Wednesday, January 30, 2008

And then there were two....

Senator Edwards will announce at 1pm EST from New Orleans that he will no longer be a candidate for the presidency.

The questions: Who will he endorse? Who will his supporters vote for?

And, after the last debate, there was talk of a "shared moment" between Clinton and Edwards.... Speculation, as Edwards drops out right before the CNN debate on Thursday.

One more point: This news is a buzz killer for Hillary. Though Hillary "won" Florida, it is no longer the story at CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and Fox News.... interesting....

Update: From Joe Klein in an article at CNN:
An aide said Edwards does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.

"The cynics will say that with Edwards out of the race, a lot of the white working-class people who voted for him will now vote for Hillary Clinton; they'll see it in racial terms," said Time magazine journalist Joe Klein. "On the other hand, you could just as easily say that with Edwards out of the race, those people who are more interested in change who were part of his constituency, will go vote for Obama."

He added, "I don't think he endorses Hillary Clinton. The question is whether or not he endorses Barack Obama."

Klein contends that Clinton "represents a lot of the things that [Edwards] campaigned against, you know, the old Washington Democratic establishment that he believes got too close to the corporations in the '90s."

Edwards had campaigned on the message that he was standing up for the little guy, the people who are not traditionally given a voice in Washington, and that he would do more to fight special interests.

3 comments:

M said...

That's interesting. It sounds like Edwards is leaving the door open to an Obama/Edwards ticket, but not to a Clinton/Edwards one.

harrogate said...

His campaign never got traction of any kind in the media. Probably Bill O'Reilly's hatred of him was the most publicity that he got.

And then what airtime he got, his arguments never seemed to matter to the bulk of Dem voters anyway, preoccupied with identity politics and Cults of Personality.

Most importantly of all, he was always in over his head, drowned in money.

But now his 18% or so is looking pretty damned formidable. Good for him.

supadiscomama said...

I don't know that Clinton "winning" Florida was ever a major story. MSNBC, at least, completely blew her off before her victory speech, saying that she would be speaking about "whatever it was she did here."