Especially not the "only one man" bit.  

I don't believe that people vote the bottom of the ticket. IOW if a person doesn't connect with the nominee or his policies, they are not going to vote for that person.

Edwards ran a very progressive agenda so I don't see him having crossover appeal.  Edwards doesn't bring foreign policy experience, military experience or economic experience.  We are in two wars, need to change our foreign policy, have economic and domestic issues to deal with.  I don't see Edwards as having a broad base of experience (Obama is weak in several areas).

Most of the talking points about Edwards' 2004 campaign are bogus (i.e. "he didn't help Kerry in NC"), but reality is that he does not have any kind of unique superstar quality among white working-class voters.

Obama's biggest problem is not a race problem.  It is the "elitism" perception that has haunted Dems for decades, the failure to persuade working-class voters that you understand their concerns and will do something about them.  These voters simply don't perceive the causal connection between cleaning up the lobbyist influence in politics and solving the kitchen-table problems they face.  And the lobbyist thing was a big part of Edwards' schtick this year too, of course.

If your problem is the exact same problem John Kerry had, why would anyone think you could fix it by choosing the same VP as Kerry?

Sigh.  Sometimes I wonder if there's a brain-eating scarab in the kool-aid (I kid!  Don't kill me!)  

Screw that.  I have a choice.  Loyalty is a two-way street and if they want my vote, they're going to have to ask for it.  And even then they might not get it.  I am that angry.*

A Veep sixpack.  Or Veep accessory kit.

I know that in terms of unifying the party, putting a woman on the ticket would be an excellent move. But putting Edwards on the ticket would put the election away...

In other words, yeah, it might be nice to have a some broad (obviously not the dreaded Hillary) on the ticket, but not if we really want to win.

"This little ditty was sent in by commenter Nana. It looks like the Obamaphiles have pushed the envelope:

At present, if my view & my speculations are at least partly accurate, the goal of eliminating the Clinton faction from the Democratic Party is paramount.  This is why Richardson turned coat.  This is why Edwards just endorsed the candidate least like his actual JRE positions.  This is why Brazile & many of the DNC poobahs are fronting for the Obama candidacy; ad nauseum Daschle, McGovern, etc.

Paul Rosenberg: "But putting Edwards on the ticket would put the election away."

Putting Edwards on the ticket four years ago couldn't even get us within ten points of the Republicans in his home state of North Carolina. And this time around, his presidential bid was a complete non-starter, and he didn't even make it into February.

This is coming from someone who was a strong Edwards supporter and who, under other circumstances, would have been ecstatic to have him as the VP nominee.  But what they are doing here is just plain wrong.  She worked for this.  She brought voters out in droves to vote for her.  She obviously has appeal to the demographic Obama has trouble with.  It's wrong.

{head explosion}

Edwards appeal to white working class voters was that he spoke to the issues they cared about, it was based on the message, not the messenger. Clinton has since taken up the mantle of reaching out aggressively to these voters, and with her we have both the message and an impressive messenger. Edwards was a lousy Senator, and his campaign was built in large part on the enormous amount of time he spent courting voters in Iowa over the last 5 years. He was a weak VP for Kerry, and he would do little to help Obama win the general. He has not won the respect of the voters through the determination and willingness to fight on their behalf that Clinton has. Nor does he have the Clinton legacy to run on either. Not to mention he has not distinguished himself through his service in the Senate the way Clinton has.

Also where is the proof that Edwards would have carried more of these voters than Clinton has. I don't ever remember polls suggesting that Edwards was going to win in places like Ohio, Pennsylvannia, etc. If there was data suggesting this, why the hell did he drop out?

People are not going to be attracted to a ticket with Edwards because his election as vice president is not historic in any way, and he has not built a loyal following of supporters the way Clinton has. Edwards as VP will only seem like Obama and he cut a deal to advance both of them when Obama was in toruble. It would be viewed as self serving, and won't change the fact that Clinton supporters will feel she was cheated out of the nomination. In fact it would only increase that belief. If Edwards wants people to truly believe he is only interested in unifying the party he needs to make clear now that he is not going to be VP. He must have endorsed Obama without any gain in return to be the type of honest broker the party needs.

