Who Will Benefit from John Edwards?
An Analysis of How Edwards Dropping Out of the 2008 Race Will Affect the Democratic Primary
He was a dynamic speaker and one of my friends afterward said "He's going to run for President some day." Well, that day arrived in 2004 when he made a big push for the nomination and eventually bowed out and became the Vice-Presidential nominee under John Kerry. After the lose, I knew that Edwards would be back and in 2008 he had an uphill battle against two highly popular candidates in Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. According to the New York Times, Edwards has realized that his battle was too big of a hill to climb and has decided to drop out of the race. Unfortunately, his message of populism and fighting for the lower class never got enough attention away from the major candidates to make a huge impact for himself. The campaign, according to a CNN article, said that it just couldn't get the media attention that it needed to compete. What is ironic is that his dropping out is probably going to have a bigger impact than his running ever did, and here is why: it will help Barack Obama win the nomination.
The question is of course why? Why would Edwards dropping out of the race help Obama? However, before we get to that, a brief note on Edwards future. Edwards biggest focus of his campaign was fighting poverty and the poor and according to a Time article, he is going to continue to do that by working with Habitat for Humanity now that he is done with his bid for the Presidency. He is not going to run for Vice-President again. Edwards has stated numerous time, including in this interview with NPR that he is not interested in being a Vice-Presidential nominee again. While it is not out of the realm of possibility that he would be convinced to run as the V.P., it is unlikely.
However, let's get to the pressing matter at hand, why it will benefit Barack Obama and not Hillary Clinton. There is one thing about Hillary Clinton that no other candidate has to deal with and that is previous perception. A lot of times, most people don't get to know candidates until the election is coming up in their state. For good, and bad, Hillary is well-known around the country since she served as First Lady for 8 years and has been a Senator from New York for the past 8 years. This means that people have a formed opinion about her. A lot of times, it is a negative opinion.
The Edwards campaign was getting votes, not necessarily because they were against Hillary, but it wasn't because they liked her. Hillary is so well known, that any candidate that was getting some support was definately pulling from the 'Anit-Hillary' pool. She is a very devicive person, and that means people will vote against her. So, with Edwards in the race, he was splitting some of the 'anti-Hillary' vote away from Barack Obama. In fact, acording to The Hillary Project, this is going to give a huge boost to Obama. While some voters may go to Hillary, the fact that a good majority of them have already made up their minds that they don't like her, bodes well for Obama. This is reiterated by a USA Today article. In this article, they examine a lot of the blogs who cover politics a great deal and have found that the majority of them agree that this is going to be a huge boost to Obama.
This argument makes even more sense when we look to the type of campaigns that Obama and Edwards ran. According to the Baltimore Sun, both candidates ran on a campaign platform of change and were constantly telling people that Hillary was the establishment, and therefore not change. People who have been attracted to the Edwards campaign of change now have to find a new candidate of change. And Obama is that candidate.
So, when we look to they candidates we see two things. First, that Hillary is well-known, and while that does help her with name recognition, it also creates an 'anti-Hillary' vote that was until today split. Second, the fact that both Edwards and Obama have been advocating change and they have both stated that Hillary is not an agent of change, but rather part of the establishment. All of this points to one thing: an Obama victory.
Of course, if Edwards supports Hillary or Obama gets embarrassed at the debates that will now only have two candidates, it could change the outcome.
Julie Bosman & Jeff Zeleny, "Edwards to Drop out of Democratic Race"; The New York Times
John King, "Edwards quitting presidential race"; CNN
Jay Newton-Small, "Why Edwards Never Caught On"; Time
Michelle Noris, "John Edwards Looks to South Caroline and Beyond", NPR
Ed Morrisey, "Edwards Quits -- One Woman Hit Hardest", The Hillary Project
Mark Mammont & Jill Lawrence, "With Edwards gone, who benefits?", USA Today
Naftali Bendavid, "The Swamp: What does Edward's departure mean?", Baltimore Sun
Published by Travis Dahle
I am a teacher and debate coach in Sioux Falls, SD. I am interested in Sports, Politics, World & National News, Music, and Economics. I do research every year on several topics for debate and love debating... View profile
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- Edwards dropping out of the race will end the splitting of the "Anti-Hillary" vote for Obama.
- Edwards was campaigning for change like Obama, meaning his supporters will gravitate towards Obama.
