Editorial: Turn out the lights

There is something very sad when campaigns come to an end, as they did this week for Democrat John Edwards and Republican Rudolph Giuliani.

It's always possible to go back and say that one could have done something better or different, but both fought their campaigns hard and by their own lights. Both were credible candidates.

Mr. Edwards had been the party's 2004 vice-presidential nominee, and he had a fully formed message and a compelling personal story of poor beginnings and personal tragedy. It was made more compelling when it was revealed that his wife Elizabeth's, breast cancer had returned. She elected to keep on campaigning.

After 9/11, then-New York Mayor Giuliani was for a while America's mayor; it gave him vital name recognition and he began the campaign with decent standings in the polls. As he faded in the standings, he elected to place all his bets on Florida, and, like Edwards, his quest ended there.

Ending a campaign is harder still on the staff and volunteers, most of them young. As the withdrawing candidate insists that the campaign did indeed advance their issues, his supporters exchange addresses &#8212; and, with their hearts broken, scoop up a last campaign poster from the many littering the floor.

There can be only one winner. There must be a better way of choosing our president, but nobody's found it.