[a fool in paradise]

His scampaign is a relative moderate place marker to block other (equally unviable) candidates out of the debates/conversation.

In 2008 the press kept John Edwards in the race to deny Hillary the nomination as she challenged Barack Obama for the nomination.

John Edwards' affair was kept out of the news cycle and Bill and Hillary were called "racists".

[pepsionice]

I think part of that story was that some folks wanted John Edwards as VP. If that affair had never come along....he’d been ‘clean’ and might even run against Hillary in 2016 in the primary.