At 1PM Eastern time today John Edwards is scheduled to drop out of the Democrat’s primary race but will decline to give his endorsement to either of the two remaining candidates.

An aide said Edwards does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.

A top Edwards aide said the former senator contacted Obama and Clinton on Tuesday, telling them he was considering dropping out of the race and asking them to make poverty a top issue of their campaigns and — if either reaches the White House — a central part of their administration.

Both candidates agreed, the aide said.

What else could they say? Makes one wonder is Edwards is thinkin’ about the number two slot again. That would be a tough gig to go through a second time, except that this time the Dems really are believin’ their chances to win are solid. The bad part is that I’m startin’ to agree with them, especially in light of what happened in Florida yesterday. Come on . . . another round of Clinton vs. Dole McCain? Or even worse, Obama vs. McCain? That’d be a Red Bull/Geritol cage match. But back to Edwards for a sec., as my blogging buddy and Watcher’s Council member Laer Pierce sends him on his way in style.

So there is hope. For a while there, I thought there were enough stupid people in America to fall for this snake who raised prices all over America through his self-motivated class-action lawsuits, then wandered out from his 25,600-square-foot home to secure the votes of gullible fools concerned about “two Americas.”

It turns out Edwards ran out of fools.

Next up in the I-don’t-wanna-do-this-anymore category is Rudy Giuliani who is said to still be flying out to our neck of the woods today but will stop short of participating in tonight’s Republican debate at the Reagan Library. Instead, it is thought that before the debate he will announce that he’s out and will then endorse John McCain. Geez, can the news get any better? Yeach! Time out for a chuckle.

Chris Muir’s Day by Day

What’s up with Mitt Romney you say? Good question. It looked a lot closer in Florida before the votes were counted, that’s for sure. At the beginning of the evening it was neck and neck but McCain pulled ahead to stay and finally to pull farther away than the last before-voting polling had indicated. USA Today writes this about Mitt going forward:

“It’s not completely over, so long as Romney has a big bank account,” said former House GOP aide John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. But he said McCain will be difficult to stop.

Though McCain’s campaign was broke and in disarray last year, he returned to the underdog approach he used in 2000 and, town meeting by town meeting, scrapped his way back into contention.

A huge win among Hispanic voters, the collapse of former New York City mayor Giuliani’s campaign and late support from GOP officeholders helped him in Florida. Endorsements from Sen. Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist “certainly send a signal to Republicans in many other states that some established big-name people are finally getting on the McCain bandwagon,” said Aubrey Jewitt, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Hugh Hewitt does the math and presents what he’s calling a worst case scenario for Romney on next Super Tuesday’s results and still sees some light for Mitt.

McCain 745, Romney 327, and Huck 197.

It takes 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination. There are more than 900 delegates left to fight for after Super Tuesday.

Start looking hard at the numbers and put yourself in the discussions with Team Romney. It isn’t pretty, but it is far, far from over.

And if the Huckabee voters look at the reality and see they are voting for McCain when they vote for Huck, anything can happen.

That bulb’s not burning very bright, but light is light I guess — unless someone is carrying a big ol’ basket with which to block it out. Speaking of the Huckster, just what is Mike Huckabee hangin’ around for? Maybe he’s channeling his inner John Edwards and that number two spot on November’s ticket is lookin’ fine. I hate to be the one to break it to him, but a McCain/Huckabee campaign is gonna be hard for the base to get behind. If not the allure of potentially being number two, with the oldest man ever being number one, what else could make him want so hard to be a “spoiler”? My pals John & Lowell over at Article 6 Blog see a few breadcrumbs leading to some unsavory conclusions. (Their masthead is starting to get ghostly!)

About Florida…

For Romney supporters, this one has left a mark. Is it a referendum on The Question? At this point, impossible to say. There are two things we can say with certainty.
Codes

We have studies that show, conclusively, that some political charges aimed at Romney are little more than codes behind which anti-Mormon sentiment resides. We have temporary part-time Huckabee staffers on yet-to-be-transcribed tape saying the same thing. The study shows that roughly 30% of voters that say “flip-flop” in reference to Romney means “Mormon.” That is certainly enough to change the outcome of this election. Does that mean Romney would win were he not Mormon? No way to tell. Many of those peope might find a different reason to dislike him. There is a bit of a populist revolution going on in the party.
Huckabee

Unquestionably, Mike Huckabee has and is playing a spoiler role for Romney. With no chance of winning, that is his only role going forward. The question is why. Well, we know unquestionably some, if not many, of his supporters are animated by anti-Mormon sentiment.

Tonight’s debate will be very interesting. Will the Huckster and McCain gang up on Mitt? Will Romney continue to keep his cool but still be able to respond against a two-on-one? Will they make Ron Paul stand at the other end of the stage?

The only thing that we do know is that Ron Paul will win the call-in voting after the debate. Ron Paul supporters — I guess they think it’s just another episode of “American Idol”.
[Remember, no voting until the debate ends and then only for 2-hours after the show, and you can only vote 55 times from both your cell phone and via email, sorry land line phones are passé and can be too easily traced by the authorities -- keep your tin foil hats ready at all times for our special brain-blast-from-space warnings, and be sure and always remember to . . .]

Dammit! This two-plus-year election cycle is brutal! Going through all this to have a Shrillary/McOldGuy match-up in the fall — pathetic! Where’s my Advil®?

Technorati Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama

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