This is an exaggeration but the basic point remains. Edwards is by far our best candidate in red states. Polling has him flipping North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky (a semi-southern state), and Florida. If he wins in even a red state like Kentucky it is likely that he would also flip states like Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia, although I have not seen a general election poll including Edwards in those states.
The other takeaway from this is that Edwards will, following Dean's successful model, compete everywhere. We need a 50 state strategy for president as well. Why? Will that allow our nominee to win Idaho? No. The value of a 50 state presidential campaign is twofold: 1) It will help Democratic candidates down the ticket. 2) It will help us make inroads in these states. Perhaps we will not flip Idaho or Alaska by 2012, or even 2016. However, maybe if we showed up there consistently we could get it into the Democratic column by 2020. We have to think long-term, like the Republicans did when they were in the political wilderness in the 60's and 70's.
Wife: Edwards wouldn't cede Texas
AUSTIN -- The wife of presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday that if her husband won the Democratic nomination he would not cede Texas even though the state has gone to the Republican candidate in every election dating to 1980.
"We have a saying in our family that you're never going to win a football game you don't play in," Elizabeth Edwards said at the state Democratic headquarters in Austin, where she claimed victory for her husband in Texas' so-called e-primary. The former North Carolina senator gained nearly 38 percent of the 8,101 votes cast online last week.
"John Edwards is popular in red states," she said, using television networks' Election Day shorthand of shading states that voted Republican in red and Democratic in blue. "He can do as well in Texas as he did in North Carolina."
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