Calls mount for Edwards to win today or bow out

[Freddie Stubbs]

By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff, 3/2/2004

TOLEDO -- Underdog presidential contender John Edwards enters today's massive Super Tuesday contests facing electoral odds so daunting that even some of his own supporters concede he is in deep trouble if he doesn't win one or more state primaries.

Edwards held a series of underwhelming rallies in Ohio yesterday, ending his visit there in the lobby of a municipal Cleveland airport, where fewer than 100 people turned up, his smallest crowd this year. Babies cried and listeners clapped politely as Edwards hurried though his stump speech. All day, the normally unflappable Southern politician seemed listless and distracted.

Polls in each of the 10 states voting today showed him trailing Senator John F. Kerry. Edwards already has made plans to take his campaign to states that vote a week from today -- Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida -- but many on his staff view those plans as tentative at best.

Speaking not for attribution, these Edwards aides said the candidate is likely to shape his immediate plans tonight after the returns are in. Electoral mathematics indicate Edwards would have to win improbable landslide victories in most every state from here on to catch Kerry.

more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/03/02/calls_mount_for_edwards_to_win_today_or_bow_out/