He should not accept or seek a position from either campaign
Pain builds movements.
Failure hurts, as we have seen here with the lament of the Edwards faithful. As we saw beneath John’s words in New Orleans. This will lead to temptation. The temptation to endorse, or to accept a cabinet position will be strong. Doing these things would make you feel better. Make you feel like something was accomplished. It will make you feel better because you will fade into history. It will make you feel better because you think that when your pain is on display for all to see that it only serves to amplify the hurt. The pain can be an end. Or, it can be when you truly begin.
If you endorse, you sell your passion cheaply. You sell the passion of your faithful cheaply. You consign your work to someone who has not earned it, and therefore does not know its value, will not cherish it. You hand the seed of possibility to someone who has already sown their field, hoping that there is space for it among crops more loved.
If you accept a position, you accept an echo. Your words and deeds will be a distant reverberation, inaudible to those that need to hear it, ringing empty in every ear.
It is my hope that John Edwards grabs the mantle of a failed democrat. Failed like Carter, who fights with his every breath for a better world. Whose loss made him the great man that we see.
Failed like Gore. Who has taken his failure and made it powerful. Changing the very narrative of the world.
John Edwards should accept the responsibility, and new democratic tradition, not of failure, but of turning adversity into movement. The new tradition of never fading into shadow.
John Edwards, endorse no one, accept nothing, and make history.