Edwards exits where he started

WASHINGTON -- John Edwards bowed out of his second presidential bid saying he hoped the "two Americas" he speaks of so often, one for the haves and the other for the have-nots, could finally be united under a Democratic president.

It won't be him.

"It is time for me to step aside so that history can blaze its path," the former North Carolina senator said as he ended his candidacy Wednesday where it began 13 months earlier, in a hurricane-damaged New Orleans neighborhood.

He ended his campaign without an endorsement of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both of whom praised him. Clinton said Edwards had run "a great campaign that was really important for millions of Americans." And Obama said that, while Edwards' campaign had ended, his cause "lives on for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America."