After spending more time in Nevada than any other candidate, John Edwards scored a nifty four percent in that state's caucuses on Saturday night. Seemingly erstwhile Republican candidate Fred Thompson ran into the angry warrior late in the evening...

"Damn, John, you look bad. Rough night at the tables?"

"Aw, Fred, I crapped out hard."

"You never had the bankroll. If you're gonna play with the big boys, you gotta have the roll."

"So what are you doing?"

"John, buddy, I staked out the table because I thought it was the right thing to do. But I hedged my bets. I never sat down. Got to stay above the fray."

"I can't do it that way, Fred. If I do something, I've got to do it all the way."

"Listen, buddy, I was that way when I was young. And then I spent some time in California. You learn patience and detachment when you have to wait for hours and then have three minutes to give a perfect line reading. Good for focus, too. You gotta be able to turn it on and off, or you'll burn out bad."

"Fred, that's just not me."

"I'm telling you, John, you've got time to learn. You're never going to get back to the final table, of course, but eventually you'll realize that spending some of your time on the back burner is a good thing. Kick back with the wife, have a few beers, don't worry about nothin'."

"My wife's dying of cancer. She's fighting it all the way. I can't kick back now."

"Shit, man, I forgot. Sorry. But you know, it's still true. If you're going two thousand miles a minute you don't have time to appreciate the good things in your life. Even when the bad things seem to keep happening."

"Losing here was bad. But I can live with it. How about you? They cleared a seat for you at the final table, and you didn't even sit."

"Waitin' on a good hand, son."

"You don't get hands when you don't sit down."

"Listen, you've got your way, and I've got mine. Simple as that."

"Perhaps. You know, you might be right about me. Maybe I'm a little too driven, a little too hyper. Too earnest."

"Too white. Too male."

"Aw, I'm not going there. That didn't matter back in oh-four."

"Sure as hell mattered this time around."

"I can live with that."

"People discriminated against you because of your race and gender. It's an outrage. That sort of thing would never happen at our table."

"You know, Fred, there are lots of reasons you lose. Sometimes it's as simple as a busted flush. But sometimes you've got tens over jacks, and someone slaps down jacks over tens."

"Yeah, but you never see jacks over tens, tens over jacks and four of a kind . Only thing could explain that is cheating."

"They didn't cheat. It's a straight-up game. And so's yours. You still have time to sit in, take in a hand or two and see what happens."

"I like where I am out here, watching everybody else go nuts."

"But you can't win if you don't play. You can't announce that you're going to play and then stay in the audience. You might not want to get all hot and sweaty like me, but you've got to sit in. If you don't lay down some chips, you'll never get a chance to win."

"Yeah, maybe. I dunno."

"You comin' down to South Carolina next week?"

"Maybe. Probably. You still have to get your drinks out of mini bottles?"

"Naw. They got rid of that a couple years ago."

"Hmm. Maybe I will stop by."

"See you then, big guy."

"Sure. And John?"

"Yeah?"

"Grab a double at the bar and chill out for a couple hours. It'll do your heart good."

"I just might do that, Fred. I just might."

Jon Worley will not be in South Carolina next week.