in the 2004 Democratic primary. Addressing a crowd of over 1,000 at an outdoor rally at Clemson University on Wednesday, Edwards pledged to continue his race for the White House with the promise of restoring the middle class.

He spoke at length about his Southern upbringing. With several of his family members present, Edwards described his childhood growing up “in South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, in mill towns, in mill villages,” and added that he understood the problems facing the South “in a very personal way.”

”What I learned growing up here, is you don’t start a fight, but you never walk away from one,” Edwards said to the crowd of mostly college students. “The fight to restore the promise of America and save the middle class will be an epic battle — but I will never give up.”

Calling himself the underdog, Edwards made clear that only one percent of Americans have voted, and said that his message “cuts right through all the money” of the “two celebrity candidates”—alluding to senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“Listen, no matter what the media says, so far there have been two contests,” he added towards the end of his speech. “Two states—Iowa, where I finished second, and New Hampshire, where I finished third. There are 48 states left to go, and your voice here in South Carolina is gonna be heard.”

done

Bedford, NH

Governor Romney had a packed day today filled with greeting voters at polling stations and scrambling for those last minute votes. Keep reading for the voting day play by play:

Manchester, NH
7:05AM

His first stop was with his wife Ann and Senator Judd Gregg at 7AM. He missed Governor Huckabee by moments at the Brookside Congregational Church in Manchester. Most people seemed eager to shake the presidential hopeful’s hand, but one man yelled hello to the governor saying it was nice to see him but adding, “I can’t help ya!”

Romney told the press that his campaign had made 100,000 calls in the last day and believes he is going to take it all:

“We are going to end up winning this thing and for that matter that will mean that I have gotten more votes than anybody else in this process so far with Iowa, Wyoming, and New Hampshire. So we are on to Michigan after success here tonight.”

Bedford, NH
7:50AM

Romney made his 2nd stop at Bedford High School. He again greeted voters going to the polls and stayed positive saying that this is a 50 state game and that he beat McCain in Iowa and Wyoming and he could beat him here.

A great example of New Hampshire retail politics happened when a man walked by Romney and said, “You’re a good guy, but you call my house way too much!”

Just another presidential candidate in the first primary state of New Hampshire!

done

Number three was the Broad Street Elementary School and it was a mob scene of media, supporters, and of course voters trying to get through.

A loud group of McCain supporters hollered, “The McCain Way!” and “100 feet! 100 feet!” A reference to how far away Romney had to stay away from the polling location. Romney supporters chimed in with, “Let’s go Mitt!” And “We love Mitt!” He tried to greet voters and take pictures, but it was almost impossible with the media hoard.

He gave an update on how he was feeling, lowering expectations just a bit:

“At this stage I feel awfully darn good. I can’t guarantee what is going to happen. I would like to win here. I would like to get the gold here.”

done

(more…)