While we're waiting to find out, Edwards' tortured Southern shtick is supposed to help Obama with the demographic of white, rural, working-class (non-college) Americans he's been having trouble with. Green room translation: poor, ignorant racists.

Presumably, Edwards knows how to relate to these folks, given his heritage and his years as a trial lawyer representing the little people against corporate America. Notwithstanding his 28,000-square-foot house and $400 haircuts. And ignoring the fact that one reason health insurance rates are so high -- and that so many poor rural folks lack quality medical care -- is because of Edwards' and other trial lawyers' success in convincing jurors that doctors owe the world always-perfect results.

His medical malpractice specialty often focused on OB-GYNs and his multimillion-dollar awards resulted from emotion more than science. Edwards' underappreciated acting skills, including an uncanny ability to channel the voice of a dead child, helped raise malpractice premiums so high that many OB-GYNs have fled the profession.

Thanks in part to Edwards, some of the poor folks about whom he cares so deeply can't easily find a doctor to deliver their babies.

Whether Edwards helps Obama seems questionable. A few of Edwards' 18 pledged delegates may slide over, though they don't have to. At best, he helped momentarily by stealing Clinton's thunder. The timing of the endorsement during the evening news hour -- the day after her landslide win in West Virginia -- provided Obama live coverage followed by a full evening of commentary.

Clinton, who got a little face time as reporters took her temperature, was (as always) smooth and cool as a cucumber martini.

Which puts new thoughts in motion as voters project down the road. Obama and Edwards look and talk pretty, but Clinton exudes pure brawn, unflinching and steely. When the time comes to sit across from the likes of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a chill in the heart may beat a thrill up the leg.