I suppose it had to happen at some point, but I kept telling myself that he could make it to the Democratic convention and then barter for a position in the Obama White House. Alas, it was not to be. John Edwards, that stalwart advocate for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, dropped out of the race Wednesday after winning only 62 of the 452 convention delegates awarded through January 29 and no primaries or caucuses. The party requires 2,025 to secure the nomination.

In the end, the numbers just weren’t there to win the nomination even if, by some miracle, Edwards had won all the delegates in all 24 February 5th primary states. For that matter, neither could his opponents, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They, however, had more of a headstart and momentum in their favor.

“He wanted to have a shot at being president,” said Joe Trippi, a senior adviser, in a New York Times article. “He wanted to have a chance to change people’s lives, not be a spoiler or a kingmaker and not play political games.”

That’s just the kind of guy Edwards is. He has a great deal of integrity. If he was in the race, he was in it to win and no one need worry about any ulterior motives. Edwards could be counted on to tell the straightforward truth. As he famously stated during the South Carolina Democratic debate, he represented the “grown-up” wing of the Democratic Party.

Although I subsequently decided to support Obama, it took me over a year to make up my mind. Until a few days ago, I leaned heavily toward Edwards because he most closely shared my values. I moved away from that support because, as much as I liked him (and I liked him a lot) Edwards did not inspire others the way Obama did. Obama shared the vast majority of Edwards’ values and managed to move people to action.

Be that as it may, I am very sorry to see John Edwards’ dream come to an end and wish him and his family well. It is my hope that the next Democratic administration realizes how lucky it would be to have him in its Cabinet. Now, it’s time to figure out how his 62 delegates and other supporters will re-align their allegiances. Let the bidding begin!

Those Wacky New Yorkers

John Edwards wasn’t the only potential presidential nominee to hang up his track shoes. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Republican polls even before he announced his candidacy for the party’s nomination in February 2006, finally figured out that he had to actually work to get people to vote for him. For some inexplicable reason, Giuliani honestly believed that all he had to do was sit in Florida as primaries and caucuses went on in other parts of the country and wait. “Wait for what?” you ask. Wait for the media and voters to rediscover that he’s there and, in the latter case, cast their votes for him–something they didn’t do in droves last Tuesday when he garnered a third-place finish behind challengers John McCain and Mitt Romney. In the seven Republican pre-convention contests thus far, Giuliani has secured exactly one delegate out of the 208 awarded. The GOP requires 1,191 to secure the nomination. Perhaps he was really sitting in Florida and waiting for more of whatever illicit drug he’s so clearly imbibing and that’s why he couldn’t get off his butt to campaign. Giuliani has endorsed Sen. John McCain.

Apparently, Rudy was in the mood to share his drugs because Marcia Pappas, head of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), has got it into her head that Senator Ted Kennedy has “betrayed” women by endorsing Obama instead of Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Any partial quote of the chapter’s January 28 press release would not do her diatribe justice, so I will quote it in total:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). “They” are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.

There are plenty of very valid reasons not to support Clinton that have nothing to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of people of both sexes who don’t want to see a female president, but Ted Kennedy isn’t among them. There are at least an equal number of people who don’t want to see a black president. Let’s not fall into the trap of comparing -isms. To do so is often counter-productive and diminishes the hardships that all of us who are not straight, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Judeo-Christian males face.

I am very pleased to say that cooler heads have prevailed at the national office of NOW. In a contrasting press release also released January 28, the group’s president, Kim Gandy stated:

The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- Mass.). For decades Sen. Kennedy has been a friend of NOW, and a leader and fighter for women’s civil and reproductive rights, and his record shows that.

Though the National Organization for Women Political Action Committee has proudly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, we respect Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement. We continue to encourage women everywhere to express their opinions and exercise their right to vote.

The Huffington Post has an interview with Pappas here.

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