When Will Edwards Jump?

The Washington Post speculates that John Edwards may face a moment of truth (their words) after the South Carolina primary. If he throws his support to Obama, how bad will it get for Hillary Clinton?

John Edwards is the forgotten man in the race for the Democratic nomination, but he's not an inconsequential candidate.

Edwards, the angry populist of Iowa who may become a Southern-fried Democrat as the South Carolina primary unfolds, has a critical decision ahead. How long can, or should, he keep his candidacy going?

In a largely two-person race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it's clear where Edwards's sentiments lie. If he can't be the nominee, he strongly prefers Obama.

If there were any doubt, his performance in the Jan. 5 New Hampshire debate answered that question definitively. Edwards leaped to Obama's defense when Clinton raised doubts about him — aggressively challenging the New York senator as a creature of a frightened status quo.

"I didn't hear these kinds of attacks from Senator Clinton when she was ahead," he said. "Now that she's not, we hear them. And anytime you speak out — anytime you speak out for change, this is what happens."

Edwards has played that role before, although not quite so explicitly. Trained in the combat of the courtroom, he is a more natural debater than Obama — and more naturally confrontational, too. He has used the debates effectively to keep himself in the thick of the dialogue, even though he generally trails well behind Clinton and Obama in the polls.

Edwards put everything on the line in Iowa, a state that was a must-win contest for him. He was able to keep his campaign going largely because he managed to beat Clinton by a whisker for second place. The shift of a few votes would have reversed the order between the two, and he would have been history.

There is already a perceptible movement of nutroots support away from Edwards and to Obama. Dan Balz points out that the cold calculations of identity politics are heavily in play in South Carolina as well.

Obama and Clinton have competed heavily for the African American vote in South Carolina, and the Clinton campaign fears that Obama will now win the majority of that vote, perhaps a sizable majority.

Clinton's chances of winning would depend on the white vote, but as long as Edwards is running, she would have to split it. That alone was one reason that, before Clinton unexpectedly won in New Hampshire, her advisers were seriously considering skipping the state.

Balz's point in all this is that absent a win in the very near future, Edwards has no chance – and could begin to lose any real chance of wielding influence in deciding who does get the nomination. All the early conventional wisdom said that there would be a Clinton-Obama ticket. Might it actually be more likely to be an Obama-Edwards pairing? That appears to be what Balz is thinking.