I wonder if Edwards has waited too long to be relevant.

He might want to wait to see how things develop now.

Why hitch your wagon to a losing horse unnecessarily?

Call me an optimist. Or naive. Or a hopemonger, but....

Could it possibly be that the meeting was cancelled because of an honest to goodness scheduling conflict?

Halperin says it'll be re-scheduled: http://thepage.time.com/2008/02/11/page-exclusive-tar-heel-talks/

So.......

Lot of drama from a guy who has won one state primary in two presidential runs. But he is a good stump speaker.

Hillary has been very solicitous and respectful to John Edwards. He deserves it.

ABC News' Eloise Harper reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., speaking in Lewiston, Maine, said that she would call on former No. Carolina Sen. John Edwards if she becomes president.

“There is a lot John and I have in common. I will be a fighter, and I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do in the White House.” Clinton was prompted to speak about Edwards after a woman stood up and sad she was a former supporter of his -– but has not switched allegiances to Clinton. The woman commended Edwards for being a fighter –- and thought Clinton was a fighter, as well.

Clinton mentioned earlier in the speech that Edwards was the only other candidate running who offered a universal health care plan. “I was proud Sen. Edwards and I decided to put ourselves on the line politically,” she said.

Why would politicians like Richardson and Edwards endorse a candidate with a staff in shambles, no money, and a completely deflated support base. The new SurveyUSA poll shows a 60-38 Obama lead in Virginia. Edwards is not an idiot. Even if he likes Clinton more and wishes to endorse her, he's not going to commit political suicide. If he does plan on endorsing her, he will wait until after the Potomac states. If she wins one of them, then he can go into Wisconsin and campaign for her. If she gets blown out in all three, then look for either no endorsement or an Obama endorsement.

I hope that in an Obama administration that he offers Edwards the Attorney General job. Edwards would seem like a perfect fit for that position.

If it's just a scheduling conflict, no big deal, but with the leaked info about Hillary's "secret" meeting at chez Edwards, I feel like there's a game being played, and I don't see what it is. I'm hoping that the point of this game is to generate media intrigue about a planned Obama endorsement, but it could equally be for a Clinton endorsement. The question I asked in another thread was who leaked the Clinton meeting. If it was Clinton, that bodes well for her, because she wouldn't leak it if the meeting didn't go well. If it was Edwards, that bodes poorly for her, because it blew the cover of a meeting that she was trying to keep secret.

And both Obama and Clinton are mum, which is funny. You'd think that one of them would start to think that this wasn't going their way and talk down the importance of it.

Don't get me wrong, I know how much Edwards went after Clinton and how much he defended Obama against her attacks during his campaign. I have argued longer and harder than anyone on this site for the possibility of an arrangement between them. But if Edwards felt strongly for Obama, he would have endorsed before Super Tuesday. Since, he did not, I've lost confidence that he has an obvious preference.

What significance is a meeting cancellation with no other info? Doesn't even say who canceled. This is BS to try to make Edwards relevant again.
I liked Edwards but something about his manner seemed fake. I don't really buy the poverty line he runs down. What does he do for the impoverished when not running for office? I missed that part if it exists.

If he backs Clinton does it matter to people who can't decide between the two? I hope not since I can't fathom why his opinion is of such great importance. He couldn't even carry his backyard of South Carolina.

Bobby Kennedy never came off as being fake like Edwards does. I still had Edwards before Obama though until he proved unelectable.

Slightly off topic, but the NY Daily News hints at a Gore endorsement for Obama. Not sure if there's any actual news here, but it is at least pretty clear that Gore won't be endorsing Clinton any time soon.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/02/11/2008-02-11_campaign_takeout.html

Most likely, Edwards has decided not to endorse anyone. Hillary probably convinced him not to endorse Obama, but she also failed to make the sale for herself.

As this blog has reported, Edwards likes Obama, but questions whether he is tough enough to battle it out with the GOP. If this is really Edwards' big concern, the best way for him to answer his question is to wait. If Obama can wrest the nomination from Hillary, that's a good sign of toughness. If he loses, he obviously wasn't a good enough at political battling.

