DebateGate

Saturday, Jan. 26, 2008
Obama's Win Reshapes the Race
By Karen Tumulty

There was only way to describe Barack Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in South Carolina: It was a rout. "After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans that we've seen in a long, long time," Obama declared at his victory celebration in Columbia. "There are young and old; rich and poor. They are black and white; Latino and Asian and Native American. They are Democrats from Des Moines and Independents from Concord, and yes, some Republicans from rural Nevada and we've got young people from all across this country who've never had a reason to participate until now."

Obama's impressive win meant all the more given the nature of politics in South Carolina, a state whose history is fraught with race and class. Some observers wondered if the state's voters were becoming more racially polarized in the final days before the primary. That speculation was fueled by one late McClatchy/MSNBC survey that suggested Obama could expect to receive no more than 10% of the white vote, half of what the same poll had shown only a week before. But Obama instead won about a quarter of the white vote overall, and around half of young white voters, on his way to a commanding 55% of the total vote (Clinton finished second with roughly 27% and Edwards came in third with 18%). The excitement around Obama's candidacy pushed turnout to record levels ? a kind of surge, says Obama strategist Cornell Belcher, that "is something only Barack Obama is capable of bringing to the table."

It is a powerful message for the Illinois Senator to take into the Super Tuesday round of primaries on February 5. "In nine days-nine short days ? nearly half the nation will have the chance to join us in saying that we are tired of business-as-usual in Washington, we are hungry for change, and we are ready to believe again," Obama declared. His South Carolina victory will be topped by an endorsement by Caroline Kennedy, in a Sunday New York Times op-ed headlined: "A President Like My Father." The move will serve as a powerful, symbolic counter to the most visible surrogate in this race, Bill Clinton ? the boy whose own political awakening famously came when he shook JFK's hand as a 16-year-old as part of an American Legion Boy's Nation visit to the nation's capital.

Still, the sobering reality for the Obama campaign is that Clinton's massive organization will present a formidable challenge in the 20-plus states that will be voting on February 5. Clinton, knowing that bad news was coming, didn't even hold a final rally for her supporters in South Carolina; shortly after the polls closed, her campaign plane was headed for Tennessee. She issued a terse written statement noting that she had called Obama to "wish him well," and adding, "We now turn our attention to the millions of Americans who will make their voices heard in Florida and the twenty-two states as well as American Samoa who will vote on February 5th." Bill Clinton, at a rally in Missouri, added: "Now we go to February 5, when millions of Americans finally get in the act."

The former President was actually the first Clinton to speak in the wake of Obama's triumph Saturday evening, and it only underscored how his outsized, vocal presence on the trail has threatened to overshadow his wife. Earlier in the day, Clinton had churlishly compared Obama's victory to that of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, a remark that will likely further fuel disaffection about the Clintons amongst African-American voters. There was evidence that Obama's victory was also a repudiation of the brand of hard-knuckled politics that both Clintons had brought to the South Carolina contest. Exit polls indicated that Bill Clinton's campaigning made a difference to about 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters. But of those voters, 47% went for Barack Obama, while only 38% went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent voted for John Edwards. The Obama campaign gleefully noted that in the mostly black precincts that Bill Clinton visted in Greenville, as much as 80% of the vote went to Obama.

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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1707277,00.html

Karzai: Terrorists could regain control
Story Highlights
Karzai said "misguided policy objectives" fueling violence in Afghanistan
President says Osama bin Laden not in Afghanistan
Karzai says he's prepared to accept the nickname "puppet"

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) -- Unless more is done to tackle growing extremism in countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan could once again fall into terrorist hands with dire consequence for the region and the world, the country's president warned Friday.

Hamid Karzai said "misguided policy objectives" of unnamed countries or organizations were continuing to fuel violence in Afghanistan, although he was confident al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was no longer within its borders.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai also reluctantly accepted his image as "a puppet of America" but he shied away from accepting reported U.S. doubts that NATO troops lacked the training to combat the Taliban.

