We always knew Obama was smart and sometimes we got confirmation in unexpected ways:
As you know, Plouffe’s book offers the fascinating revelation that just before the South Carolina primary, a senior Edwards adviser offered him a swap: Edwards would drop out of the race if Obama would make him his Veep. The adviser argued that this was the only way to stop Hillary.
In emails to me, top Edwards campaign guru Joe Trippi said he had no knowledge of the claim. But I’ve now spoken to the Edwards adviser who had this conversation directly with Plouffe, and he confirmed it.
I remember when Edwards’s endorsement was the hot news item. I remember Edwards didn’t endorse either until Obama had practically won the nomination, way after it would have made any difference. Was Obama just being smart – not trying to limit his options so early or did he sense a problem? Edwards did drop out kind of suddenly IIRC (to be fair he hadn’t performed well in the early primaries but his home state primaries had not occurred yet). I’m trying to imagine that nightmare scenario if Edwards had been the VP candidate when news of the affair started getting out.