- Edwards is going to continue to work for the poor by joining Habitat for Humanity
14 Comments
Post a CommentBut it should also be remembered that along with 'anti-hillary' feelings, many women are coming out of the woodwork to support her. Often, women who have never participated in politics before. I think Edward's voters will turn to Obama, however I don't think either candidate is going to win with a landslide. It's going to be a close race to the end.
Cantor, a Hillary/Bill ticket is not possible. Bill Clinton can not serve as Vice President, as he would never be able to step in as President should anything happen to Hillary. Since that's Job Number 1 for VP, he's not eligible. Remember that Chenney was acting President while Bush had a colonoscopy? Bill simply can't run as VP.
Great Article, with excellent theories, thanks for this one.
It's a partial win for Clinton as well. Any time one or the other surged ahead, Edwards was the one to incite attacks against them. This allowed Obama especially to avoid muck earlier in the campaign. No longer.
Great article! I've been wondering who will benefit from Edwards. My local paper said Clinton, but on CNN I read that it was more likely that Obama would. I find CNN more credible than my local paper, but it will be interesting to see what happens! Once again, great article! Thanks!
Nice article. An Obama-Edwards ticket is impossible, as is a Hillary-Edwards ticket. Even less possible is a possible Hillary-Obama/Obama-Hillary ticket. Whoever the nominee is, will have to pick a governor. We havent elected two senators in a long, long time. Theres just something about governors the american voter likes. As for Bill and Hillary being a package, you'll see a strategy put in play emphasizing his work with his Foundation. This 'package' issue wont be an issue. As for his impeachment, his approval rating rose to 73% the very day the House impeached him. The public has already made their minds up about that whole political witch hunt, its not gonna be an issue. She'll need to define what his role will be, and she'll have to form her own theme like Bill had his with the "building a bridge to the 21st Century".
Kucinich is an interesting guy. I know locally many supporters~maybe it is all those aging hippies in the area and the young Peace Corp volunteers in the area. His wife just turned 30; he carried on about his un-electablity because the people do not vote for short people or vegetarians and there are people that do not think UFO's could possibly exist. He just does not have mass appeal. Ron Paul is popular because he is one of the few that voted no to the Patriot Act. I might have voted for him except I do not vote for Libertarians and think he is stuck in the 1950s world. He is one of the few in government that actually knows there is no law requiring citizens pay a Federal Income tax, but that we volunteer to pay it when we sign that W-4 form. I read the Income tax law a dozen times to be sure I understood it. People that know the real reasons behind our illegal invasion of Iraq are many which is why so many are still trying to get Cheney/Bush impeached.
Hillary and Bill are a package deal, so it is okay with people that a president that was 1/2 impeached and lied under oath to the Supreme Court is acceptable? Hillary wrote "I gasped" she was so sure Bill was telling the truth and Monica was a liar. She also said she gave the Iraq issue "careful study" about two years ago. Now she says, "we acted on false intelligence" and "it is Bush's war..." (and so on). She has sent out campaign literature in NH (I can not verify but one of her high level NOW supporters was shown it by a friend) that actually lied (libel or slander?). I have seen her lie through out her campaign. The point is that one, she either lied about trusting Bill or she is not able to discern truth. Perhaps people do not see the rise in violence among youth is in direct proportion to what the adults do. The Clintons have shown a pattern of lies and corruption. I am not trying to convince you, I was just speculating as to Edwards supporters.
Well done Travis. I was an Edwards supporter back in 2004, but he moved too far to the left for me this time around.
Interesting comments Alyce. I'm not sure if it is a huge Anti-War vote, otherwise I think Kuscinich and Paul would get a lot more attention then they do (of course, an argument has been made that the media, which is owned by companies who benefit from the war, tried to exclude them, but I really don't want to get into that argument here). I understand what you are saying, but disagree on the lying about Monica...was it Hillary's fault? How many people did it kill? I would argue that Bush's lying and Hillary's voting for it (and her support of an Iran invasion as well) is what has turned off more people than the whole Monica affair (myself included), since it was Bill who lied about it (essentially so Hillary wouldn't find out). Again, not a great role model, which is why I am sure some people are not going to vote for her, but it probably is more the anti-war vote than anything, which is one part of an anti-Hillary vote
Considering that Edwards was pro-peace, Obama may get some of his supporters. Considering that Edwards and Clinton's Health Care Plan was mostly identical they may go for her. There is also the possibility that some will vote in the Republican primary in the states that do not demand an either or choice. One thing for sure, this has been a most interesting primary season, never know what to expect from one day to the next.