Third Candidate on the Ropes

John Edwards yesterday returned to his home state of South Carolina, hoping for a rebirth of his campaign after a crushing third place finish in Nevada sharpened doubts about his candidacy.

Edwards, who once claimed an advantage in Nevada because of his union connections, won just 4% of the popular vote in Saturday's caucuses and failed to win a single delegate. The rejection of his message by America's most heavily unionized state during a time of growing economic anxiety badly damages his argument that the Democratic contest remains a three-person race.

An exit by Edwards now could give a slight edge to Barack Obama. Polls from Nevada showed 40% of his supporters opting for Obama as their second choice, while about a third went for Clinton. There have been indications of that alliance, with Edwards associating himself with Obama's message of change and attacking Clinton as a force of the status quo. But Edwards also attacked Obama in Nevada.

Edwards was insistent he remained in the race. The one-term Democratic Senator from North Carolina said he remained more electable than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the more conservative states of the south. The first test of that claim arrives on Saturday when South Carolina holds its Democratic primary.

Edwards, who was born in South Carolina and won the state's primary in 2004, now hopes for a strong showing on Saturday, and in Georgia on Super Tuesday, to keep his campaign alive. "The race to the nomination is a marathon and not a sprint, and we're committed to making sure the voices of all the voters in the remaining 47 states are heard," his campaign manager, David Bonior, said in a statement.