Obama campaign has announced they will announce a major endorsement at 6 30.
Well ...
Sources confirm JRE boarded the following flight to MI
http://flightaware.com/...
More in a moment
Mark Halperin says
Source: John Edwards boarded an airplane this afternoon.
Obama campaign touts big evening endorsement between 6:15 pm ET and 7:15 pm ET.
Urges/expects significant television coverage of major endorsement.
Developing...
Marc Ambinder says:
Here are some hints, though.
So who's staffing Edwards today? A hint: this is Jennifer Palmieri's out-of-office message...
I will be out of the office on Wednesday, May 14. But will be checking messages intermittently. If you need assistance in the meantime, please contact [REDACTED] at [REDACTED].org for assistance.
Ms. Palmieri is a family favorite and has been called upon to staff the Edwards family at sensitive events before.
What's Wendy Button, Edwards's longtime speechwriter, been doing lately? I hear she's been writing a secret speech...
How come Edwards's brain trust -- all of them -- are unreachable?
UPDATE: Confirmed by Chris Matthews it seems
UPDATE 2: EVERYONE CONFIRMS. YAY me for jumping the gun :) You heard it from me first !
UPDATE 3: Ambinder says:
URL:
It's him. He's the endorsement. He didn't give the Clinton campaign a heads up, and most of his senior campaign staff were caught unawares.
As commenter PointGuard points out, ABC News sees it differently:
A source close to the Clinton campaign said the Edwards camp gave the Clinton folks a heads up.
"Clearly it's upsetting" the source tells ABC. "He brings the workers" to Obama.
UPDATE 5 : Obviously much will be written about this in the next hours but things to watch.
Symbolism of national endorsement (presumptive nominee).
18 delegates PLUS Impact on FL and MI calculations where JRE did win delegates.
Will Elizabeth be there ?
Will JRE campaign in Kentucky ?
Does it help with national numbers, depressed turnout by Hill supporters, white blue collar numbers ?
UPDATE 4: My first rec diary ! YAY ME ! Thanks ya'll !
Ben Smith sees it through the working class lens : http://www.politico.com/...
UPDATE 6 : Michael Crowley says:
Two pretty obvious points: First, Edwards probably would have made a bigger splash had he taken a real risk and endorsed back when the race still hang in the balance.
But , second: Thanks to the fluke of the primary calendar, Edwards has an extra symbolic importance right now. Sure, Obama already has things virtually locked up. But the lingering problem he has right now is weakness with white working class voters--a demographic that favored Edwards back before Hillary reinvented herself as a Pittsburgh steel worker. In that sense, Edwards is a nice balm for the sores left by last night's West Virginia vote.
--Michael Crowley
Greg Sargent in a bitchy (but not wrong) mood:
Edwards couldn't have picked a safer time to endorse -- he did it after it became obvious that the nomination was largely a foregone conclusion. And he did it after Obama lost big in West Virginia, among just the sort of voters Edwards is supposed to have sway among.
While it's true that his endorsement could make a difference in Kentucky, the fact that he waited this long -- and did it after dropping repeated public hints that he would stay neutral -- suggests that this was less than a profile in courage on Edwards' part.
UPDATE 7: NBC News points out that if all JRE delegates vote for Obama, which is not a guarantee, Obama is now 10 delegates short from a majority of the pledged delegates.
UPDATE 8: And me who wanted to do laundry before all the Afterwork people came in ... So much for that.
UPDATE 9: Shadenfreude. I dont even know what to say about Mydd's reaction to it.
One line on the front page.
The comments are funny though.
Loser endorsing the loser.
Will be telling if Elizabeth is not there
JRE can support the wiener because we support the winner.
Glad to see smart political analysis in action !
UPDATE 10:
Halpering asks questions (I only post the ones we had not come up with ourselves)
- Would Edwards consider being on an Obama-Edwards ticket, although he ruled out such a thing a few weeks ago?
- How many hours and hours of cable TV coverage in the next two days will be devoted to speculation about whether the endorsement will help Obama with white, working-class voters?
4.Why did he wait until after his endorsement could have been of use to Obama in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia, and North Carolina?
- How did Edwards overcome his reservations about Obama — or did Clinton do something to alienate him?
- Will this make it more or less likely that Clinton quits the race before June 4?
- When was the last time Edwards and Hillary Clinton talked?
- . What does Hillary Clinton think of Edwards now?
- What does Bill Clinton think of Edwards now?
- Did Edwards have the courage to tell Hillary Clinton he was doing this?
- Did Obama make any commitments to Edwards about poverty, health care, the ticket, attorney general— or anything else?
UPDATE 11 Thread getting crowded. Anybody wants to open a new one. I will link to it.
UPDATE 12: John Dickerson says on Twitter Elizabeth won't support Obama for now.
Tracy Russo who used to work for JRE asks
I’ve no doubt Senator Edwards will campaign vigorously to beat Senator McCain, but will he get out there between now and June 3rd? That’s what I’m wondering as I wait for the official announcement.
And the NYTsays ...
And he had another consideration: how to position himself for a job in the next president's administration. As Mr. Edwards saw it, aides said, Mrs. Clinton seemed to be more likely than Mr. Obama to win the nomination.
Ouch.
UPDATE 13 Live blog of the event here
UPDATE 14: A fresher leaner live blog thread here http://www.dailykos.com/...