Asked if he agreed with a recent assessment by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported in the L.A. Times that NATO forces lacked the necessary skills, Karzai said he was not able to comment, but the fight needed to be more focused in Afghanistan and beyond.

"I believe there has to be a bigger effort, a more robust effort concentrated on the right objective," he said.

"The fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan, a very small part of it may be in Afghanistan, the bigger part is in the sanctuaries where they get trained where they get motivated that is where we should go and unless we do that this vicious circle will keep going."Watch Karzai address the issue of bin Laden ?

He said the Taliban were being funded partly by opium poppy crops, thriving due to the failure of efforts to eradicate them, from religious extremists and a "combination of criminals, misguided policy objectives and folly".

However he rejected claims al Qaeda or the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until it was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, received funds from Saudi Arabia.

Karzai expressed concerns over growing terrorism in neighboring Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf faces mounting opposition to quit amid spreading militant violence.

"The problem is growing, the problem has grown, unfortunately, of terrorism in Pakistan," he said.

"I was concerned, I remain concerned but I had a very fruitful talk with president Musharraf last time. From that respect I hope there is more recognition of dangers there and of the dangers of the future of both countries and the region.

"Based on that I hope there will be a stronger effort in Pakistan and the region, and help from the rest of the world."

He added: "It is one thing to recognize facts, it but it is another thing to work at it, to get at and remove it and defeat it and destroy it."

Assessing progress in his own country, Karzai said things were improving despite ongoing violence.

"It is better than last year, some parts of the country are much better than last year. Some parts of the country are not better than last year.

"And actually, the parts of the country that are not good are shrinking in size, and the parts that are getting better and better are expanding in size, so the overall situation in the country is a most definite improvement."

On Osama bin Laden, Karzai insisted the fugitive terrorist mastermind would eventually be caught, even though he continued to elude coalition forces.

"I wish I knew where he was so we could go after him. No absconder, no man running away from the law will be able to hide forever, some day we'll catch him. (He is) not in Afghanistan. He has no place to hide in Afghanistan."

On his perceived image as an impotent leader in thrall to the U.S. administration, Karzai, said he was willing to shoulder insults in return for U.S. assistance.

"Me a puppet? My God.

"Anyway, Americans have helped Afghanistan tremendously. The American people have a feeling for Afghanistan a very, very great feeling.

"The U.S administration has helped Afghanistan and if we are called puppets, or if I am called a puppet because we are grateful to America, then let that be my nickname.

"The truth is that without the United States in Afghanistan, Afghanistan would be a very poor, miserable country, occupied by neighbors and al Qaeda and terrorists."

CNN's Becky Anderson, Barry Neild contributed to this report


Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/25/karzai.interview/index.html  

Campaign Frustrates Some Gay Activists

Jan 25, 6:48 AM (ET)

By DAVID CRARY
 

NEW YORK (AP) - Few constituencies are as eager for the Republican Party to falter this political season as gay-rights activists. Yet as they observe the Democratic presidential campaign and the rest of the electoral landscape, their high hopes often are mixed with frustration.

Even as they expect to support whichever Democrat gets the presidential nomination, many activists are disappointed that the three leading contenders rarely mention gay-rights topics unless responding to a question.

"They don't want to broach civil unions, marriage, equalizing benefits for same-sex couples," said Jennifer Chrisler, head of the Family Equality Council, which supports gay and lesbian families. "The vast majority of politicians don't lead, they follow."

There are other frustrations as well. Activists were dismayed that the Democratic-led Congress failed to approve two much-anticipated bills late last year - one defining anti-gay assaults as a federal hate crime, the other prohibiting anti-gay job discrimination.

And at a time when they hoped to be making advances, gays and lesbians are on the defensive in at least two states - facing a likely ballot item in Florida that would ban same-sex marriage and a measure in Arkansas aimed at banning them from adopting children or serving as foster parents.

Prior to the New Hampshire primary, the Boston-based gay newspaper Bay Windows - which circulates across New England - was approached by representatives of several Democratic candidates seeking an endorsement, editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar said.

