I have a great deal of sympathy for his wife. But if the Breck Girl continues his campaign if her illness becomes worse and tries to turn it into political capital he will unequivocally prove to the thinking half of this country's population that he is truly without conscience and is lower than whale $hit on the ocean floor.
I'm not convinced that 1/2 of the country thinks. I suspect it's closer to 1/4. And, that might be optimistic.
It's the Dem/Lib current way of doing things: hearkening back to the 60s with the slogan "the personal is the political", as if there is some exclusively PARTISAN element just ready for the exploiting about cancer (believe me, they will find it)/ I have sympathy for her as a sick person, but none for him if as you suggest, he barrels right on through the campaign when and if she gets sicker. His campaign would backfire right quick if the perception grows that he should be attending to his sick wife and not his "ambitions". The way things like this work, though, if that she could very well agree to make it known that SHE WOULD NOT LET HIM QUIT, that she is willing to MARTYR herself for his Presidential bid, because HIS MESSAGE IS SO IMPORTANT WE JUST CAN'T QUIT. THis could very well happen/ I don't think he has much of a chance to win the nomination, but maybe this thing they've agreed to do now is seen as his ONLY chance. As for Elizabeth Edwards, she is the one who came out during the last campaign and said that Cheney's daughter was "fair game" insofar as their campaign was not willing just to leave her alone as a private person who happened to be a Lesbian, but instead, in effect, OUTED her, like the wonderful gay-friendly Party they are. Those words, from the handmaiden/wife of the running mate were about the most despicable I have ever heard in a campaign, a NEW LOW in campaign behavior. Maybe she will come to some reckoning with herself and her soul, the way hardball political hitman Lee Atwater did when he got terribly sick back during the first George Bush administration.