When John Edwards withdrew, did it help Barack Obama?

John Edwards' silence (until last week) since he suspended his campaign in late January has been frustrating, even for former supporters like me. In a strange way though, it may turn out that by haivng sat on the sidelines -- and even by having hinted that he might prefer Hillary Clinton, or at least her health care plan -- Edwards may have upped the impact of an endorsement of Obama, should he make it soon. (Perhaps today?)

Throughout the campaign itself, John Edwards was clearly aligned with Barack Obama in the sense that they were the two leading candidates for change. Don't get me wrong, they were rivals -- in Iowa, Obama skillfully blunted Edwards late surge by focusing on the outside groups (527s) spending on his behalf, and Edwards criticized Obama for not being (in his view) combative enough.

Still, on balance, it seemed pretty clear to me that Edwards preferred Obama to Clinton.

But the real question is, when Edwards quit the race, did it help Obama or Clinton more? In late January, before he exited, Poblano looked at the demographics and projected that an Edwards withdrawal would boost Obama by about 2-4 points nationally.

Poblano's analysis makes sense to me. As things played out, Obama did well in many states where I'm sure Edwards populist pitch would have eaten into his support -- Wisconsin, Washington, Nebraska, Maine, Minnesota, and North Dakota instantly come to mind. He also probably would have hurt Obama in Georgia, Utah, and Connecticut, states where Obama did well with the anti-Hillary vote regardless of race.

Moreover, if you look at the national polling trends I posted earlier today, Clinton's support has been basically flat for the last six months. That suggests to me her only path to the nomination would have been if the "anti-Hillary" vote was divided between Obama and Edwards.

Back in November, I wrote about this on a website (since disbanded) called hillaryattacks.com in which I advance the idea that at some point the anti-Hillary vote would need to coalesce behind a single candidate. (Hillaryattacks.com preceded the Obama campaign's Hillary Attacks website by two or three weeks.) Here's the argument I made on the site:

Even though most Democrats don't support Hillary, she could still win the nomination by dividing her opposition. To make sure that doesn't happen, at some point we may have to switch candidates to make sure Edwards or Obama wins the nomination. For most of us, that day will come sometime between the South Carolina primary (1/26) and Super Tuesday (2/5).

In retrospect, I think I was pretty spot on, and Edwards made the transition easy by exiting the race. Obama did go on to win Super Tuesday on the delegate front, and he essentially put the nomination away in the balance of February. (Remember, almost 70% of the delegates were selected in February -- since then we've been in a state of suspended animation as Clinton pursues her impossible dream.)

We'll see who the endorser is this afternoon -- it might be Edwards, but there's also speculation it could be Jim Webb. It might be someone else. I hope it is Edwards, because I think of all the endorsements out there, other than Al Gore's his could have the most impact -- starting with his 19 pledged delegates.