Instead, Ryan-Vollmar wrote a biting column asserting that none of the front-runners - Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards - had shown enough courage on gay issues to deserve the customarily generous financial support of gay donors.

"They've merely settled on what the Democrats have staked out as a safe, consensus position, just far enough ahead of where the party was in 2004 to give a sense of progress but not so far as to threaten Middle America," Ryan-Vollmar wrote. "That's not leadership, it's poll-tested and party-approved pandering, pure and simple."

Rather than donating to any presidential candidate, gays and lesbians should give money to state and local candidates who support marriage rights, she wrote.

Debra Chasnoff, a San Francisco filmmaker whose documentaries often explore gay-rights themes, said the gay community's votes are up for grabs - to any candidate who seeks them boldly.

"They're all saying they're the ones for change - and one thing this country needs change on is having a president who's for marriage equality," Chasnoff said. "Instead, there's silence."

Kerry Eleveld, news editor of The Advocate, a prominent gay-oriented news magazine, drew a distinction between activists with major national gay-rights groups and local activists without ties to Washington powerbrokers.

"The grass-roots activists are upset that the candidates haven't been more out there, especially on the issue of same-sex marriage," she said. "The lobbyist activists think in terms of electability. They're always going to be a little more practical and give more leeway to the candidates."

The president of the largest national gay-rights organization, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, is upbeat about the campaign. His group co-sponsored a televised forum last August in which the Democratic candidates addressed gay-rights topics, and he believes most gays and lesbians remain enthusiastic about the Democratic field despite some impatience.

Solmonese also sees an easing of anti-gay rhetoric across the political scene - a contrast to 2004 and 2006 when voters in more than 20 states approved measures to ban gay marriage.

"Among those people who use the politics of fear, there's typically an element of American society that's put forward as a wedge issue, and in this election it's illegal immigrants," Solmonese said. "It doesn't seem to be us."

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, noted that the campaign rhetoric is dominated by overarching issues - the economy, Iraq, health care - that virtually all voters, including gays, agree are paramount.

"These campaigns are driven by polling data," he said.

Beyond presidential politics and the Florida ballot measure, some activists point to other developments as reasons for optimism.

For example, a grass-roots group, the National Stonewall Democrats, is working to boost the number of gay and lesbian delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Spokesman John Marble said the goal is to have more than 320 such delegates out of a total of 4,049; that would be up from 282 gay delegates in 2004.

The long-term hope is that these gay delegates stay active in politics.

"In four or eight years, when the Democrats are competing again, we're hoping to present them with infrastructure we built this year," Marble said. "They'll have to interact with our community in much deeper ways."




http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080125/D8UCSQGG0.html

The helmet that could turn back the symptoms of Alzheimer's
By DAVID DERBYSHIRE - More by this author ?
 
Last updated at 10:47am on 25th January 2008

An experimental helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used is to be tried out on patients.

The strange-looking headgear - which has to be worn for ten minutes every day - bathes the brain with infra-red light and stimulates the growth of brain cells.

Its creators believe it could reverse the symptoms of dementia - such as memory loss and anxiety - after only four weeks.

Alzheimer's disease charities last night described the treatment as "potentially life- changing" - but stressed that the research was still at the very early stages.

Scroll down for more ...



lead researcher at the University of Sunderland Dr Abdel Ennaceur and Durham University s Dr Paul Chazot are pictured with Dr Gordon Dougal and a prototype cognitive helmet


Around 700,000 Britons have dementia, with around 500,000 suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

The helmet is the creation of Dr Gordon Dougal, a director of Virulite, a medical research company based in County Durham.

It follows a study at the University of Sunderland which found infra-red light can reverse memory loss in mice.

Dr Dougal claims that only ten minutes under the hat a day is enough to have an effect.

"Currently all you can do with dementia is to slow down the rate of decay - this new process will not only stop that rate of decay but partially reverse it," he said.

Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.

"The implications of this research at Sunderland are enormous - so much so that in the future we could be able to affect and change the rate at which our bodies age," he said.

