Who will Edwards endorse? Will it matter?

John Edwards is expected to endorse either Clinton or Obama for the Dem presidential nomination this week. He is rumored to incline towards Obama, but Clinton is still trying to woo him. Which way will he go? Will his endorsement make a difference?

Obama - Edwards has more to gain in my opinion. His southern constituency has been strongly in favor of Obama, and he will pay this due attention.
I doubt Edwards is considering a veep position…just a hunch nothing to back it.

But how much effect will an Edwards endorsement have in the remaining primaries?

If they open fl and mi it could have quite an effect. There are still those pople out there who really wanted Edwards and who really can’t decide who to vote for, and a push from Edwards may sway them one way or the other.

I don’t wish to hijack however, I think another pertinent question is why hasn’t Richardson endorsed anyone yet?

I don’t think it matters. People support the candidate they like, not the one some loser tells them to vote for.

And it’s “whom”, not “who”. :wink:

Because no one cares what he thinks? Sorry. But seriously, he didn’t pull in many votes in the early primaries. Don’t know that he would’ve done all that much better in more Latino-heavy states later, either.

I suspect Edwards will endorse Obama. He’s a very canny politico and can see that the momentum is going Obama’s way. I highly doubt that Obama would consider him as a running mate, though - he didn’t do all that well debating Cheney in '04, couldn’t bring either NC or SC into the Democratic column that fall, and was later tagged as disloyal by the Kerryistas.

The longer he waits, the less his endorsement is worth and the less he’ll get for it. If I had to bet, I’d say he’ll endorse Obama if he gets a solid delegate lead. I’m not sure his endorsement is worth a lot and there is no reason to suspect he has any interest in another veep run.

But, he might be interested in a Cabinet post – e.g., Attorney General.

I think if Edwards really wanted to be VP or get some other kind of reward, he would have stayed in the race longer. And does Edwards really have the background for Attorney General?

Edwards’ endorsement could help some in working class OH and Richardson’s could a bit in TX with Mexican Americans who have been favoring Clinton. Both have mainly missed their chance to make a bigger impact and Richardson’s miss was more the shame as the opportunity to provide some transformational unity between the Latino and African-American communities was something that he was aware of.

No matter. To me it seems that the nomination is Obama’s to lose at this point. The question is by what margin.

I don’t think that Obama is willing to promise anything in return for endorsements. He’ll win without them, he’ll win with them endorsing HRC. It would be easier with them, but he doesn’t need them.

Does Obama have the background to be president? Not by the usual standards, but he still seems to be winning. Edwards is a lawyer with, AFAIK, no experience in criminal prosecution, but he could get assistants who do. It would be a clean-sweep, new-faces sort of thing. (The Bush Justice Department is gonna need one hell of a purge anyway.) His role would be to set general policy, e.g., what corporate crimes to go after this week. :smiley:

Right now… It would matter. Momentum is important.

An endorsement of Hillary would change the narrative and give her the delegate bump (yes, he doesn’t control them directly, but most would honor his decision - I’d think).

And endorsement of Obama would create a narrative of “on the ropes” and Obama surge in a much larger way. Her rhetoric has weakened and she’s not saying “When I’m” nearly as much as “When one of us”… that’s telling to me.

Senators, even young ones, have been President before.

I don’t think he has any experience in criminal prosecution either. I think the last thing a President Obama would need is charges that he is appointing unqualified people who don’t have experience at their jobs.

Who knows what the truth is, but this story says Edwards is not holding out for either job.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Obama.html

He only has 26 delegates. Every little bit helps, but it’s not going to swing the election.

Y’know, I really could see Edwards as AG. He was a crackerjack trial lawyer and served a term as a U.S. senator, with two not-embarrassing campaigns for President under his belt. He’s already got a better resume than Bobby Kennedy did in 1961, without the nepotism angle, and Bobby was probably one of the ten most effective AGs ever. Edwards could be a great crusading AG on civil rights, poverty law and corporate crime. The more I think of it, the more I like the idea.

Well that’s Obama’s forte.

Ralph Nader would be even better! :slight_smile: Not that Obama would go that far . . . one can dream . . .

Plus 27 in FL, if they attempt to seat the FL delegation on the basis of the Jan. 29 voting outcome.

And in this race, 53 delegates is a nontrivial number.

I’d personally like to see Ralph Nader fucked with a rusty piece of rebar, for his role in putting Bush in the White House.

We all have different dreams.

True, 53 is significant. But I don’t think Florida is going to go in as-is.