After Edwards polled in at four percent in the Nevada primaries (and, frankly, even before) a significant number of Barack Obama supporters and anti-Clinton forces were trying to put pressure on John Edwards to drop out of the race. They didn't care if he endorsed Obama, but assumed the votes would trend to the Illinois Senator.
A lot of the talk was that Edwards' support would collapse, that if he couldn't poll higher than four percent that he would be nowhere, and that he was staying in out of ego. Much of it centered around Obamians and anti-Clintonites talking about "reality-based" thinking, and it was pretty damned insulting to us Edwards folks.
And now we have Obama's awesome win out of South Carolina, with Hillary's distant second and Edwards even more distant third it seems like I should revisit my suggestion that Edwards should stay in with his delegates in pocket in the event of a brokered convention. After all, if we are going to be reality based like the Obama folks tell me I have to be, I should revisit my position when new facts present.
So here it is: Of course Edwards should stay in for the long haul.
No one's won this race yet. Hillary took the last two, Obama got this one. Edwards took 20 percent of the vote in South Carolina, and 20 percent for anyone isn't going to win a nomination but it still shows significant support.
But it's when you look at the delegate count that this gets really interesting. The Obamans will tell us that he tied in New Hampshire and won Nevada because of delegate counts, even though Hillary won the popular vote.
Frankly, I'm shocked no one went nuts on him for this. Leave aside that immediately after Nevada it became clear that it wasn't necessarily true, but that is exactly the argument that put George Bush in the White House. Do we really want to be the party that selects the nominee who didn't get the most votes, particularly after all the gnashing of teeth after 2000?
But that's off point. Even with Obama's stunning win yesterday, he still has 63 delegates (25 from SC), Hillary has 48 delegates (12 from SC) and Edwards has 26 delegates (8 from SC). (h/t MyDD) There are a lot of pledged and unpledged super-delegates out there, but for the moment we'll leave them aside.
Based on the voting by rank and file Democrats, not one of the candidates has won or has a clear majority. If Edwards were to throw his delegates to Hillary, she is in the lead. If Hillary and Obama team up (yeah, stop laughing) then Edwards is dead. But if Edwards and Obama join together based on the suggestion that Edwards will be AG, Hillary is dead in the water.
In short, this race is wide open between the top two candidates, and the one who has the power to deliver the delegates to put it over the top is John Edwards.
As we move to February 5 we get to more and more elections that are Democrats only, where independents and Republicans cannot cross over to vote in our primary. Given Obama's reliance on crossover votes to day, that is problematic for his campaign as it will prevent some supporters from being able to vote for him.
And looking at the state polls shows that Edwards is in double digits just about everywhere, and Hillary and Obama continue their torrid pace of splitting the votes up. Since the Democratic primary process is proportional and not winner-take-all, that means that all the candidates will continue to rack up delegates for the foreseeable future.
It also seems likely that there will be no knockout blow on February 5, and based on the primary calendar probably not even during the month of February. Since most of what goes on starting in March are a couple primaries here and a few primaries there for the next four months, it's getting more and more possible (even if not likely) we'll have a brokered convention.
If Edwards stays viable even if not at all likely, he will continue to add delegates to his count. And if the race looks like it does now without a clear winner there is no reason to drop out and hand over his supporters to anyone.
All this is in defense of the idea that Edwards should stay in so he can be a power-broker if not a monarch-maker at a brokered convention, but there is more to look at than this. In fact, there are three things to consider here.
The first is the very public and very ugly pissing match between the Obama and Clinton camps. I think most of the ugliness is coming from the Clinton side, but it always takes two for one of these things to get where it is.
With a month and a half or more before this is decided, there is plenty of time for someone to say or do something really fucking stupid and change the dynamic of the race. Obamans remember that Jack Ryan was considered a formidable challenger before the divorce papers went public and we found out he liked to have public intercourse with his famous wife in sex clubs. Democrats remember Gary Hart imploding on his friend's boat, Dukakis' tank moment and Kerry ignoring the Swift Boaters.
That could lead to a massive loss of support for one or the other of the front runners, and delegates are not all permanently pledged. They can shift about and move from one candidate to another, particularly if the shit hits the fan. In a scenario like this, Edwards could grab a lot of support and be pushed back up to the front tier. No, it's not likely but that doesn't mean you don't prepare for it. Not preparing for the unlikely means giving away the game because something unlikely is often the most likely thing.
But, frankly, I don't see it happening. It's more of an intellectual exercise than a true scenario.
The second possibility is much more likely. After yesterday's results I can see a brokered convention more than ever, with Obama and Clinton at near loggerheads. If Obama does a little better than Clinton in the primaries and Clinton does better with superdelegates we're looking at a tie.
The two sides really appear to be verging on outright hate and I can't really see much possibility of a rapprochement in a brokered convention scenario. Neither one would want to give the other the win, and any compromise that would do so would be dead in the water.
At that point whatever delegates Edwards has in his pocket from staying in to the end become pretty damned important. He could throw them to Obama, Clinton or join the growing call for a Draft Gore movement after the second ballot. (Yeah, that's specific but what the hell.)
But regardless of what Edwards would do in that situation, he would be in a position to demand platform planks, speaking times for supporters, positions in the administration and more. It would mean that the guy we Edwards supporters like would be picking a good portion of our policies, faces and implementers for the near future.
And that's what we want, after all. We want Edwards to become President because we want him to set policy, elevate good people who support his policies, and to appoint good people to positions in the bureaucracy.
He may not become President, but he would still be able to do some of that if he stays in and becomes a power broker at convention. If he drops out, he'll get some crumbs but little more.
So Edwards, with his 20 percent yesterday and the potential for more in the coming weeks, has an opportunity to become a real authority in the party. His supporters should seize that opportunity and continue to send money, volunteer and vote for their guy.
[Update: all this said, if one or the other candidate is close enough to winning to make it highly likely, Edwards should likely drop out. There's no point in continuing to use volunteer and financial resources after this opportunity is dead, particularly if that money and energy can go directly to the nominee.)