"We age because our cells lose the desire to regenerate and repair themselves. This ultimately results in cell death and decline of the organ functions - for the brain resulting in memory decay and deterioration in general intellectual performance.

"But what if there was a technology that told the cells to repair themselves and that technology was something as simple as a specific wavelength of light?"

The study at Sunderland found that exposing middle-aged mice to infrared light for six minutes a day for ten days improved their performance in a three-dimensional maze. In the human trials, due to start this summer, the scientists will use levels of infra-red that occur naturally in sunlight.

Neuroscientist Paul Chazot, who helped carry out the research, said: "The results are completely new - this has never been looked at before."

An Alzheimer's Society spokesman said: "A treatment that reverses the effects of dementia rather than just temporarily halting its symptoms could change the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people. We look forward to further research to determine whether this technique could help improve cognition in humans."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=510172&in_page_id=1774

Dobbs: Our leaders have squandered our wealth

Story Highlights
Lou Dobbs says a stimulus package won't prevent a recession
Our leaders have squandered the nation's wealth, he says
Dobbs says mistakes of past 25 years have led to this crisis

By Lou Dobbs
CNN
Lou Dobbs' commentary appears weekly on CNN.com.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- President Bush's assurances that we'll all be "just fine" if he and Congress can work out an economic stimulus package seem a little hollow this morning.

Much like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke's assurances last May that the subprime mortgage meltdown would be contained and not affect the broader economy. And it seems Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has spent most of the past year trying to influence Chinese economic policy rather than setting the direction of U.S. economic policy.

There is no question that Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will quickly come up with an economic stimulus package simply because they can no longer ignore our economic and financial crisis. That economic stimulus plan will amount to about 1 percent of our nation's gross domestic product, an estimated $150 billion.

But all of us should recognize that the stimulus package will be inadequate to drive sustainable growth in our $13 trillion economy. An emergency Fed rate cut and an economic stimulus plan are short-term responses to our complex economic problems, nothing more than bandages for a hemorrhaging economy.

Bush, Pelosi, Reid and the presidential candidates of both parties have an opportunity now, and I believe an obligation, to adjust the public policy mistakes of the past quarter-century that have led to this crisis. And only through courageous policy decisions will we be able to steer this nation's economy away from the brink of outright disaster.

We all have to acknowledge that our problems were in part brought on by the failure of our government to regulate the institutions and markets that are now in crisis. The irresponsible fiscal policies of the past decade have led to a national debt that amounts to $9 trillion. The irresponsible so-called free trade policies of Democratic and Republican administrations over the past three decades have produced a trade debt that now amounts to more than $6 trillion, and that debt is rising faster than our national debt. All of which is contributing to the plunge in the value of the U.S. dollar.

At precisely the point in our history in which this nation has become ever more dependent on foreign producers for everything from clothing to computers to technology to energy, our weakened dollar is making the price of an ever-increasing number of imported goods even more expensive.

All Americans will soon have to face a bitter and now obvious truth: Our national, political and economic leaders have squandered this nation's wealth, and the price of this profligacy is enormous, and the bill has just come due for all of us.

Bernanke endorsed the concept of a short-term economic stimulus package, but he cautioned that the money must be spent correctly: "You'd hope that [consumers] would spend it on things that are domestically produced so that the spending power doesn't go elsewhere."

Just what would you have us spend it on? The truth is that consumers spend most of their money on foreign imports, and any stimulus package probably would be stimulating foreign economies rather than our own. Imports, for example, account for 92 percent of our non-athletic footwear, 92 percent of audio video equipment, 89 percent of our luggage and 73 percent of power tools. In fact, between 1997 and 2006, only five of the 114 industries examined in a U.S. Business and Industry Council report gained market share against import competition.

And let's be honest and straightforward, as I hope our president and the candidates for president will be: This stimulus will not prevent a recession. It may ease the pain for millions of Americans, but a recession we will have. The question is how deep, how prolonged and how painful will it be. Unfortunately, we're about to find out how committed and capable our national leaders are at mitigating that pain and producing realistic policy decisions for this nation that now stands at the brink.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/22/Dobbs.January23/index.html 

In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb".



Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.



The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV was Fred and Wilma Flintstone.



Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.



Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.



Coca-Cola was originally green.



It is impossible to lick your elbow.



The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000



Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.



The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.



Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king in history:

Spades - King David

Hearts - Charlemagne

Clubs -Alexander, the Great

Diamonds - Julius Caesar

http://www.gaiaonline.com/profiles/?u=9360720

Does this mean XO, MT and the Gipper will now embrace Isreal?

January 21, 2008
Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars
By STEVEN ERLANGER
JERUSALEM ? Israel, tiny and bereft of oil, has decided to embrace the electric car.

On Monday, the Israeli government will announce its support for a broad effort to promote the use of electric cars, embracing a joint venture between an American-Israeli entrepreneur and Renault and its partner, Nissan Motor Company.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the active support of President Shimon Peres, intends to make Israel a laboratory to test the practicality of an environmentally clean electric car. The state will offer tax incentives to purchasers, and the new company, with a $200 million investment to start, will begin construction of facilities to recharge the cars and replace empty batteries quickly.

The idea, said Shai Agassi, 39, the software entrepreneur behind the new company, is to sell electric car transportation on the model of the cellphone. Purchasers get subsidized hardware ? the car ? and pay a monthly fee for expected mileage, like minutes on a cellphone plan, eliminating concerns about the fluctuating price of gasoline.

Mr. Agassi and his investors are convinced that the cost of running such a car will be significantly cheaper than a model using gasoline (currently $6.28 a gallon here.)

?With $100 a barrel oil, we?ve crossed a historic threshold where electricity and batteries provide a cheaper alternative for consumers,? Mr. Agassi said. ?You buy a car to go an infinite distance, and we need to create the same feeling for an electric car ? that you can fill it up when you stop or sleep and go an infinite distance.?

Mr. Agassi?s company, Project Better Place of Palo Alto, Calif., will provide the lithium-ion batteries, which will be able to go 124 miles per charge, and the infrastructure necessary to keep the cars going ? whether parking meter-like plugs on city streets or service stations along highways, where, in a structure like a car wash, exhausted batteries will be removed and fresh ones inserted.

Renault and Nissan will provide the cars. The chairman of both companies, Carlos Ghosn, is scheduled to attend the announcements on Monday. Other companies are developing electric cars, like the Tesla and Chevrolet Volt, but the project here is a major step for Renault, which clearly believes that there is a commercial future in electric cars.

Israel, where the round-trip commute between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is only 75 miles, is considered a good place to test the idea, which Mr. Agassi, Renault and Nissan hope to copy in small countries like Denmark and crowded cities like London, Paris, Singapore and New York. London, which has a congestion area tax for cars, lets electric cars enter downtown and park free.

Project Better Place?s major investor, Idan Ofer, 52, has put up $100 million for the project and is its board chairman. He will remain chairman of Israel Corporation Ltd., a major owner and operator of shipping companies and refineries. ?What?s driving me is a much wider outlook than Israel,? Mr. Ofer said. ?If it were just Israel, I?d be cannibalizing my refinery business. I?m not so concerned about the refineries, but building a world-class company. If Israel will ever produce a Nokia, it will be this.?

Mr. Ofer has his eye on China, with its increasing car penetration, oil consumption and environmental pollution, where he has interest from a Chinese car company, Chery, for a similar joint venture.

Renault will offer a small number of electric models of existing vehicles, like the Megane sedan, at prices roughly comparable to gasoline models. The batteries will come from Mr. Agassi. The tax breaks for ?clean? electric vehicles, which Israel promises to keep until at least 2015, will make the cars cheaper to consumers than gasoline-engine cars. ?You?ll be able to get a nice, high-end car at a price roughly half that of the gasoline model today,? Mr. Agassi said.

He contends that operating expenses will be half of those for gasoline-driven vehicles, especially in Europe and Israel, where gasoline taxes are high. The company, and the consumers who use it, will normally recharge their batteries at night, when the electricity is cheapest, and they expect the batteries to have a life of 7,000 charges, though Mr. Agassi says he is counting on only 1,500 charges, which is roughly 150,000 miles, the life of the average car.

