The New York Times looks into the Edwards campaign’s fight following a very poor showing in Nevada. With many wondering why Edwards would stay in the race, the story lends some insight. Put simply, Edwards has made this campaign about his life’s work.

“I think it’s a cause, and it looks like it’s a way of life,” said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University who is an expert on Southern politics. “It’s hard to let that go, it’s hard to let that cause go. I think he really, really believes that he’s destined to be president of the United States.”

Most interesting from the article is the following:

But his aides have said privately that they do not expect Mr. Edwards to win a single primary state. And the results of the Nevada caucuses threw the campaign’s top advisers into hours of strategy meetings Saturday night, debating how the shellshocked campaign could feasibly continue.

In the end, the campaign held onto its longstanding position of simply hanging on. “There’s just no reason not to go to South Carolina, pick up delegates and watch the dynamics of the race play out for a while,” one adviser said.

Edwards will undoubtedly continue into South Carolina, perhaps as the piece suggests angling as a spoiler for Hillary Clinton by grabbing up some of the white vote that might otherwise go to her. It is conceivable, with the way Democrats apportion delegates, that Edwards will stay true to his word and continue fighting through the convention, acting as a dealmaker/dealbreaker there leveraging whatever delegates he takes up.

One thing is for certain though, Edwards is losing his standing with a media that wants to frame this as a two-person contest and with only a few percentage points won in Nevada it seems he is quickly losing interest among Democratic voters.

[techtags: Democratic Convention, Democratic Delegates, John Edwards, South Carolina, Spoiler, politics]