by WonkoKevin

I was just about to write a pithy piece on the remaining primary calendar when I saw news of John Edwards pulling out of the race: 

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies, The Associated Press has learned.. Edwards planned to announce his campaign was ending with his wife and three children at his side. Then he planned to work with Habitat for Humanity at the volunteer-fueled rebuilding project Musicians’ Village, the adviser said.  With that, Edwards’ campaign will end the way it began 13 months ago — with the candidate pitching in to rebuild lives in a city still ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Edwards embraced New Orleans as a glaring symbol of what he described as a Washington that didn’t hear the cries of the downtrodden.

The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. EST event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two aides. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.  The former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either candidate in what is now a two-person race for the Democratic nomination, said one adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the announcement. Both candidates would welcome Edwards’ backing and the support of the 56 delegates he had collected. 

Regardless of what you think about his policies, you’ve got to admire Edwards.  No one can say that his departure is because he didn’t give it his all; he campaigned as hard as anyone up until today.  He and his family, with the intense stress already imposed by illness, went on the road and pushed the Dems to their progressive side.  He’s going back to work on poverty, and in that regard he is likely to have an impact at a policy level–Obama and Clinton largely followed Edwards’ policy ideas to the letter, so it’s obvious his wonkosenses are in tune with the Dems.

From a purely political standpoint, I admire Edwards for allowing this to become a two-person race for the Dems.  I don’t think he will endorse before Tuesday, and I don’t think we can assume his supporters will move to either Obama or Clinton in one-wave.  The ABCers (Anybody But Clinton) believe JEers will move to Obama, but the age demographics coming out of the state primaries seem to indicate they would go to Clinton.

Edwards’ departure gets rid of the “noise” and makes it a pure comparison for Dems.

The same cannot be said on the Republican side.  Kudos to John McCain for his win in Florida.  He was outspent and out-organized and it was a closed primary and he won, by a good margin.  Everyone in the world knows it’s McCain v. Romney now.  But there is still “noise”.  Giuliani is ready to drop out too–although I’m not sure he’s doing for the sake of party unity–but Huckabee’s presence is now the only source of “noise” left in the primary season.

I have admired Huckabee from the get-go; we caught onto the Wonkosphere’s courtship of this guy early on, and I though Hope 2.0 would go further because of his political skills.  If he were to step out now, which I don’t think he will, it would make for a clear, distinct decision for next week.  If Huck doesn’t drop out and McCain wins big by Huck stealing votes primarily from Romney, Republicans will wonder all spring and summer whether they made the right choice.  If McCain and Romney can fight it out alone, party unity is much more likely. 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am and is filed under McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Edwards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.