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“Breaking News, John Edwards endorses Barack Obama for President.” That would have been the headline three months ago. At the moment, it is more like, “big deal, John Edwards a Democrat endorses the Democratic nominee for President.” It took John Edwards three months to make-up his mind over who to endorse and it came after Barack Obama has pretty much sealed the deal and is almost a lock at being the Democratic nominee. So way to go out on a limb and take a stand John Edwards. This just in, John Edwards is also endorsing Jimmy Carter’s bid to be the 1976 Democratic nominee. I realize that John Edwards has followers, but my hope is that in the past three months they have been able to make-up their own mind on who to support, especially since his home state of North Carolina had their primary only three weeks ago. So couldn’t he have endorsed one of the candidates at that time? My guess is that he voted in the primary. Even though he was probably still on the ballot, I would think he would not be so vain as to vote for himself after he already dropped out of the race. Of course to endorse one of the candidates then would have been far more risky, what if Barack didn’t win North Carolina, John Edwards would have then been seen as even more of a non-factor then he is now. John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama at this point is a non-story, the only way he would be relevant again was if he supported Hillary Clinton and bucked the trend.

On that note, let’s talk a little bit about Hillary Clinton and her long shot chance of being the Democratic nominee for President. On Tuesday she delivered a butt kicking to Barack Obama in West Virginia. It doesn’t really matter; Barack in the past week has picked up more super delegates than all the possible West Virginia delegates up for election on Tuesday. Barack Obama didn’t campaign in West Virginia, and after hearing some of the exit poll comments, it is easy to see why he would not step foot in West Virginia. West Virginia, while a small state has been fairly important historically for the Democrats. First off, as Hillary likes to point out, no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia. More importantly though, West Virginia was the key to John F. Kennedy’s victory in 1960. Kennedy a different type of candidate was able to go into West Virginia and pull of a victory. Barack Obama has already stated that West Virginia is not part of his general election strategy. This is a state that votes Democrat, and it isn’t wise for Barack to write it off and hand deliver it to John McCain.

Hillary Clinton will win Kentucky next week and Barack Obama will win Oregon. The difference is that Hillary will beat Barack pretty badly in Kentucky, just as she did in West Virginia. Barrack doesn’t seem to be able to get a foothold in some of these states. While Hillary lost North Carolina, she didn’t lose by the 30% points that Barack did in West Virginia and might do again in Kentucky. This isn’t a good sign for the man who is now focusing more on the General Election since he feels he has wrapped up the nomination. I can see a scenario in which Hillary still becomes the nominee. It’s called uncertainty. As the convention nears there could be more of an uncertain feeling about Barack’s chances in November. In the head to head match-ups John McCain does far better against Barack Obama then he does against Hillary Clinton. This could lead to some delegates switching sides to Hillary. Of course this is a long shot and would do more long term damage to the Democratic Party then allowing Barack to run against John McCain and possibly lose. Hillary Clinton can hang on till June 4th, the day of the last primary and she can even stick around until the convention by not formally dropping out of the race. Anything can happen between now and the end of August. Three months is a long time, just ask John Edwards, it’s how long it took him to make-up his mind, and he might change it again.