Additionally, there is the increasing chance that this will come down to a contentious brokered convention. If Edwards endorses, he will not be able to act as a peacemaker/mediator/broker.

I was starting to hope he wouldn't endorse at all. I'm afraid it will appear as the guys against the girls if he endorses Obama. As much as I support Obama - I still feel a sting from things like that - so how does it play with undecided woman? Maybe he just needs to stay neutral for now.

OH. MY. GAWD!!!!!

A meeting was cancelled!!!

(Runs shrieking from the room)

Hillary must have put a voodoo spell on the meeting place.

Yeah, and John Edwards fighting for the poor and underpriveliged, truly irrelevent issues, he shouldn't even fight for those now because he isn't running for president and president is just like god and makes all of the decisions and decides to grant waivers so Chevron can dump more toxins in the Great Lakes or approve the air quality at Ground Zero or grant greater media concentration rules and stuff like that.

Koresh, what a party I belong to.

Today was the moment of truth if Edwards was going to endorse Obama because if Obama takes Maryland and Virginia tomorrow without Edwards' help, why does Obama need Edwards in light of whatever price he wants for the endorsement?

On the other hand, to endorse Hillary after she loses 4 straight and possibly 2 more on Tuesday is a suicide mission. So if he is supporting Hillary his best chance is for Hillary to win at least VA tomorrow and possibly MD too, and win BIG.

He may have yet another chance to influence events at the convention, but as of now, his window of opportunity has passed.

I think Edwards endorsement may already be irrelevant.

Endorsements only count for so much anyway, and the biggest boost is if the endorser has a huge email list of supporters to give away. I doubt Edwards list is that big.

And Edwards voters have had weeks already to figure out on their own who to support with him out of the race, and many if not most of those voters have already gone to the voting booth by now.

As an Edwards supporter, I think I speak for the most loyal of his crowd when I say we favor no endorsement of anybody; he should release his delegates. The general feeling is that it would be hypocritical to support either of them unless for some reason heaven and earth depended on it---and I have to agree his endorsement probably doesn't matter.

With Texas just ahead I think Obama would gladly take a Richardson endorsement over Edwards. Richardson is a front runner kind of guy and I think before Texas we will see him endorse Obama.
My feeling all along is he was getting ready to endorse him before Bill Clinton came into town and I think convinced him to at least delay the endorsement.

As a former Edwards supporter, I now support Obama, so an Edwards endorsement wouldn’t affect my vote, but i think he should now endorse obama.

I do think an endorsement of Obama helps further solidify Obama’s progressive change credentials; a Clinton endorsement might seem opportunistic.

I also think that Edwards’ support is fragmented among at least three candidates: his progressive change message to Obama; his economic populism message– which crosses party lines to include some white conservative huckabee-like populists split between obama and clinton, and some even going to Huck. Finally, folks concerned about the details of Edwards health care policy are likely to go to Clinton, because their proposals almost match. The issue of mandates here is likely to scrape some edwards supporters away from obama.

should he endorse? sure. the obama wave is continuing to swell and edwards would do well by his message, supporters and himself to going with this flow.

I join the chorus that believes edwards would make a terrific AG!

and check out koulflo.wordpress.com

An endorsement by Edwards for Obama does the Obama camp no good this week as he should win the next three walking away. Obama would really only need it next week for WI possibly, or more for the Ohio/Texas as an Edwards endorsement would help him reach into the core of non-collage educated voters. For Clinton the only real value of an Edwards endorsement is keeping Obama away from it.

HERE IT IS:

READY?

Edwards is waiting for an Obama win this week in Potomac - he will then endorse Obama and that will deliver enough momentum to knock Hillary for a loop.

is it possible that it was canceled because Obama has been behaving so arrogantly lately that he feels he doesn't need Edwards endorsement?

Word is, one conversation he had with Edwards where Edwards wanted to talk policy, Obama was terse and just wanted to know if he was going to endorse him.