Hillary wins people seeking "experience": Kerry and Kennedy endorse Obama.

Hillary wins the majority of Latino's: Richardson endorses Obama.

Hillary wins the majority of working class workers: Edwards endorses Obama.

She didn't.

So now, you guys are sniping at every opportunity to try and justify why you're going to deprive this country of decent leadership because your candidate ran a campaign that was rejected by a majority of the people, the delegates, and the superdelegates.

Are you signed up to get out the vote for McCain? Are you pushing for Hillary to be his VP?

The problem many of us have who see this going on is that the new party they envision is not based on traditional Democratic values. Libertarians are closer in ideology to Republicans than they are to Democrats. It also explains why some of Obama's positions are disturbing to traditional Dems: Does he just want to raise the earnings cap on social security (fine by me) or does he want to slink towards privatization (definitely bad)? When the majority of the country wants UHC, why doesn't his program offer a competitive govt-run option like those of Edwards and Clinton to wean people away from private insurers?

Edwards and Clinton have always been fairly close on the issues--much more so than Edwards and Obama. If you look at the early primary contests, it was Edwards and Clinton who were splitting the working class vote, with Edwards receiving a higher percentage of voters who had completed college or graduate school. Also, both of them are excellent at retail politics, something Obama clearly loathes. But all that still doesn't mean Edwards should be the VP.

Unfortunately, a ticket with both Clinton and Obama won't persuade either side, IMO, because Clinton represents a wing of the party that is so vastly different than what Obama represents. It isn't just about the personalities anymore; it's about the direction the party takes going forward. Edwards may be willing to go along to get along, but his willingness to endorse Obama, rather than staying neutral, also speaks to a neo-Libertarian supporter rather than a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat like Clinton.

Really? It's pretty shocking to look through the comments here and see the level of irrational generalization directed toward Obama supporters.

I'm an Obama supporter. I would have just as happily supported Hillary had she managed: managed her strategy, managed to reach out for every vote (caucuses included), managed her money, managed her message, managed her surrogates, managed her ground game, managed Mark Penn. I can't expect her to manage her supporters, but I can hardly believe she'd support the level of vitriol throughout this thread and others on TalkLeft.

News flash: Barack Obama isn't Satan. His approach to campaigning is different than Hillary's. Both campaigns and both candidates made mistakes. Yes, the media swooned at Obama's rhetoric. They also jumped all over Jeremiah Wright, "bittergate", Anthony Rezko, etc. They needed a horse race for ratings and, frankly, kept Hillary in it for that purpose longer than she would have been viable in any other campaign. If you can move just a scoche past your disappointment, (which I fully understand - I was a staffer for Wes Clark in 2004), you'll see the striking similarities in the positions of both Senators Clinton and Obama. We're talking mere millimeters difference. Both are capable of bringing enormous change from Bushco. And either would.

Seriously, Barack Obama and the vast majority of his supporters are not the enemy. If you believe they are, you're already drowsy from the carbon monoxide of the Republican machine.

I believe some of Barack's supporters are my enemy - the sexist A list blogger boyz, the people who cry racist at me because I believe Hillary is WAY better, the people who call Hillary a liar etc, and villify her otherwise.

Yes, they are my enemy, as is the empty suit known as Obama.  Just because he has a D beside his name in the voting booth does not make him my candidate.

Oh yes, he was also selling Universal Health Care and he worried about the "two America's" again.
But I never bought that one the first time around.

I'm not sure that leaving The Clinton Wing of the party to the 90s is all bad. I was a Bill Clinton supporter, through thick and thin, and would have voted for Hillary had she won the nomination. In part because the last eight years have seen the fulfillment of policies so horrific we'd never have imagined them, we tend to paint the 90s with a rosy glow. But, in some ways, the facts about those years are pretty stark.

