Edwards fights on despite wife's cancer

Edwards fights on despite wife's cancer
By Andrew Ward in Atlanta
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: March 23 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 23 2007 02:00


John Edwards has vowed to press ahead with his campaign for the Democratic US presidential nomination despite a setback in his wife's battle with cancer.

Mr Edwards, the defeated vice-presidential candidate in 2004, said his wife, Elizabeth, had suffered a recurrence of the cancer that was first diagnosed just over two years ago.

Standing beside Elizabeth in their home city of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he said his bid for the presidency would continue.

"The campaign goes on," he said. "The campaign goes on strongly."

But he made clear that politics would not interfere with caring for his wife.

"Any time, any place I need to be with Elizabeth I will be there - period," he said.

Opinion polls show Mr Edwards in third place in the race for the Democratic nomination, behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

But he has been polling strongly in some states with early primaries and has won praise from many grassroots Democrats for his firm opposition to the Iraq war and his progressive stance on issues such as poverty, healthcare and climate change.

Mr Edwards cancelled a campaign event in Iowa, one of the most important primary battleground states, on Tuesday to return to North Carolina. Ms Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer in the closing weeks of the 2004 presidential election campaign.

She had several months of radiation and chemotherapy and the Edwards campaign declared as recently as last week that she had made a full recovery. A check-up this week, however, found that cancer had returned in her bones.

Mr Edwards said that the cancer was not curable but he voiced optimism that treatment would allow her to live for many years. "I don't look sickly, I don't feel sickly," said Ms Edwards. "I am as ready as any person can be for [this]."

The couple met while studying law together at the University of North Carolina. In 1996, their 16-year-old son, Wade, was killed in a car accident. They have three other children.

An opinion poll released this week gave Ms Clintona 15 percentage point lead over her rival Democratic presidential hopefuls, with Mr Obama in second place and Mr Edwards tied for third with Al Gore, the former vice-president. Mr Gore says he has no plans to enter the race but has refused to rule out the possibility completely.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 37 per cent of registered Democrats said they would vote for Ms Clinton as the Democratic 2008 nominee, while 22 per cent said they would back Mr Obama, 14 per cent Mr Gore and 12 per cent Mr Edwards. If Mr Gore sticks to his decision not to run, Ms Clinton's lead would grow even larger, according to the poll.

A recent CBS News/New York Times poll showed the public expects a Democratic candidate to win in 2008 by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.

Democrats are overwhelmingly confident of victory, with 78 per cent predicting their party will win, compared with 40 per cent of Republicans who believe that a Democrat will win.