Edwards, Giuliani Bow Out of Presidential Races

WASHINGTON — Democrat John Edwards and Republican Rudy Giuliani abandoned their presidential quests Wednesday, narrowing the leading candidates to two in each party but doing little to fundamentally change the dynamic in the hard-fought and potentially lengthy presidential races.

In a surprise announcement in a hurricane-devastated area of New Orleans, Edwards told supporters that "it is time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," with either New York Sen. Hillary Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic Party's 2008 presidential nominee.

Similarly, Giuliani announced at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library prior to a nationally televised Republican debate that he would end his bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination and back Arizona Sen. John McCain, the victor in Tuesday's pivotal Florida GOP presidential primary.

Giuliani listed the positive attributes needed in a person who wants to be president.

"Obviously I thought I was that person," he said with McCain at his side. "The voters made a different decision."

He said it took him no time to decide who to back, portraying McCain as a longtime friend well-qualified to lead the nation.

"He has shown character throughout his life. In this very campaign, as an adversary watching where he was and where he came from made me admire him even more," Giuliani said, referring to when McCain's candidacy seemed dead last year. "He came from behind to go way ahead and once again displayed his tenacity, his courage, his ability to focus his ability to get things done."

Giuliani's withdrawal leaves McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the leading candidates for the 2008 GOP nomination, though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul continue to campaign to be the party's presidential standard bearer.

Giuliani said he would campaign wherever McCain wants him to, and stressed McCain's electability.

"We both believe in building a stronger and broader Republican Party ... one that competes for urban and rural voters of all races and all religions in all 50 states because that's the way we are going to win this election, creating a revitalized 50-state Republican Party that can break through the red state-blue state divide. John McCain gives us as Republicans our best chance of doing that," Giuliani said.

McCain said he was "deeply honored" by the endorsement and praised Giuliani's post-9/11 efforts in New York.

Giuliani, said McCain, will serve as "my strong right arm and my partner and friend in this effort."

Edwards ended his spirited but underfunded presidential bid in the same city from which he launched his 2008 campaign, choosing the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to underscore his commitment to rebuild the city and to aggressively combat poverty throughout the country.

In his announcement, Edwards said Clinton and Obama had both pledged that "they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency." Joined by his wife, Elizabeth, and his three children, Cate, Emma Claire and Jack, Edwards said, "This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause."

Edwards said his decision to suspend his campaign had nothing to do with the health of his wife, who learned last fall that her breast cancer had returned and was inoperable. Edwards said his wife's health remains good.

Edwards declined to endorse Clinton or Obama. And top senior advisers said they did not expect him to back either of his former rivals, at least until after Feb. 5 when 22 states hold primaries or caucuses, with more than half the delegates needed to win the party's presidential nomination up for grabs.

"We do not know who will take the final steps to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but what we do know is that our Democratic Party will make history," Edwards said, alluding to the fact that Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman president and Obama, if he wins, would be the first African American to occupy the Oval Office. "We will be strong, we will be unified, and with our convictions and a little backbone, we will take back the White House in November," Edwards added.

Analysts suggested that Edwards' supporters may be more inclined to switch allegiance to Obama than to Clinton, given the populist, anti-Washington nature of the former North Carolina senator's campaign. "The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama will pick up maybe 60 percent of them, and in some places, that makes a huge difference," said former presidential adviser David Gergen.

But an Associated Press poll conducted this month found that four in 10 Edwards supporters had Clinton as their second choice in the Democratic contest, with a quarter preferring Obama.

The Feb. 5 voting, once expected to crown a nominee, now appears more likely to mark the beginning of a delegate-by-delegate fight between Clinton and Obama through the much of the rest of the nominating process.

Obama was the first to react to Edwards' withdrawal, saying, "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."

In a statement, Clinton, praised Edwards for having "ended his campaign today in the same way he started it — by standing with the people who are too often left behind and nearly always left out of our national debate.

It was Edwards' second attempt to win his party's presidential nomination, the first in 2004 ending with him as the vice presidential nominee on the ticket headed by John Kerry. Four years ago, Edwards won the primary in his native South Carolina. But this year, his best showing was second place in the Iowa caucus, which was followed by distant third places in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Giuliani's endorsement of McCain could provide a significant boost in several of the Super Tuesday states. GOP strategist Rich Galen, a former adviser to Fred Thompson's aborted presidential campaign, said McCain was the second choice of many Giuliani voters. There's little chance that Giuliani supporters, skewed heavily toward the more moderate wing of the GOP, would move to Huckabee or Romney.

"There was a time they might have been Romney, but not now," Galen said in a nod to Romney's recent overtures to the GOP's more conservative wing.

While the Giuliani vote was small, it could be important in several key Super Tuesday states. Though polling only in the low teens in recent California polls, Giuliani's support among more moderate Republicans there could translate into additional delegates for McCain. Under the state party rules, 159 of the 170 California delegates in play on Tuesday are awarded on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district.

McCain also could benefit in winter-take-all northeastern states – including New York, New Jersey and Delaware – in which Giuliani was polling well. The bottom line is a potentially big plus for McCain, Galen said, even if Giuliani was picking up only 15-18 percent of the GOP vote.

"If half goes to McCain, a quarter stay home and a quarter go elsewhere, that's still a lot of potential votes" for McCain, he said.

Earlier Tuesday, anticipating Giuliani's endorsement of McCain, Romney chided the move and couched it as confirmation that McCain cannot appeal to the GOP's more conservative base.

"I think as a more progressive member of the Republican party, (Giuliani) felt more comfortable with a guy who, after all, was endorsed by The New York Times," Romney told Fox News.

As Giuliani bowed out, the International Association of Fire Fighters, which worked to defeat him, took some credit for the end of the ex-mayor's campaign. Though Giuliani did win backing from some police and firefighter organizations, others spent months making the case that Giuliani, as mayor, did not do all he could for first responders who worked at the 9/11 attack scene.

"Rudy Giuliani's decision to end his campaign for president of the United States is good news for our country and is a clear repudiation of his shameless effort to profit – politically and financially – from a national tragedy," said Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

In the two weeks leading to the Florida primary, the organization sent retired fire fighters there "to continue chipping away at the Giuliani myth."

Kenneth Sherrill, a political scientist at New York's Hunter College, said Giuliani's campaign failed, in part, because "his key issue, terrorism, failed to resonate with the voters because they were more concerned with the economy."

"And his message on the economy was not distinctive from that of the other Republican candidates," Sherrill said.

As former litigators, Giuliani and Edwards "know when to settle for the best they can get and when not to risk it all when there is no chance of winning," Sherrill said.