'What if' dept.: Edwards won

What if former North Carolina Senator John Edwards had captured the Democratic nomination last year, and then the sex scandal broke?

So speculates Christopher Beam in Slate, the online political blog. Beam says an Edwards victory in the Democratic primary was more plausible than many people might think, especially if Barack Obama had listened to those who said he was too inexperienced to run, Rob Christensen reports. Beam assumes that Edwards could not have kept the sex scandal covererd up for ever.

“It's safe to assume that if Edwards had won the nomination, (John) McCain would be president,” Beam said. “It's hard to overstate the ripple effect on American politics, especially the Democratic Party. Democrats would have blown their best shot at the presidency in a generation.”

More after the jump.

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Beam writes:

Every bit of joy and enthusiasm and relief that spilled out after Obama's victory—imagine the opposite. Despair. Disillusionment. Recriminations would be shouted, scapegoats slaughtered. Liberals in their fury might even embrace McCain, who would suddenly realize he doesn't have to tack so far right to win. Edwards would become a curse word.

Some former Edwards staffers have claimed that they had planned to sabotage the campaign if their candidate was on the verge of winning the nomination. But that's easy to say in hindsight. If Edwards had been about to beat Hillary and, with the hopes and dreams of half the country behind him, take the presidency, it would have been insane to pull the plug. No cost/benefit analysis would have counseled it.