Al Giordano gives a sobering assessment of where the 08 Campaign is heading

The Grand Slam: Obama-Edwards

A grand slam (I’m pretty sure) is when someone hits a home run with three players on base. There’s no doubt that the Edwards endorsement of Obama - and how masterfully it was hit - was a home run.

Now, here are the three runs that were on base, brought home by it.

1. The first run brought in was that it made everybody forget about that primary in whatever state it happened last night: it simply shut down the noise machine, cold.

2. The second run is now rounding third base and coming home: From now to the convention every time some Clinton surrogate tries to insist on an Obama-Clinton ticket, an equal and opposite Edwards enthusiast will credibly counter that an Obama-Edwards ticket would accomplish everything the first group claims and more. The two camps will battle that argument passionately in the coming months, leaving enough elbow room for Obama to choose his own nominee according to his standards from the larger list of potential running mates. (The Field will host a preliminary round on the Clinton v. Edwards as VP debate soon.)

3. On a long slide into home comes the third run, and nobody is happier about it - not even in Camp Obama - than the 30 members of the DNC Rules Committee.

While others focus on how the 19 Edwards delegates to the convention from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina will vote (and The Field has little doubt that most of them will declare for Obama over the coming days and weeks as they are hunted down by the press corps), a larger group of 68 potential delegates - 13 Edwards delegates that would supposedly come from Florida and 55 “uncommitted” delegates that would supposedly come from Michigan - are now there for fusion by the committee to be ruled as Obama delegates, all of them.

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