?Because the price of gasoline fluctuates so much during the life of a car, it?s hard to predict the cost basis for driving,? Mr. Agassi said. ?But electricity fluctuates less, and you can buy it in advance, so I can give you a guaranteed price per mile, cheaper than the price of gas today.?

Mr. Agassi predicts that a few thousand electric cars will be on Israeli roads in 2009 and 100,000 by the end of 2010; Israel has two million cars on the road, and about 10 percent are replaced each year.

Mr. Agassi suggested this model for the electric car ? concentrating on infrastructure rather than on car production ? at a 2006 meeting of the Saban Forum of the Brookings Institution, which Mr. Peres attended. He was enthralled by the idea.

Mr. Peres, who is sometimes dismissed as a dreamer by more cynical Israelis, has in the past embraced and helped to develop some successful notions ? like Israel?s nuclear weapons program. He is a strong believer in Israel?s mission to better the world, he says, and not simply sell arms to it. Israel is the 11th-largest arms exporter, as measured by dollar sales, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Mr. Peres, who knew Mr. Agassi?s father, said in an interview that after hearing Shai Agassi speak: ?I called him in and said, ?Shai, now what?? I said that now is the time for him to implement his idea, and I spoke to our prime minister and other officials and convinced them that this is a great opportunity.?

?Oil is becoming the greatest problem of our time,? Mr. Peres said in an interview in his office. Not only does it pollute, but ?it also supports terror and violence from Venezuela to Iran.?

?Israel can?t become a major industrial country, but it can become a daring world laboratory and a pilot plant for new ideas, like the electric car,? he said.

Mr. Peres sees this project as part of his ?green vision? for Israel, arguing that what the nation may lose in tax revenue it will save in oil. He also supports a larger investment in solar power, saying that ?the Saudis don?t control the sun.?

Mr. Ofer wants profits, but also thinks the project will help the environment, especially in developing countries. ?China is on a very dangerous march from bicycles to cars without any notion of what they?re doing to this planet in terms of air,? he said.

And in Mumbai, he said, ?you can?t even see the sky.?

James D. Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president, is a modest investor in the project.

?Israel is a perfect test tube? for the electric car, he said. ?The beauty of this is that you have a real place where you can get real human reactions. In Israel they can control the externalities and give it a chance to flourish or fail. It needs to be tested, and Agassi is to be commended for testing it and the Israeli government for trying it.?

January 20, 2008
Edwards: 'I got my butt kicked'
Posted: 06:15 PM ET
 
Edwards said Sunday he's in it for the long haul.
(CNN) ? After a crushing loss in Nevada's Democratic caucuses Saturday, presidential candidate John Edwards said Sunday that he hopes "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Edwards placed a distant third in the vote, with just 4 percent of the vote, behind Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

?I got my butt kicked. That is what happened in Nevada,? the former North Carolina senator told Wolf Blitzer on CNN?s Late Edition. ?And the job for me now is ? I have learned this from my whole life experience, is when you get knocked down, you have got to get up. You have got to get up and start fighting again?

?I would kind of like to go back to the old Las Vegas saying, though. You know, ?what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?? I hope that turns out to be true in this case.?

Instead of campaigning in Nevada in the days before Saturday?s vote, Edwards focused instead on stumping in his birth state of South Carolina, where he won the 2004 primary.

Edwards is running a distant third in the state in most recent surveys, behind Obama and Clinton.

Saturday night, after his disappointing Nevada finish, his campaign tried to downplay the importance of results in any one state. "The race to the nomination is a marathon and not a sprint,? said Edwards? campaign manager, former Rep. David Bonior. ?The nomination won't be decided by win-loss records, but by delegates, and we're ready to fight for every delegate.?

On Sunday, Edwards continued to sound a cautious theme, saying South Carolina was ?important,? but just one ?part of the long process. ?We will see how it goes.?