Elizabeth Edwards "plugged" Hillary’s health care plan Wednesday on Good Morning America by saying that, in her opinion, Clinton’s policy had a better shot at being successful than Obama’s did. This is a very different Elizabeth than the gal who, in September, accused Senator Clinton of stealing her husband’s plan for universal health care.
What makes this thumbs-up so interesting, though, is that it follows two months of virtual silence from the Senator and his wife. While the near-hysterical punditocracy has begged the Party Elders — of which Edwards is surely one — to stop the insanity, John Kerry’s former running mate has stayed frustratingly mum. I think Edwards is playing possum because he wants to be at the bottom of the ticket but John Heilemann offered a much juicier hypothesis in his last column for New York Magazine. According to Heilemann’s sources, Edwards denied Obama the expected endorsement and instead took another look at Clinton because “Obama blew it” by acting “glib” (where’s Tom Cruise when you finally need him?) about — wait for it — his health care plan. Enter Elizabeth, right on cue, to give her vote of confidence to Clinton’s policy.
But is it an endorsement? Not yet, and maybe not ever, but things certainly just got a little more interesting.
— Meg