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From CNN's Political Ticker:CNN has learned that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards met with Hillary Clinton Thursday, and is meeting with Barack Obama Monday, to discuss a possible primary endorsement.The Thursday meeting, which took place at Edwards' home in Chapel Hill, was followed by a Saturday night session during which the former North Carolina senator and several longtime advisers discussed many issues, including which candidate he should endorse.
Most of my Edwards friends have moved on to Obama and considering so much of the campaign centered on Obama and Edwards going after Clinton, it feels as though an Obama endorsement is more likely if any. TPM spoke with a former Edwards aide who explains why we shouldn't necessarily jump to that conclusion.
"He's torn," the aide said "He has reservations about Hillary, which are pretty apparent."On Obama, the aide says, Edwards worries "whether he's tough enough to be President of the United States. If you look at what Edwards ran on, which is not negotiating with the special interests, taking away their power, that's pretty different than the Obama model."
The Edwards aide added that Obama's lack of a health care plan with a "mandate" is a "tough hurdle for him to get over." He added, however, that Edwards is much more in line with Obama on other issues.
Certainly Clinton has been running on "fighting for the voiceless" -- as the Edwards aide describes Edwards's number one criterion for whom to endorse -- since well before Iowa, and one would think Edwards's working class supporters would welcome a Clinton endorsement, although Edwards's educated "wine track" supporters I suspect would tend to disagree.
As for any practical impact an Edwards endorsement might have, one suspects most of his supporters have chosen their candidate by now, so the value of his official stamp of approval would likely be more about delivering the candidate of choice a huge news day as well as, presumably, a passionate surrogate to campaign on his or her behalf, both of which at this point would clearly benefit Clinton the most.
So will he or won't he? The aide puts it at "greater than 50%." The next question is when he would do so and, if it's Clinton, will it shake the ground enough to turnmaround the momentum Obama has regained with his post-February 5th wins.
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