Legal Commentary

So Edwards is going to endorse Obama. The initial news coverage makes it sound as if Edwards decided on the endorsement now that it is sufficiently likely that Obama will be the Democratic nominee. But I wonder if there was another part to the calculus--perhaps Edwards' sees his leverage with the Obama campaign as being particularly good at this moment. It would seem to have peaked with the North Carolina primary, but Edwards' voter demographic strength is precisely Obama's increasingly apparent voter demographic weakness: white, working class voters.

For whatever reason Obama has trouble getting white, working class votes--Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and now West Virginia. Obama got a mere 26% of the West Viriginia vote. West Virginia voters have access to the same national news media as anyone else and have to know that Clinton is not a particularly viable candidate at this point. But they still went out and voted for her (or alternatively voted against Obama). Heck, Edwards got 8% of the West Virginia vote and he isn't even running any more.

Edwards' appeal to white, working-class voters makes him a good complement to Obama. He also doesn't doesn't overshadow Obama and his presence isn't a reminder of Obama's relative youth and inexperience, the way say, a long-serving governor or senator would be. I wonder if this is part of a move towards Edwards as a running-mate--Edwards was able to strike the deal when Obama's white working class voter problem became all too obvious after West Virginia. But that's just my idle speculation.