Who knows, perhaps Katie Couric is pining for Hillary or Obama.

Though kinda sad, I don't see how the recent diagnosis of Mrs. Edwards automatically marginalizes her husbands candidacy. It would be different had she been given a short time to live, but it doesn't appear like a sudden death sentence. Like many cancers today, it's treatable and might be manageable for several years to come. Are they supposed to hang up all their dreams, stop and wait for death?

Hypothetically speaking, lets say John Edwards becomes our next president. Our first lady might not be the picture of health, but she'd probably be at least as fit as our current vice president. If Mrs. Edward's overall health is such a big deal, wouldn't/shouldn't Cheney's bum ticker have been a much bigger issue 7 years ago?

I'm unemployed and I just sent John Edwards a $250 pledge ($25 now, $25/mo for 9 more months). That's how impressed I am with him, from his willingness to deal with poverty, his detailed and impressive plan to reach full, universal health care coverage, to his willingness to tell America that CO2 emissions have to go down by 80% by 2050.

I invite others here at Blue Oregon to really spend some time looking at his stuff-- http://www.johnedwards.com/about/issues/

and to find a better candidate with a firmer grasp of the Democratic Progressive agenda.

I am absolutely at a loss for the sadness I feel for John Edwards and his family. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer years ago and has been in remission for 10 years. I am a lucky child to still have my mom be there for me. I am honestly at a loss how to react to this. I remember the doctors treating my mothers curable cancer and how much it took. I honestly can't see how John can be on the campaign trail while his wife is going through this. Realistically I don't understand how a campaign is going to work. My heart hurts for his family.

hey kari, if i ask again, will you answer this time?

what exactly is the Oregon for Edwards steering committee going to be doing? i'm really just curious.

If Elizabeth Edwards has a good chance of surviving through the campaign and a term in office, it would certainly make sense for a couple that feel they can do something constructive in the presidency, to carry on rather than sit around home and mope about a bit of tough luck. I didn't hear the Couric interview, but if she didn't raise the ambition issue, no doubt it would have been promptly coming up from somewhere else.

I want to know a lot more about Edwards before I say he's the right candidate. He's got a lot of readily notable attributes that make him a go. No dismissal intended, but of what I know so far, he just seems too nice. I wonder if he's got the substance to be sufficiently tough as required in the hot-seat. Actually, I think him and his wife proceeding despite the diagnosis supports the possibility that they are.

I think Katie Couric was simply articulating what a lot of folks are thinking about John and Elizabeth Edwards' decision to continue his campaign. And I think that most people would frame that question in the context of their own lives, "what woud I do if my husband/wife were faced witht the same diagnosis? Would I stay in the race? If I were diagnosed, would I want my spouse to stay in the race?" Couric lost her husband to cancer in 1998 so she's no stranger to the stressors of career and family.

All candidates for the presidency must count on a full tank of ambition or there is no point to their running. It's the highest office in the most powerful nation in the world, period. It's our equivalent to being pharoah, a demi-god.

It's interesting that Kari used the term nobility. Politics is a street fight, "nobility" is reserved for the fallen, like Bobby Kennedy and Harvey Milk. And let's remember, "nobility" in its fullness is an inherited entitlement, reserved for the elite. The presidency is decided by the hoi polloi, we citizens, who have to measure the men and women offered on the ballot with little more to guide us than questions like "what would we do?"

What I do know is that I've grown to really like Elizabeth Edwards, through her interviews. Seen through the prism of my own experiences and age, she seems like someone I'd like to get to know. John Edwards is still a surface image to me.

Katie Couric is what you get when you put a lightweight entertainmennt journalist in the top seat of the alleged Broadcast "news."

One of the best stories about Elizabeth Edwards is how John first noticed her. In the book "Four Trials" Edwards tells the story of sitting in a first-year law class listening to the prof give a convoluted and complicated explanantion of some far-flung legal principle. When the prof was done and aksed if there were any questions, silence filled the room until Elizabeth stood up and said something to the effect that "I didn't understand a word of that, and If anyone else in this room did I'll eat my hat."

A strong, smart, confident woman. No wonder John fell for her. Too bad she's not running for president instead of Hillary.

What nonsense! It's amazing that this is even a matter of national discussion. Families with cancer are grown-ups. They decide what their values are and how they want to live with the disease. Period. I notice Katie Couric didn't give up her career when her husband was dying of cancer. It shows you how far the right wing noise machine will go to try to discredit someone they see as a threat.

