Legal Commentary

Trippi on Edwards as Kingmaker and Feb. 5 Strategy

By Jeralyn

The Wall St. Journal interviewed Joe Trippi (free link), John Edwards senior campaign advisor, on Edwards' role as "kingmaker" at the Democratic Convention and his Feb. 5 strategy.

On the kingmaker issue: Trippi says their make or break delegate number for Feb. 6 is 200. He says it will be tough fro Edwards to win enough for the nomination, but that it is still possible.

More probable: arriving at the convention with enough delegates to tip the scales in favor of either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama. "Edwards is the primary force keeping Clinton under 50%," Mr. Trippi said. "Worst case? We go to the convention as the peacemaker, kingmaker, whatever you want to call it."

More...

As Mr. Trippi figures it, if Mr. Edwards gets more than 200 delegates through the Feb. 5 contests -- just more than 10% of the total 1,700 delegates at stake that day -- he has a long-shot chance of playing kingmaker. If he gets 350, Mr. Trippi said Mr. Edwards is almost assured of playing that role....."Every delegate we get over 200 on Feb. 5 is a step toward a scenario that at worst gives us a shot at influencing the final outcome of this race," Mr. Trippi said.

What will Edwards do if he's "kingmaker"? Who will he throw his support to? Trippi doesn't say.

The second interesting part of the article is about Edwards' strategy for Feb. 5. It's the same as Obama's -- instead of concentrating on the mega-states, go for the small ones.

Look for Mr. Edwards to take the contrarian route: Mr. Trippi said the campaign has strong support in smaller states such as Oklahoma, Kansas, Idaho, Missouri and Alaska.

Obama's strategy, as I wrote Wednesday, is to go for the six caucus states (Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho)while Hillary's is to go for the bigger fish(New York, California, New Jersey and Arkansas.)

So Edwards will be competing directly against Obama in Kansas, Idaho and Alaska. Here's what I want to know: Do those states matter enough that if Edwards takes delegates from Obama in them, Obama sustains a direct hit? Or is Trippi pipe-dreaming?

And, a poll is below: Who do you think Edwards will throw his support to if he makes it to the DNC with enough delegates to play "kingmaker?"

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 25, 2008 (boomark / email).