Edwards shrugs off Nevada results
Posted: Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:54 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Tricia Miller
GREENVILLE, SC -- Edwards wrapped up his coast-to-coast tour across the country today at Greenville High School here in South Carolina, only hours after he finished a distant third in Nevada.
Following the town hall, Edwards tried to shrug off the Silver State's choice. "This is one of those times that I hope the old saying what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas turns out to be true," he told a reporter who asked whether he was disappointed. To another who asked what went wrong in Nevada, he replied, "Oh, I don't think it means anything. I think the other candidates spent enormous amounts of money and we didn't. It was a caucus process. They were there for a long time organizing. I'm excited about being here in South Carolina. So we've now had three states vote out of 50. We got 47 to go, and this cause that I'm engaged in is not going to go away and it has not changed."
Yet the Edwards campaign conducted a four-state strategy in the last months of 2007, focusing exclusively on Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. Though Edwards spent most of his time going back and forth between Iowa and New Hampshire, the Hotline's count of candidate visits to Nevada between January 2007 and Jan. 16, 2008 shows that Edwards visited the state more often than any other candidate. Edwards came 17 times, while Barack Obama came 12 times and Hillary Clinton eight times.
Edwards' last stop in Nevada before Tuesday of this week was for a town hall in Reno on Nov. 18. Prioritizing his native state of South Carolina over Nevada, Edwards flew directly to the Palmetto State after the New Hampshire primary and spent almost a week campaigning there before flying to Nevada for the MSNBC debate on Tuesday. Edwards' public schedule shows that he will be in South Carolina campaigning through Thursday. He said he is excited to bring his fight to South Carolina.
"This is the place where what I'm fighting for -- the middle class and low-income families, fighting for jobs and health care -- this is a message that resonates here. So none of this has changed. I am not finished with this fight. I am dead in it."