Edwards Waiting for Dynamic to Shift

After four consecutive losses in the Democratic presidential campaign, John Edwards said Saturday night that he is forging ahead to Super Tuesday with a belief that the 'dynamic could shift at any time.'

"To win the nomination, I've got to win a contest, of course," Edwards told The Associated Press after losing his native state of South Carolina. "At some point we have to get to get to the place where either the thing is deadlocked, which is a real possibility, or we're accumulating more delegates."

Edwards came in third place behind Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton in South Carolina, the state where he was born and where he won the 2004 primary.

Edwards said he did better than he expected, which he attributed to fighting between the two other candidates that turned off some voters. He also said he's encouraged because the past two weeks have been his best yet in online fundraising.

That means he has enough money to fund a campaign going into Feb. 5, when 22 states hold Democratic nominating contests. He said he'll be focusing on southern states that vote that day, such as Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma, along with the biggest delegate prize of California.

Edwards' advisers have been saying that although his nomination is a long shot, he could play a "kingmaker" role at the Democratic convention if one of the other candidates fails to get a majority of the delegates needed to secure the nomination.

In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton has 249 delegates, followed by Obama with 167 delegates and Edwards with 58. A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination.

Edwards insisted that he's in it to be the president, but said it's becoming more likely the nomination could be decided in a convention fight. "Given the way the vote is being distributed, and it will vary from state to state, I think that's a real possibility," Edwards said.

"This dynamic could shift any time," Edwards said. "It shifted here in South Carolina. It literally shifted in the last week. It wasn't but a couple months ago that Senator Clinton had a big lead here. These things move."