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Go Home John Edwards In Retrospect

THE PLANK MAY 14, 2008

John Edwards In Retrospect

BY BARRON YOUNGSMITH

John Edwards is endorsing Obama this evening. Although he's been out of sight these past four months--save periodic cloak-and-dagger meetings with both candidates--in many ways, it's as if he never left.

As Jonathan Cohn explained in January, Edwards succeeded to a remarkable degree at making the Democrats' agenda his own. He pushed every candidate in the direction of universal health insurance, something Democratic presidential candidates hadn't endorsed since the 1990s, and he put poverty back on the table in a way that--especially now, with the race so focused on economics and the working class--has proved indispensable. Anyways, check out Cohn's post.

--Barron YoungSmith

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16 comments

It sounded from an earlier post on here today that maybe John Edwards was going to endorse Obama tonight, given he seemed to be incommunicado. The party heavyweights are about to come forth for Obama. This thing is over.

- liberal reformer

May 14, 2008 at 7:09pm

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I wonder if Obama and Edwards didn't decide earlier to keep his endorsement quiet (remember the "airport meeting" or some sort of quick confer a few months ago?) as a...not "firewall" but to use in the end game.  Thus, the endorsement blunts any slight momentum South Carolina gives Hillary and given that Drudge has "the ticket?" front and center, maybe it blunts some of the Hillary veep talk too.  If so, I'd say that was a shrewd move.  

- Lymon1

May 14, 2008 at 7:31pm

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This thing has BEEN over. Hillary and Bill are just unwilling to admit it.

- tjlinko

May 14, 2008 at 7:33pm

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tjlinko,

And Lou Dobbs (I was flipping through CNN).

- anonevent

May 14, 2008 at 7:59pm

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Have any of the former Democratic Presidential candidates endorsed Clinton (I'm purposefully ignoring Vilsack, since he didn't last to March 07)?

Obama got Dodd, Richardson, and now Edwards. Does it mean anything the former candidates appear to prefer Obama to Clinton?

- adamvaught

May 14, 2008 at 8:51pm

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I believe Edwards is being first off, pragmatic.  He knows it 's over and he wants to still be a player in the next administration.  What I admire about him is that he doesn't seem to have the hidden bigotry that has become extremely apparent in the Clintons.  He's never demonstrated anything like that in his two campaigns, and isn't today.  This is again, something pointing back to Obama's race speech - we whites have too many code word hidden agendas (what about McCain's pastor!), live in too many gated communities (got to keep those crime people out of here), and ignore too many of our own fellow citizens.  Why, oh why, can't we all just get along.

- WaltB

May 14, 2008 at 9:26pm

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Yawn. Is this thing still going?

- ralphnelle

May 15, 2008 at 1:43am

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Where's the editor?  That should either be "a retrospective on John Edwards" or "John Edwards in restrospect."

And people laughed when Peretz went nuts over commas . . .

- timteeter

May 15, 2008 at 9:15am

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liberal reformer:

you're my favorite hillary supporter.

- virginiacentrist

May 15, 2008 at 9:49am

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what timteeter said. wtf?

- psantillana

May 15, 2008 at 9:51am

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V.C: You are my favorite Obama supporter. So, what do you think of your home - stater Tim Kaine and how do you handicap him for the v.p. slot?

- liberal reformer

May 15, 2008 at 10:10am

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VA - liberal reformer is about the only Hillary supporter here who can have a sane, civilized conversation about her.

Kudos to you lib ref!

- chmclean

May 15, 2008 at 10:16am

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Chmclean: Thank you for the compliment, I think. See, my saving grace is that I am a postmodernist ironist. Well, not really; I just said that because I thought it sounded good. The irony part I mean, though. Hilliary is a Machiavellian, reptilian creature and sometimes, I think that is why I like her. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is a Machiavellian, reptilian world, often enough. With the Hillmeister, what you see is what you get. It's not like where you think you have a friend and then you lose the GPS coordinates on her and she sneaks up behind you and rams the shiv in. Et tu Britney? None of that with Hill. She comes straight at you, right at your throat. You can see this unfolding in real time. You are forewarned. And therfore, forearmed. Excuse me but I have to go now. I need to see through the peephole who is approaching my moat.

- liberal reformer

May 15, 2008 at 11:23am

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I'm a Hillary supporter, but also a political realist.  I always thought it odd that hardly any US Sentors supported Hillary when things started tightening after Iowa.  She needs to have Obama pick up her campaign debt (most of which is her own money which I bet would be tough for Obama to swallow) and throw her support behind him.  Once that is done, we begin to watch just how awful the Obama attacks from the right will be.  The Manchurian Muslim candidate who wants all first born sons in this country to be named Hussain and attend madrassas, after he has enslaved the white race and allowed al-queda to set up camps in Idaho.  Oh, and he'll turn the Easter Egg roll into a swap meet after he has paved over the Rose Garden to build a basketball court and appointed Kobe Bryant Secretary of State.

He has my vote, but being here in the south, I worry about identity politics dominating in November.

- mghogwild

May 15, 2008 at 11:35am

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mghogwild, Hillary needs nothing from Obama by way of debt relief. Legally, she will have to eat most of her "loan" to herself, and she knew that when she made the "loans." As to the rest, if and when Hillary runs for office again, whether for governor in 2010 or Senate reelection in 2012, she'll just have to spend the first $10 million or so she raises paying off her 2008 campaign debts. That won't be a problem for her. In the meantime, any dollar spent helping Hillary pay down her campaign debt represents a dollar that could have helped the campaign of a Democrat running for office in a crucial election year, but did not.

As for Tim Kaine, he's a terrific politician and a Democrat who could be a real asset to the party in higher office someday. But that day is not 2008. He's got a Republican lieutenant governor, and Virginia has a tough gubernatorial election coming in 2009. With Kaine in Richmond, we just might keep the governorship and control the 2011 reapportionment, adding possibly two or three Democratic U.S. House seats. With Kaine out of office, Republicans probably take back the governorship and limit Democratic reapportionment gains to one House seat. There's nothing Kaine offers the Obama ticket that others couldn't provide -- Brad Henry! -- so the long-term cost of two Democratic House seats is probably too high a price to pay for Kaine's inclusion on the ticket.

It's a shame; Kaine should be a national up-and-comer, but thanks to Virginia's state constitution, he sort of has nowhere to go in elected office for a while. A cabinet appointment might be best for him and his future utility to national Democrats; then he'll be in position to succeed either Webb or Warner in the Senate should either retire, seek other office, or be appointed to something.

- rhubarbs

May 15, 2008 at 12:10pm

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I didn't say she needed debt relief, but why not a quid pro quo?  She stops beating up on him and he gets rid of her.  He could also ask her and Bill to start campaigning for him and against McOldman.  There's plenty of money out there.  I bet if Obama asked his supporters to raise the money to buy her off, they could do it online in less than a week; of course, that assumes that Hillary would take it which I don't think she will, but I'm not worried about a lack of money hurting Obama's chances.  It's the identity politics thing that worries me.  No amount of money can change racial identity politics.

- mghogwild

May 15, 2008 at 12:36pm

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