Close contest could make Edwards Kingmaker [View All]

[LongTomH]

For the record, I want Edwards to win the nomination; but, people have been writing scenarios where Edwards and Obama combine forces to stop Hillary. Here's one: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7979.html

Because while Edwards would like to be on the stage accepting his party’s nomination, there may be another role for him at the convention: Kingmaker.

The prospect of a vigorous, three-way contest across some 22 states on Feb. 5, suggested by polling and by the swerving momentum of the two early votes, is raising the distinct possibility that the primary process could return to its roots as a nuts-and-bolts battle for delegates to the August Democratic National Convention in Denver.

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Technical features of the Democratic Party’s primary process could hand significant power to a strong third-place finisher, placing him in a position to determine the nomination.

“If Edwards can continue to do what he’s done – which is to win more than 15 percent of the vote – and to distribute his vote generally all over the state – then he will have a big impact on Super Tuesday,” said Tad Devine, a veteran Democratic consultant who ran Michael Dukakis’s delegate-tracking operation in 1988. “I don’t think his impact is going to be that he’s going to win it. But he’d be in an awfully influential position – more than any other individual.”