Then of course there is the speech on Saturday where he turned a fund raising event for the entire Virginia democratic party into a rally for himself--I heard from people who were there that people who had paid a lot of money to be there got up and walked out.

BO is showing his true colors...maybe it's rubbing Edwards the wrong way.

That said...I'm not sure Hillary will get the endorsement...but perhaps he'll stay out of it. I'm also wondering the same thing as Stirling...has he waited to long for it to matter?

If Edwards endorses Clinton, it will likely have a much bigger effect than if he endorses Obama.

The bottom line is that an Edwards endorsement of Clinton strongly suggests that she is the "change agent" candidate -- or at least as much as is Obama.

Given that that is her supposed deficiency, it establishes credibility where she needs it most.

For Obama, though, what does it add to his perception? Not, I think, terribly much -- he was a supposed "change agent" before, and he'll be the same after.

I have long thought that, on substance and style, Edwards has closer affinities to Hillary than Obama. Apart from the elusive "change agent" label, Edwards' health plans and that of Hillary's are essentially identical: he could, in effect, claim to be the architect for her plan, and she could do a great deal to give him credit for that, and involve him in its implementation, if he endorses her. And where's Edwards' fighting spirit to be found in Obama, the compromiser?

My 10 minutes theory on endorsements:

Say we have 2 candidates, A and B, and an endorser E, who comes and say "Vote for A because I do"

Say there are 2 types of undecided: long term undecided (which we don't care about) and on-the-verge-of-choosing undecided (which we consider here).
The endorser will have effect on the second type of undecided, say by helping a percentage of them to make a choice.

He will have 2 different effects: positive, among those who were strongly considering A (obviously); but also negative among those who were strongly considering B.

The negative effect shows up because people don't like to be told they are wrong. Keep in mind that most of them will not hear the reasons behind the endorsement, but only that someone with authority thinks they are wrong.

I put the positive effect at 40% and the negative effects at 25% of the leaning undecided.

Now the momentum comes up. I define momentum to be a ratio of 2-to-1 among the leaning undecided (of course, there's more to it, for example the capacity to solidify already decided voters, but I'll leave it at that).

Remember, candidate A received the endorsement. But let's assume candidate B has the momentum.
This means: among 100 undecided, 66 are leaning towards B and 33 towards A.

Among the 33 leaning towards A, the endorsement will deliver 13 of them (at 40% rate). But among the 66 who are leaning towards B, the endorsement will seal the deal for 16 of them (at 25% rate).

So, in conclusion: if E endorses A but B has momentum, it might be B that gets an advantage out of it.
-----

Disclaimer: I realize the limitations of the above (the most obvious: what if we change the percentages?). But my point was to show that it can be argued that an endorsement does not automatically benefit a campaign.

The benifit of an Edwards endorsement will only be realized if he goes out and campaigns for his candidate. Then he could prove formidable. Otherwise, I tend to agree that his endorsement is not that significant.

Thanks for the update, Demagirl. I still think that something weird is going on here. Someone from one of the campaigns (or former campaigns) told the press about the meetings, both Clinton's--which was supposed to be secret--and Obama's. Whoever disclosed these events helped to create the media circus, so it seems strange to now complain that the scrutiny is too intense.

You and your dashes of common sense. Though as a former Edwards supporter... I'm now supporting Obama regardless who he endorses.

Many of you, mostly Obama supporters, wonder what an endorsement from John Edwards means. It obviously helps Obama with working class people who seem to mistrust him. But it also helps Obama with the liberal wing of the party -- those of us who believe that the main problem with the Democratic Party is not that they engage in partisan bickering but that they don't do enough of it.

I've been an Edwards supporter since I saw him after Katrina look in a camera and tell a reporter that we had a moral obligation to relieve the suffering of poor people in New Orleans and all over the country. No one has made helping the poor a part of their platform since Bobby Kennedy, and Barack Obama sure as hell hasn't done it.

