Chris Dodd and Barack Obama and Bill Richardson are on pins and needles waiting to see whether John Edwards caves in and fires Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister and Big Brass Blog. If he does, the netroots is going to abandon him immediately and throw their power behind other candidates. Some candidates will see an immediate boost. Without Gore or Feingold in the race, we can go for a kind of conventional liberal in Dodd, we can go for a new face with a lot of promise in Obama, or we can go for experience and qualfications in Richardson. Some might go to Wesley Clark. I don’t see any possibility of Biden, Clinton, or Vilsack getting any netroots support under almost any circumstances, although I can only speak for myself. Edwards has carved out a good niche. If he wants to piss it all away in a moment to appease a group led by the likes of Kate O’Bierne then he doesn’t have what it takes to represent progressives. He’ll be finished in the online community.
