One can argue that NARAL could have timed it better -- i.e. after Oregon, a little less gender-traitorish -- but they probably wanted to get the news acknowledgment while it still matters. Obama is a staunch supporter of reproductive rights, so it's not a bad decision. And while the story got somewhat buried by the sudden, West Virginia-erasing Edwards endorsement, one could argue that NARAL supports a right often made necessary by bad timing itself.
The timing and staging of the Edwards announcement is extremely intriguing. One wonders when the plan was set in motion but in classic Obama fashion, it was unheralded for what it did most -- move the campaign past the nomination to the general election by dramatically uniting a key party faction, potentially supplying Obama with a one-stop 18-delegate boost essentially slipping the knife into the Clinton campaign for the final arterial opening.
It was significant that it took place in Grand Rapids, and speaks to another potentially subtle but firmly planned and executing Obama strategy: the settling of the Florida and Michigan convention seatings.
Edwards (who I supported before Iowa) got that huge burst of being in a room endorsing Obama (as Richardson did, as various top-level state officials have), but most importantly he got Obama to promise to combat poverty as President, gets to be there to keep him honest, maybe a cabinet position.
Most of all, they united messages -- Edwards on his Two Americas coming together under Obama's One America, hopefully for real by the end of President Barack Obama's second term.
On to Denver, on to November, on to January.
1 comment:
Is it me, or was there something wonky in Edwards' speech? All the right words were coming out of his mouth, but his timing felt off. He kept squelching opportunities for the crowd to go nuts (not that they didn't manage to anyway). But I kept thinking he was blowing his beats and wondering if it was because he might be a little passive-aggreesive. Maybe he's still bitter about not being the nominee?
Which after watching this I felt grateful for. I was with you Netter, in loving Edwards for a time, for being the only one really addressing poverty in America. But he's an unwinning candidate. Maybe, finally, it is the hair. Too shiny. Too pretty. Who knows? Nevertheless, his endorsement is mighty welcome and it really makes it all feel like a done deal.
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