Katie Couric is just another fluffy example of the 'dumbing down' of our news into infotainment. The truth is, we are all day to day in this world. If John and Elizabeth Edwards want to spend their time running for President, then good for them.

The Edwards could of ask, "Katie, your husband died of cancer; 'some people say,' that you should spend all your time with them instead of being an anchor of a major news broadcast. How do your answer that question?"

I wonder if Katie Couric will interview Tony Snow about his returning cancer on the next 60 minutes. If so, will she ask him how he can continue lying for G.W. Bush, knowing he could be close to death?

You are spot on, Kari! Government and politics is about service and improving lives. Policy not politics.

I didn't see the "60 Minutes" interview, so I am left wondering: How did the Edwardses come off? Did they handle the questions gracefully and candidly? If so, Couric did them a favor for allowing them to articulate their feelings and then get this issue out of the way. For surely, if Couric didn't bring it up, someone else would.

It's a sad commentary on our citizenry that Edwards' campaign is getting a bigger boost from the disclosure of his wife's cancer than from all the substantive policy proposals, such as on health care, that he has made.

I watched the 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night. It was very disturbing. The news story that I took away from watching this show wasn’t that John is putting ambition ahead of his family (which is just crazy). It was that CBS is making a bad decision by keeping Katie on the air.

I read an article about Katie in Vanity Fair a few months back. It was regarding her lack of ratings and constantly changing wardrobe, style, and approach, to try to snag the all important younger demographic (translation people with lots of money to spend on the products advertised during her "news shows").

Her ability to transform from serious Katie, to Katie the Tramp, to Katie your favorite next-door-neighbor to hate is just amazing to me. What is more amazing is that there is a single person in this country who could take anything she has to say seriously. Sunday’s interview made it very clear to me that her biggest problem as a "news" woman is that she can't separate her own opinions from her job. She’s not a talk show host anymore, and yet I think the network forgot to tell her that.

Katie doesn't belong in an anchor chair she belongs on the sofa next to her own baby birds.

"Helping the campaign get organized in Oregon. That's money, volunteers, political support, press, buzz, etc. Same thing as in each of the other 50 states. Not hard to figure out..."

geez, why so snotty? that doesn't seem like a good way to generate political support! sorry for asking so much of you. i guess i could make assumptions about general things you might be doing, but i asked because i like edwards and i was interested in what you were actually going to be doing.

anyway, forget it.

if you're curious about the interview, watch this excerpt of all of katie couric's "some people say" statements. it's pretty atrocious. from there you will find links to the full interview.

that said, the it was pretty typical of that kind of interview (remember howard and judy dean's 60 minutes interview?), and edwards campaign probably got a boost out of this since they were, unfortunately, receiving little to no national media attention prior to it (and the cancer announcement).

The Couric "interview" was obnoxious. It is also true that metastatic breast cancer is pretty darn close to a death sentence within a few years. I've seen this with my own mother. Sure the medical issue is idiosyncratic, but rose-colored glasses are distinctly not in order. Undoubtedly Mr. and Mrs. Edwards know this clearly.

I thought Susan Estrich had a point worth pondering:

John Edwards could go home and wait until he could run as a sympathetic widower. He's still young, and the story of putting his "ambitions" on hold to care for his wife will play well on the hustings.

Elizabeth Edwards doesn't have a good shot at trying it again later. The Edwardses operate as a team and what she wants to do, given that odds are she has less time to do things than he does, is going to take precedence. It seems pretty clear she'd rather be on the campaign trail than sitting home in her rocking chair.

<hr/>

I put the quotation marks around "ambitions" above, because I'm inclined to agree with Kari -- there are some candidates who are running because they see it as a personal advancement, but there are some who are in it for the service, because they don't see enough other people stepping up who would get things done right.

And honestly, anybody who sees the presidency of the United States as a route to personal aggrandizement (and I certainly agree that there are examples of people of this sort who have occupied the office) strikes me as so deluded, so lacking in imagination, so flat-out, well, stupid as to be bound straight to the "Worst Presidents in History" short list.

kari,

have i ever trolled this site? no way, only counter trolling... i promise, you will know if i am trolling.

<h2>now about that steering committee. why don't you write up a blue oregon post about your planned actions?</h2>