And for those of you who wonder what John Edwards does for the poor when he's not running for office, this is what he does:

http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/feb05/edwards020405.html

I don't trust Barack Obama to be a truly liberal president. His supporters won't hold his feet to the fire. Many of them grew up under Ronald Reagan who helped to drag this country so far to the right that Richard Nixon would now be considered a moderate to liberal Democrat, comparable to Obama and Clinton. (Nixon aggressively enforced the Civil Rights Act, gave us the EPA, conducted a foreign policy of constructive engagement, etc.) So Obama supporters are happy with his moderation, which is really pretty bland. (Hell, many of his supporters think Obama doesn't take money from corporations, which is just sad.)

Edwards is the liberal conscience of the Democratic Party at the moment. His endorsement might make Obama more palatable to me, but only just so.

Oh, and Michael A -- before you launch one of your salvos about Edwards' voting record, remember that he's from NC, a much more conservative state than Illinois. Yet Obama voted for Condoleeza Rice, to reauthorize the Patriot Act; he voted to kick plaintiffs out of state courts when they've been injured by corporate malfeasance; and he single-handedly weakened legislation to protect the nuclear power industry, one of his biggest supporters. Glass houses, buddy . . .

Anna said: "I don't trust Barack Obama to be a truly liberal president."

I don't want a truly liberal president. I want a truly competent president who has good judgment, and I want a candidate who can win.

That's Obama.

I don't want a truly liberal president, either. Would prefer a truly liberal Congress riding in on Obama's coattails.

The interesting question to me is who leaked the Clinton-Edwards meeting.

Now I doubt it is Edwards because it would make him look like his decision (if he goes for Obama) is a 'calculated' one. In short, his vote is up for the highest bidder. This would undercut the value of the endorsement.

Now of course you could argue he might do it to seem 'relevant', but again, would he be so penny-wise and pound-foolish? Because if he is considered relevant now, he will be that much less so when he endorses (if he endorses).

The alternate scenario is that Clinton leaked the meeting. There are several factors to suggest that this is the case.

One, if (as many Edwards supporters - like myself believe) there is a closer affinity between Edwards and Obama, then this diminishes any eventual endorsement for Obama. If Edwards now does endorse Obama it can be dismissed as mercenary since, as we now know, he met with Hillary which can be construed as meaning that he seriously entertained the idea of endorsing her. Contrast that to the importance Gore's endorsement will have simply because he has kept very mum about his intentions.

Second, as is typical in pro sports, leaking a rumored deal is often a way to try and force the other side to come through on the deal - since it now places pressure on them to either make it or, in disavowing it, reduce their leverage to make an alterantive deal. This is particularly the case when the deal looks like it is slipping away, as one may surmise may be the case with Clinton.

IN short, the fact that the leak weakens Edwards negotiating position and places his eventual choice under a bit of a cloud is sufficient for me to make an educated guess that the Clinton was behind the leak. YMMV

Anna,

Do you trust Obama to protect Roe v. Wade? After his comments that women should consult with their clergy when deciding whether to get an abortion, I am starting to wonder. And now that I've learned here at TPM what I already knew--that Obama, despite his press, is not that liberal, I really begin to wonder. Just imagine all the genuflecting he'd receive if he picked a judge that was truly ambiguous on Roe v. Wade. Bipartisan, bipartisan, bipartisan at last!!!!

I wonder if Edwards has waited too long to be relevant.

About three years and nine months too long, by my estimation. And I like(d) the guy and his positions on most issues, so lose the pitchforks and torches, kids; just trying to be realistic.

It isn't hard to see that when Edwards dropped out of the race, so did any actual substance.

You do not see either Hillary or Obama talking about actual issues anymore, it's all about who has "Mo."

Sorry, Edwards was the only relevancy that there was in this race.

Now it's all about "feelings" and who is the "uniter not the divider."

We're all much poorer for it.

Hillary's has more of a base of working class supporters and she has adopted a stance of partisan brawling to get the job done. I don't believe she would really take on the corporations, but Obama has made it clear that he would negotiate with them to find common ground. That position is anathema to Edwards.For that reason, it would also be hypocrisy for him to support Obama. For Edwards, it really is a choice of lesser evils.