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http://thepage.time.com/halperins-take-three-wednesday-events-bigger-than-john-edwards-endorsement-of-barack-obama/
Despite all the media attention it grabbed, John Edwards’ endorsement of his former rival, Barack Obama, was not the most important thing that happened politically on Wednesday. Edwards’ endorsement would have had a greater impact if it had come earlier in the process, when both Obama and Hillary Clinton first started their pitches for his backing. But by the time Edwards made his choice, it was more a reflection of where the Democratic nomination race stands than it was an event that affected the actual outcome.
Hillary Clinton’s determination to fight on (likely through the final primaries in the first week of June) has kept too much of the media’s focus on the dynamics of the endgame of the Democrats’ nomination fight. Before Obama nabbed Edwards’ backing, he was already an overwhelming favorite to best Clinton; that was also true afterwards. Senior Democrats were closing ranks behind Obama before Wednesday; that was also true after Edwards’ endorsement. Prominent Democrats with private reservations about Obama’s ability to beat John McCain were swallowing their concerns and getting on board before; it is still true now.
What drove Edwards’ decision making and timing are still not totally clear, but he and Obama were obviously aware that their surprise joint appearance in Michigan would overshadow Clinton’s landslide in the West Virginia primary and her round-robin of network television interviews intended to capitalize on her win. There is rampant speculation that Edwards asked for and received some promises from Obama in exchange for his support, and there has been a surprising amount of speculation about an Obama-Edwards ticket. But all of this is largely a sideshow.
So what mattered more on Wednesday to the likely McCain-Obama fall matchup?
First, as first reported on time.com, the Democratic National Committee signed an agreement with the Obama and Clinton campaigns to begin raising general election money in a joint effort. The symbolism and substance of this deal suggests that Democratic and media hand wringing over the potential implications of the Obama-Clinton split on party unity for the fall has been overwrought. It also is reminder of the fundraising juggernaut that Obama is likely to lead in a general election that would give him one of his major advantages over McCain.
On the other hand, Obama supporters should hope that the campaign’s skillful effort to wipe the West Virginia results out of the news did not cause them to put their heads in the sand regarding the very real implications of the blowout and the cautionary exit poll data. The Obama campaign is aggressively downplaying the importance of West Virginia as a general election battleground and marshalling other polling statistics to suggest there are no lessons to be learned from Tuesday’s outcome. But it is clear that race and class are going to play a role – maybe a decisive one – against McCain, and Obama’s apparent lack of strategy in West Virginia suggests he has not solved his ongoing challenges in winning over white working-class voters. And it is not clear that John Edwards can help Obama fix these problems.
Finally, the Republicans lost a third straight special election for a United States House seat long held by their party in congressional districts that had heavily favored George Bush’s election. Tuesday’s loss, in Mississippi, has particularly unnerved Republican leaders in Washington and around the country. This is clearly good news for Obama, who is on the brink of being the Democrats’ presidential nominee at a time when the Republicans are as weak a party financially, institutionally, and in terms of brand image as they have been since Watergate.
But while Obama will certainly benefit from the disarray on the other team, McCain just might too. The GOP is so disoriented, so leaderless, and so dispirited that the party is likely to give McCain extraordinary latitude to run the kind of presidential campaign he wants – and the kind that is going to give him the best chance to win. With polls showing McCain and his own maverick “brand” significantly more popular than the party itself, conservatives in Congress and around the country perhaps will not protest a brash, centrist campaign that downplays some social issues. Most Republicans running for office are going to adopt McCain’s agenda and campaign with him aggressively. Collective desperation could allow McCain to unite and take over his party faster and more easily than anyone expected. And in the long run, that will probably matter far more than John Edwards’ theatrical endorsement.