Chris Bowers answers a question I had just begun wondering about: what happened to those who broke away from Edwards at the last minute?
Edwards and Richardson supporters who favored Clinton as a second choice disproportionately broke away and choose Clinton, since the narrative implied both that she was the only other candidate who could win and that she needed help to do so. We all saw this, for example, in 2000, when Nader was a factor and Gore was in a position similar to Clinton. In the end, Nader underperformed his final polls by 1.2%, and Gore outperformed his final polls by 2.0%, providing Gore enough of a boost to win the popular vote. By way of contrast, Edwards and Richardson supporters who favored Obama as a second choice probably didn't think Obama needed any help. This could have added as much as 3% to Clinton's total.
I suspect (based on nothing more than my own instincts) that the 3% number is a bit high, but whatever the magnitude, the dynamic makes perfect sense. And it also raises a key question for the race going forward: what will Edwards and his supporters do? Assuming that his supporters aren't so committed to him that they'll stay with him until the bitter end (a safe assumption for a solid majority of them, I would think), Edwards has a limited window of time during which he could play kingmaker. The problem for him, I think, is that if he waits too long, his supporters will migrate on their own, stripping him of whatever power he might have. And given that the race between Hillary and Obama seems to come down to a few percentage points, that power, for now at least, could be determinant.
All of which is a long, roundabout way of saying that for the first time, I can actually imagine a plausible scenario by which Edwards joins forces with Obama in a pro-change, anti-Clinton ticket. Whether or not either of them would want to is of course something else entirely. But as of right now, the logic of it makes sense. But hey.... who ever said politics was logical?
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