The Note: The Rising
The Note: Edwards leads establishment rally, as Obama starts locking party down.
May 15, 2008 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton just needs to move the goalposts -- if only Sen. Barack Obama would stop scoring touchdowns.
Among everything that John Edwards might bring to Obama -- working-class voters, an establishment stamp of approval, contributing to the sense of inevitability about his nomination -- nothing is more important than this: He changed the storyline.
In a week that Clinton, D-N.Y., was hoping to slow things down, Obama, D-Ill., managed to speed them up.
This is how to lose a primary in style: A 41-point drubbing became smiling pictures of two former rivals. Clinton's evening-news victory lap got bumped by Obama and Edwards -- in a masterstroke of political timing that leaves Camp Clinton glum and scrambling, as if West Virginia had never happened.
Try to get clearer than this: "Americans have made their choices," Edwards, D-N.C., said at Obama's side in Michigan, "and so have I."
More immediately, the Democratic Party is making its choice -- and it's not just Edwards: NARAL Pro-Choice America chose the same day to announce its endorsement of Obama. It was not based on any issue, but on the extreme likelihood that Obama, not Clinton, will be the Democratic nominee.
As the pieces fall into place, will a wave of uncommitted superdelegates now stand and say, "No, he can't"?
Timing matters: "The declarations from Edwards and the National Abortion Rights Action League hit Clinton just as she sought momentum from her 41-percentage-point victory in Tuesday's West Virginia primary," Scott Helman writes in the Boston Globe. "The Democratic Party, meanwhile, has begun to rally around Obama as the presumptive presidential nominee."
One very prominent Democrat thinks the battle is done: "It adds one of the most influential Democratic voices to the chorus of party leaders who have concluded that Obama, despite the fact that five primary contests remain, is the de facto nominee, and that now is the time to begin unifying the party behind him," Helman writes.
It's way too easy to overvalue endorsements -- Edwards isn't even a superdelegate! -- but surely there was a reason that no other Democrat was as actively courted by Obama and Clinton (up to and including Al Gore).
It's a "dramatic move that brings Obama ever closer to donning the party's crown," Michael Saul and David Saltonstall write in the New York Daily News.
The endorsement boosts "Mr. Obama's efforts to rally the Democratic Party around his candidacy and [offers] potential help in his efforts to win over working class white voters in the general election," Jim Rutenberg writes in The New York Times. "A Southerner, he had directed his candidacy at the same white and working class voters Mr. Obama is trying to woo."
"The message to superdelegates: Edwards was content to let the race play out. Now, he's not. He wants this over. And you should too," per The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder.
Even James Carville is impressed: "It certainly helps in terms of psychology of the superdelegates," Carville told Diane Sawyer on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday.
"Obviously it is something that's good for Sen. Obama -- I wish he would have endorsed Sen. Clinton -- but I'm not sure how much it's going to translate into votes."
"Barack Obama advanced his drive to unite the Democratic Party behind his candidacy for president Wednesday by winning the long-sought endorsement of vanquished rival John Edwards at a boisterous rally," Michael Finnegan writes in the Los Angeles Times.
"The announcement was a blow to Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose bid for the Democratic nomination appears all but lost, and brought Obama a welcome distraction from his landslide defeat Tuesday in the West Virginia primary."
Oh yes, the storyline: "This comes on the heels of 48 hours of an intense media spotlight (and much discussion since the April 22 PA primary) focused on Barack Obama's apparent troubles wooing white working class voters to his campaign in large numbers," ABC's David Chalian writes in handicapping the impact of the move. "Edwards can likely serve as a high profile validator for Obama with those voters."
Can Edwards do what beer and bowling could not?
"At issue is whether Edwards's endorsement will fundamentally alter the way in which working- class voters view Obama," Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza writes. "Will Edwards' backing help in that cause? Sure. . . . But, his endorsement alone does not -- and will not -- drastically affect the race."
Edwards has 19 pledged delegates who are now free agents, including one, Joshua Denton, an Iraq war veteran from New Hampshire, who told the AP he now plans to support Obama.
Obama, on the inevitable question of running mates, on board his campaign plane Wednesday night: "I think John Edwards is obviously someone who would be on anybody's short list."
Edwards has said "absolutely not" to a second cycle as No. 2, but The New York Times' John Sullivan and Julie Bosman report an intriguing tidbit: "privately, he told aides that he would consider the role of vice president, and favored the position of attorney general, which would appeal to his experience of decades spent in courtrooms as a trial lawyer in North Carolina; and his desire to follow in the footsteps of Robert F. Kennedy, one of his heroes."
Then there's NARAL, where the nine-member board (which includes a Clinton superdelegate) made the unanimous decision to endorse Obama after last week's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "A political organization always looks at viability -- who has the most delegates, the most votes, and the most cash on hand," Elizabeth Shipp, NARAL's political director, tells ABC News.
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