1. Bill Clinton had no coattails in either his election or re-election. That the 1994 "Republican Revolution" was able to occur at all is a sign of just how weak the party was at the time - a weakness that could have been mitigated (certainly in '96) by the bully pulpit of the leading Democrat in the country. In effect, he stifled his own greatness by neglecting the coattails.
2. "Welfare to work," a centerpiece of the Clinton presidency, pushed the poor who were already out at the edges right off the cliff. Worse, it pushed many off the reporting radar, leaving a possibly mistaken impression that poverty decreased during the Clinton administration. It may actually have - we just don't know. It's shameful, frankly, that we'll never be sure exactly what happened to many of those folks who were pushed off of welfare with nowhere else to turn.
3. NAFTA has been an unmitigated disaster for working Americans and a windfall for corporations. We have the most creative, talented, productive, innovative, dedicated workers in the world. But, they're losing the jobs that feed their families to countries with no environmental controls, marginal government oversight and wages that keep their own workers enslaved.

We were prosperous during the heyday of the Clinton Wing, for sure. Silicon Valley built a bubble around revenue-free IPOs and drove Wall Street into a frenzy, temporarily masking the impact of NAFTA. When the bubble burst, leaving investors holding the bag, those companies headed south of the border, or west of the Himalayas. It was, of course, all made worse a few years later by the economic impact of Bushco's utter ignorance of active terrorism.

The Clinton Wing had its accomplishments - I don't want to leave the impression that I saw those years as a total loss. But much has changed in the world since their presidential zenith.

Senator Clinton has been, for the most part, a stalwart Dem standing strong for Democratic principles in the Senate. Strong enough, in fact, that we need her there, in a formal position of leadership, to guide and assure the success of the next Democratic administration. President Clinton is now most effective in his philanthropic efforts. It's in those two respects that The Clinton Wing of the Democratic party can and will continue to exert important influence for the country. Choosing not to select her as the vice-presidential candidate is far from exclusion from the party. It's a recognition of where, in reality, the Clintons can exert balanced and reasonable influence on the process of leading us out of the consequences of Bush's radicalism.

Hillary is ahead in the electoral votes.

Hillary won the big states.

Hillary is experienced and has a record of accomplishments. BO has neither.

Hillary's close friends don't include an anti-American terrorist bomber, crooked Iraqis, Chicago crooks, Farrakhan, and the Black Panthers. And, she didn't sit in front of an anti-American racist preacher for 20 years, who Oprah has sense enough to leave, but Obama is a bit slow.

Obama is a loser. If you can't see it now, you will when you congratulate McCain.

If we have to wait 4 years for a great president like Clinton, we will. We will not vote for a corrupt, lying, charlatan.

If you want to see more reasons why we won't vote for BO go to:

"Hillary is ahead in the popular vote.

Hillary is ahead in the electoral votes.

Hillary won the big states.

Hillary is experienced and has a record of accomplishments. BO has neither."

Complete fiction. Although, I guess Obama wasn't married to a President, so if that is experience, then I suppose that's allowable.

translation: Obama is Black

it would be one of the rare examples of when a Vice Presidential candidate really can sway an important, if not crucial demographic

translation: Obama has a working class white problem

don't you just love it when Obama supporters use dog whistle language to say the same thing they get the heathers over if a non-Obama supporter says it.

Or

He can try to shove the Clintons and their supporters out, tell their voters "You're with us or against us." and go on to lose in November.

It would seem according to AP that the rules committee is bent on keeping New Hampshire and Iowa as the preeminent states that set the pace; this is the likely reason why they punished two out of five only, the other state S.C. which did not get punished.

The point being, according to AP is that the rules committee will not favor anything that remotely threatens Obama's course to the W.H.

It should be fairly clear to all that their job now is to make sure Hillary is OUT.

And if Hillary wants to continue to make a strong case for herself she needs to stay in, no matter what.