Reply #46: Well, I agree with your ascribed cause

[Adelante]

It was a very big hit. But I think my ascribed causes, which I never thought were the only ones, are also valid in a more longer-term erosion kind of way. Edwards and Clinton's IWR votes opened a space for Obama in Iowa that maybe would not have been there or at least would have made things a lot tighter all around. Your point about Obama's steep ascent and its timing is one I made, actually, earlier in the thread. Obama's Iowa win caused the surge, as was always expected, but my point is more that Edwards's dropping out did not cause it to waver. I do propose that an earlier withdrawal, after Iowa and before New Hampshire, by Edwards would have made a difference in New Hampshire. Hillary's dramatic surge just before the vote would have been tempered and she might have gone into Nevada with two losses behind her rather than the one, since Edwards voters had expressed in polls their second choice was Obama. Some of that would have been subject to change in the actual vote, but it was close enough that Obama would likely have won New Hampshire and gone to Nevada a whole lot stronger than he did and Clinton a whole lot weaker. With four early, sequential wins, the race would probably have been over after South Carolina, especially since Clinton didn't really have her act together before March.