“John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004,” reports Ben Smith.
Sad news. Frankly, I’ve never given his campaign much of a shot, anyway. But the Edwards family has certainly had more than its fair share of misery.
UPDATE: Edwards has begun the news conference and confirmed that Elizabeth’s cancer has returned. AP has a one-sentence report up now, which will evolve into a more developed story.
UPDATE: I’ll be damned:
John Edwards said Thursday his wife’s cancer has returned, but said he will continue his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. “The campaign goes on. The campaign goes on strongly,” Edwards told reporters, his wife by his side.
[…]
John Edwards said a biopsy of her rib had showed that the cancer had returned. The bone is one of the most common places where breast cancer spreads, and once it does so it is not considered curable. But how long women survive depends on how widespread the cancer is in the bone, and many can survive for years. The longer it takes for cancer to spread after the initial tumor, the better the prognosis. She was diagnosed in 2004.
(Post title changed accordingly.)
I’m not sure what to make of his decision to press on despite what would appear to be terminal cancer in his wife. My instinct is that a wealthy man, who can certainly afford not to “work” (if you want to call campaigning for president “work”) should spend as much time as he can with his wife under the circumstances. Then again, I presume they made this decision together as a family and, for all I know, Elizabeth talked him out of quitting.
