If it’s true, I think that’s checkmate.

UPDATE:
True and truly checkmate.

I’m reminded of what a class act Edwards is. After all we’ve been through, he could have rightly said to Hillary, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” But, instead, he spent the first five minutes of his speech praising her boldness and her persistence, reaching out to her supporters and otherwise doing damnest to kickstart party reunification. As someone who positioned himself as the candidate of blue collar America and the candidate of change, Edwards is in a unique position right now to help glue the Democratic party back together again.

And his stamp on the Obama platform just got even more pronounced. After successfully pushing Obama to embrace universal healthcare and uncompromised global warming targets, he’s got him on board with a commitment to halve poverty in America in the next ten years.

Watch the video:

• Ding Dong. Mitt Romney’s dead.
• Holy Huckabee. We were sure Huckabee was, ahem, cock-blocking Romney’s shot at the GOP nomination. It appears the dynamic was, in fact, reversed.
• McCain now looks inevitable. But imagine for a moment that Huckabee had stolen Oklahoma an Missouri away from Mac last night. Then we’d truly be talking up the Huckabee resurrection … and the fact that the only Red state John McCain actually won was his home state of Arizona.
• Clinton wins big in California. Delegates, shmelegates. She won the sexiest prize on the table tonight. Far from home. Convincingly. Thanks to overwhelming Hispanic support. Sí se puede.
• Obama did what he needed to do tonight — he won in the blackest and the whitest contests. Kansas and Georgia. North Dakota and Alabama. Alaska and Delaware. The comparisons to Jesse Jackson are over.
• He emerged with not only a draw in delegates, but also cobbled together geographically impressive wins in bellwether Missouri, and in Clinton’s backyard, Connecticut.
• While Obama has proven he’s not simply the black candidate, Clinton emerged tonight very much as the female candidate, with her margin of victory again and again coming from the votes of women.
• John Edwards oddly picked up at least 5 percent of the vote in Arizona and California. Early absentee votes? Or stubborn voters?

So where will John Edwards’ support end up?

I wrote yesterday about the two big camps of Edwards voters: white, manly working stiffs and Elizabeth Edwards Progressives.

I don’t have any indication of how the rural men are breaking, but the Elizabeth Edwards Progressives are moving to Barack in an avalanche.

Check out this Daily Kos straw poll.

Before he bowed out, Edwards was in first place with 42 percent, compared to Obama’s 41. Hillary Clinton brought up the rear at 9 percent.

Today, with Edwards out of the mix, Obama’s got 73 percent. Hillary’s got 11.

For those slow on the math…

That’s a 32 percent bounce for Obama.
A 2 percent blip for Clinton.

The exit of Edwards from the race is a clear boon to the Obama campaign.

The central dynamic of this race has always been Hillary and the two anti-Hillarys. With Edwards gone, Obama becomes the unalloyed repository of the ABC [Anyone But Clinton] vote.

Whether he can run with it or not, Obama finally has his shot to draw a clear distinction between himself and Clinton. Compete head-to-head. Win. Or go home.

The idea that it was somehow better for Obama to have Edwards drag this race into the convention and then have the two of them knock off Hillary with some kind of delegate coup never made much sense to me.

For what it’s worth, my own sense is that a majority of Edwards’ supporters will gravitate to the insurgent candidate. Near as I could tell, Edwards voters were largely white, rural conservative men and what I’ll call Elizabeth Edwards Progressives — a Netrootsy coalition of the party’s bleeding hearts. Among those lunch-bucket dudes, Clinton’s NAFTA support is a real drag. The EEPs, meanwhile, are looking for the most liberal pumpkin in the patch. On the war, at least, that’s Obama.

Edwards has also done Obama a favor by the timing of his exit. Had he stayed in the race any later, today’s news cycle would have been dominated by a discussion of Clinton’s kinda-victory in Florida yesterday, as well as the cooked-up distraction of “the snub.”

Instead the media are in reset mode. Conjecturing where Edwards’ supporters find a home. Theorizing about a potential endorsement. Projecting matchups of Hillary and Obama against McCain.

Knowing the makeup of the Edwards team, I can’t fathom a Clinton endorsement. Who at a table of Elizabeth Edwards, Mudcat Saunders, Joe Trippi, and David Bonoir is going to raise their hand for Clinton? Having interviewed Elizabeth, Edwards’ most influential adviser, in person, I can tell you that her enmity for Clinton is visceral. Trippi is an Obama/movement guy by gut inclination. Mudcat’s on the record as being against Clinton for her NAFTA sins. And I can only imagine a hardscrabble Michigan guy like Bonoir is in the same boat.

The far more likely scenario is that Edwards either continues to hold his tongue, or he times his endorsement of Obama to help give him another boost closer to the fifth.

Either way, this is a good day for the Obama campaign.

NPR is reporting Edwards will drop out in New Orleans today.

Very odd. I was just on a conference call Monday in which Joe Trippi and friends were talking about their detailed plans for pushing through next Tuesday and beyond.

Will he endorse?

UPDATE: On MSNBC, top adviser Mudcat Sanders says he will will do “everything in my power” to keep Edwards from endorsing Clinton because of her NAFTA support.

Right Here.

Obama picked up a quarter of white voters an a phenomenal 80 percent of black voters.

• Won a majority of white folks under 30.
• Swept among every age group except senior citizens.
• Looks to take about 54 percent of the total vote
• Beat Clinton among women 53-30

From the looks of things it will be difficult for Edwards to catch Clinton for second, but he did win among Republicans.

70 percent of voters thought Hillary Clinton attacked Obama unfairly.

Bill Clinton’s campaigning seems to have backfired, with 48 percent of voters who called his role “important” in their decision-making pulling the lever for Obama. Compare that to just 38 percent who ended up voting for the former president’s wife.

UPDATE:

VIA TPM, more evidence of why Bill is less than helpful:

I’m loving this ad.

“Because I’m an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, ‘What’s your biggest weakness?’ If I had gone last, I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, ‘Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.’”

– Barack “I’ve got a messy desk and I constantly lose paperwork” Obama on the Nevada debate in which John Edwards confided that his biggest weakness was that he cared too much, and Hillary Clinton confessed that, darn it, she was sometimes just too eager to implement change.

No More Mr. Nice Guy: Obama Mocks Hillary In Stand Up Routine – Politics on The Huffington Post