Edwards is providing Obama with much of his best material. Not to detract from Obama, who uses it well. But this goes to the convention, while Edwards keeps Obama supplied with proven material and handles the tougher attacks against Clinton. Then Edwards gives his delagates to Obama and shares the ticket.

This is politics the way it's supposed to be done.

If Edwards dropped out, Obama would have a double digit lead over Hillary.

You're assuming that the Edwards vote would automatically go to Obama.  I'm not so sure.  I'm an Edwards supporter, but if he were no longer in the race, Hillary Clinton would be my second choice. 

I'm sorry that you seem to think that Edwards has no right to remain in the race because he is spoiling your preferred candidate's right to romp to the finish line, but I for one hope Edwards will remain in the race for a good while, even if he continues to run in third place.  He has important things to say that nobody else is saying, and I want him to continue to say them as long as possible. 

kozmic, You are off on the Edwards factor--take a look at the CNN exit polls. The votes Edwards picked up would not necessarily have gone to Obama. By the same logic, you should concede that if Obama dropped out, Edwards would be a shoo in. This is nonsense!

I predicted immediately from the Iowa turnout that Obama and McCain would have a common problem in NH. Both needed to get independents not just to like them--that's the easy part--but to vote in the respective primaries. Obama's gain was McCain's loss. Mark Kleiman picked up on the same point early on as well. My bright-line statement for NH was that both McCain and Obama could not win. Period.

Larry's puzzlement notwithstanding, the polls were right--and, I suspect, still are. Obama has huge support in NH. But he might have actually become a victim of his own success--as the independent saw Obama with a large lead, they chose to support McCain in the GOP primary instead (and some voted for Paul), counting on Obama to carry his weight within the party. He did not. If you look at exit poll numbers, despite a huge independents turnout, Dems represented a larger fraction of Dem primary voters than expected. And the party members voted for Hillary. Independents still supported Obama.

On the other side, it was a slaughter--McCain swept the independent vote (with some going to Paul). But the margin was not great. Had the independents stayed with Obama, McCain would have lost. Whether Obama could win is open to question, but don't blame the media for missing an obvious but non-conventional point--the two primaries DO have an effect on each other. Take another look at the CNN numbers. Since when are there so many liberal voters in the Republican primary?

Great point. Somehow he has to figure out a way of reminding voters once again that there are some rather serious reasons to vote for him and against his opponents, while staying on his high road message. It's one thing to say his opponents are all good Americans, etc. But that doesn't mean they would all be equally good presidents.

If there weren't any other candidates Obama would win 100% of the vote. It's a silly point to be making really.

Yeah, THAT is silly. But nice try on the spin, oleeb.

What I said was serious: if Edwards dropped out and endorsed Obama, Obama would get most of his vote, and beat Hillary decisively.

Even according to Edwards, he and Obama are the change candidates, fighting Hillary the status quo and corporate candidate. As a supposed Edwards supporter, you're familiar with that, right? Oleeb

You're not just a Hillary troll and chronic liar by any chance are you?

lol. They're not "deciding" anything, except in your "storyline." Larry.

Smart people actually weight the results for themselves to determine relevance. Deciding what they think is relevant, and what is not. Try it sometime.

So they didn't decide it, so what's your problem? At least those who vote on Mega State Tuesday will have had the opportunity to have seen some coverage other than TV ads by the few candidates who can afford to buy air time in NY or LA.

Actually Larry, according to the census bureau, Missouri is a fairly representative state of nearly 6 million people vs NH with 1.3 million and Iowa with 2.9 million, at least in terms of race. The racial breakdown there is 85.1% white vs a 80.1% nationally. The black population in the state is 11.5% vs 12.8% nationally.

Anyone can see a snapshot of the various states by going to:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/

Be that as it may, you are certainly correct that the system is broken. The only advantage that Iowa and NH bring to the table as first primary contests is that they are small. Both, however, present various problems including that they are both states that historically have been far more Republican than Democratic for a variety of reasons. That skews results.

The thing that is most broken about the system, IMHO is that the media morons demand that the result be known in advance. They train people to believe what they believe about the system of primaries, the viability of candidates and what it all means.

The one thing the media don't do is report on what the candidates say, what they stand for, and why those positions are important. No, they focus almost entirely on the horse race and predicting the outcome in advance, deciding who the winners and losers are and they bombard the public with their often totally innacurate prognostications which very often do influence elections toward one candidate or another for all the worst possible reasons.

There's no better example than how they trashed Al Gore relentlessly for two years prior to the 2000 election and thus made the theft of the election in Florida possible. Had the media done their job (which is to report the news)Gore would have kicked Bush's ass and we'd be living a much better country today.

All the media's flaws have been maximized this year with the genuinely ridiculous compression of the primaries. The day after the Feb. 5 primary elections, unless the race is still closely seesawing back and forth between Clinton and Obama, the race will be decided. Between now and then the media will try and pick the winner and bury who they think will be the loser. No matter who the annointed one is, it is a perversion and a complete disservice to the public for the media to act in this manner.

The primary season ought to go back to being a six month contest with states large and small mixing it up. If there's an overwhleming favorite such a system won't hurt them at all. If things are close, stretching out the primaries prevents the public from being stampeded in one direction or the other.

One of the genuinely brilliant things the founders did was to prevent such a stampeding of our governmental process by the "passions" of the moment as they put it. So too, in the Presidential nominating process should we continue to have a buffer between being swept away in a media facilitated frenzy early on when the best choice may not be clear until sometime down the road.

In a compressed primary season, you get stuck with whoever was popular in February and that may not be the best choice for November. This is true no matter which candidate you're for. We may well find that the worst thing that happened in 2008 was all those foolish states jockeying for earlier and earlier primary dates last year.

shows how much you pay any attention to anything other than yourself, kozmik. i have clearly and repeatedly identified myself as an edwards supporter.

you need to stop trolling people and maybe recognize that the ratings that so many people have been giving you might just reflect the content (and tone) of your comments.

when you post a comment that amounts to trolling, i will gladly rate your comment 0.

when you post a comment that is unproductive (like many of the personal attacks you've been resorting to these last two weeks) i will gladly rate your comment 1.

when you post a comment with content that i think is merely marginal i will gladly rate your comment 2.

and so on....

if i remember correctly you posted a comment some time today that i thought was good and *surprise!* i gladly rated it 4.