Edwards Quits The Race; Giuliani Likely To Follow

John Edwards announced today in New Orleans that he's quitting his campaign for the Democratic nomination, as I predicted he would. After a dismal finish in his home state of South Carolina, it was pretty obvious that he had very little reason for staying in.

The chief beneficiary, of course, is Hillary Clinton. Even if she only gets half of Edwards' predominantly white voters, I think she likely has the numbers to lock in the nomination provided the Kennedys don't erode her Hispanic support too much in places like California.

Rudy Giuliani is also expected to quit the race today. If he does, it will be at a GOP debate scheduled tonight at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California. The scuttle butt is that he's also planning to endorse John McCain....but I prefer to wait and see whether he actually does.

America's Mayor looked like a president in waiting at one time, but his mistake in judgement with his failure to compete in the early primaries essentially cost him the race.

In any case, we now have a considerably narrowed down field in this most dissaffected of elections. Among the Democrats,there's the cage match between Hillary and Obama, increasingly drawn along polarized racial lines.The Republican party remains splintered and at war with itself, thanks largely to the poisoned fruit of the actions of the current occupant of the White House.

There's John McCain,(the anti-Conservative, if you will) who's positions are opposed to the Republicans' conservative base on everything except national security and attracts the retired and those moderates and pragmatic establishment types who see in him one of their own ; There's Mitt Romney, who attracts the economic conservatives and those social conservatives who believe his road-to-Damascus conversion to their principles; And Mike Huckabee, who attracts the Evangelicals and those social conservatives who disbelieve Romney's conversion and/or can't stomache the idea of a Mormon in the White House.

We should have a somewhat clearer idea of where this is going in a weeks' time.