Once again, the news is…

…nobody knows.

msn1 gives the old crystal ball a workout trying to reassign the national convention delegates Edwards has already booked. Among other things, he dismisses the Iowa results out of hand...

Since Edwards won't meet the 15% threshold at the county conventions, he won't have any representation at the CD conventions, and won't get any CD-level delegates. Where they go at this point is impossible to say.

The only sure thing in that statement is the part about "impossible to say." Later, msn1 discusses the difference, or lack thereof, in his view, that suspending a campaign might make, versus withdrawing from the campaign. With a suspended campaign, the candidate remains on ballots and his earned delegates retain their credentials at every level, including the national convention. There are circumstances under which his name may ultimately be placed in nomination. In fact, in the delegate selection process there's little practical difference between an active and a suspended campaign.

In a case like Iowa with a multi-tiered delegate selection process, it's hard to generate turnout for a candidate who is no longer actively campaigning, but it's not impossible. One approach is to make the campaign larger than the candidate, to make it a cause. In the case of the Edwards campaign, that transition was begun in Iowa, where only a win might have altered the HillObamaRama media script, and was finalized after New Hampshire, when it started to become clear that there wasn't a win in sight. I admit that I've been contemplating second round choices for my own caucus, in the event I couldn't get through as an Edwards delegate, hoping to help hit the threshold with another switch down the line. I had no expectation of an Edwards nomination, really, and didn't even hold out much hope for a power broker role in the nomination, but that wouldn't keep me away from my Feb. 9, almost certainly after the fact caucus, and it still won't. It won't keep me from trying to go on as a delegate, and won't keep me from joining the Edwards faction at any level it makes threshold. Not just yet, anyway. I'm guessing a lot of those county convention delegates in Iowa feel the same way. In fact, a lot of them have been with Edwards for four or five years, and their feelings likely run stronger than mine.

If there's enough local organization and enthusiasm to work turnout hard, there's no reason that Edwards shouldn't retain all of his potential delegates in Iowa, and there's actually a possibility that his numbers could improve if there were a significant attendance drop off in another camp. Jerry Brown didn't suspend his campaign in '92, which made my job organizing caucus delegates somewhat easier, I suppose, but with a concentrated turnout effort, we actually increased our vote count at every level of the process, including on the floor of the national convention, although the nomination had been decided long before Washington's votes were cast. Turns out there was a fellow who came through the entire process as uncommitted, just waiting to join us on the first ballot. Precinct to the national convention as uncommitted to cast a vote for a candidate who had already lost. That's the kind of commitment you find when campaigns become causes. That's why it's way too early to write off all of Edwards' Iowa delegates, or any of them.

Of course, it's a lot harder going forward. People rarely vote for people who don't ask for their votes, and suspended means Edwards won't be asking. That doesn't mean that no one will be asking on his behalf, though. Tonight I attended a training for the upcoming precinct caucuses, since, as Precinct Committee Officer, I'll be chairing mine. We did a full simulation and when it came time to sign in to my assigned mock precinct, the pen caught as I started to write "uncommitted" and it came out "Edwards." Although the 15% threshold has been waived at the precinct level this year, there were only four delegates to distribute among the five candidates, including uncommitted, on the sign in sheets (my legislative district is, for some reason, a hotbed of hard core Kucinichism). At risk of being cut out, I gave a "send 'em a message" pitch to the uncommitteds on behalf of Edwards and secured the switches we needed to guarantee an Edwards delegate (Dennis got his, too. Uncommitted got cut). Right now, I expect that's just what I'll do February 9th - sign in for Edwards and pitch hard to come out for him.

Of course, it's not February 9th yet, and I'm still open minded.