Edwards' endorsement

I heard snippets of John Edwards' endorsement speech this morning on NPR, and I was struck by his repeated "man" references:

There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the change, the lasting change, that you have to build from the ground up. There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two. And that man is Barack Obama.

Would it really have been so difficult to refer to Obama as a "one candidate" instead of "one man" in this context, particularly considering the gender of his primary opponent?