John Edwards, Horse-Trader

by A.B. Stoddard - 02/01/08 11:51 AM ET

It’s pretty obvious Al Gore is wimping out, not yet having endorsed Barack Obama, who only has four more days to stop Hillary Clinton in 22 states where polls show she has an overall lead. Al, come out with your hands on your head, we know you want Obama. If not, you would have endorsed Hillary or John Edwards ages ago!

But let’s move on to Edwards. What is this guy thinking? Something in that $400 haircut brain of his needs rewiring. Since he knew in January of 2005, when he started running again, that he would be running against Clinton, why are we to believe he actually hasn’t made up his mind? He has lashed out at debates at both Clinton and Obama as they won in primary states and he lost time and time again. This subject has crossed his mind, for sure. His aides are hinting that he might endorse Clinton. They say Edwards is actually closest to Clinton on policy — poverty and the economy, a mandate for healthcare coverage.

It sounds to me like he is horse-trading. If he really wanted one of them to win, he would have offered his support by now. It’s Feb. 1, and Super Duper Tuesday is four days away. We know a lot more about Edwards now than we did last week.

On that note, let’s give Rudy Giuliani a round of applause for the way he conducted himself, both in his campaign and in his withdrawal from the race. I wrote about it in my column this week, and I want to know if you agree.

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