You are quite right about Edwards' motivation, but even he has to realize he won't win SC and thus his campaign is over as well, barring a sudden series of serious gaffes from Obama. Who will be Obama's VP? That choice will tell a lot about where his nomination could go….

I thought that Clinton clearly had a better grasp of the issues and minutia of different policies, and she has an amazing ability to pull all kinds of facts and nuances out of her nether regions. That being said, I really think Obama will be the nominee, he's just too damn appealing. Since the betting markets are predicting a Democrat will when handily, regardless of the candidate, it looks like he's our guy.

-someone with more experience (executive level)
-someone with national security credentials
-somebody with some cross over appeal to republicans

…Jim Webb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Webb

That would cause problems for the republicans I think.

Red Son,

The Clintons are smart and strong enough to turn things around nationally, but the swiftness of the collapse [1,2] is startling.

PurpleSlog,

What anti-capitalism statements by McCain? McCain pointed out that the drug companies are bad for blocking reimportation — which is a clear statement of free market principles.

CGW,

Agreed. Her style is awful. Actually dangerous.

Eddie,

For the last many cycles, the candidate of high school educated voters has defeated the candidate of college educated voters in the Democratic primary. Clinton's the former, Obama's the latter. Edwards' hope is that Clinton is taken down swiftly enough that he can move into her place, and defeat Obama among the less educated/

ElamBend.

Lady of tdaxp's take was that Obama looks like a teacher, Edwards looks like a manager, Clinton looks like a lawyer, and Richardson looks like a Vice President. I think Richardson was hoping so, too.

PurpleSlog,

Not to mention Hong Le would be the most attractie Second Lady we've had in a long time! [3]

[1] Drudge currently has the headline: “RASMUSSEN: Clinton's lead in national polling collapse… now Clinton 33 Obama 29; Before Iowa showed Clinton 41 Obama 24… Developing.”
[2] http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/6/183244/6352/390/431837
[3] http://webb.senate.gov/gallery010408/Gallery/Photo_Gallery.html#56

On the Republican side, Romney took some hits. A big plus IMHO for him though was when he was the only person responding to the anti-capitalism statements of McCain. Romney responded forcefully and positively in defense of capitalism. Everybody else was silent.

It was related to that. He made several anti-capitlism, anti-drug company statements. Romney started to say something to the effect that they are “not evil” and McCain shot back (off-camera) yes they are.

On Sunday he said something like “not for profit, but for patriotism” in the context of leadership – the implication was his leadership was better because it was not tarnished with profit/economics.

I like McCain on Security. He is a mess on domestic policy (e.g. Campaign Finance reform fiasco) and economics (I think capitalism/entrepreneurialism is good….McCain not so much…lookwarm at best).

–Purpleslog

The drug companies have pulled off the nifty trick of building their state-enforced monopolies (everything from patents to reimportation laws), but are screaming murder when there's talk of regulating those state-enforced monopolies.

If the pharmaceutical companies want a free economy, great: just too bad they haven't been acting like it.