We'll see. The news reports that discussed Obama essentially edging in on potential Edwards supporters were correct, in my opinion. But also, Edwards has been more specific on policy goals, and I think these got him in some trouble as people took a closer look.

1. On health care, he supported a plan that would expand coverage to more people, give existing customers greater freedom of choice, while still lowering costs. I doubt that's even possible, and some rightly sussed out that this would eventually mean much broader tax support for the system.

2. On poverty, Edwards wanted to "end it" in thirty years. Many people look at the non-working poor and don't see ending poverty as even being a realistic goal. Of course, Edwards was perhaps more concerned with the expanding numbers of working poor. Frankly, the fastest way to help them would be to shut down the spigot of illegal immigration, which overwhelmingly benefits the rich who use a lot of contractors and lawn services, etc. Meanwhile, the illegal immigrants do keep wage costs down, but primarily in the lower income jobs, where the working poor would stand to benefit most if there were lower supply of cheap labor.

Likewise, I think Edwards' rather embarrassing displays of personal wealth hurt his image more than other candidates precisely due to his stance on poverty. Maybe it isn't fair that it was so, but he certainly set himself up for that perception.

3. On taxes, he was essentially proposing a whole host of new giveaways to lower income people. We've already got plenty of those, and many of the truly poor don't pay hardly any income taxes at all. Additional credits are nothing more than a new form of welfare dependence. I'd rather see closure of tax bracket loopholes or a movement to VAT's only. Whether fair or not, many saw his proposals as an expansion toward socialism and a larger nanny state.

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And so on. Almost every problem in the Edwards world is best confronted by a government madated solution on the federal level. I get the impression that he's sincere about dedicating himself to solving problems, but I don't like almost any of his proposed solutions. Rather than leading to improvements, I think many of the planks in his platform would have worsened the very problems he looked to solve.

There were some good items in his platform such as aggressively closing tax havens, but even there it's not clear what exact legal authority the President would have to do so.

More than any of these specifics, though, I think many voters may just have had the general impression that he is insincere. I don't get that feeling, but I certainly did from watching his interviews and debates in 2004.

It will be very interesting to see if more Edwards supporters will defect to Hillary or to Obama. I'd guess Hillary as fear will drive people toward the "devil you know."

Frankly, I don't fear a HC presidency that much. Congress is too evenly divided right now to let any President enact too radical an agenda.

Will be interesting to watch from here.