If Wishes Were Fishes

How I'd love to be a fly-on-the-wall in Edwards' HQ today. I really don't know how this'll shake out. I can't really imagine the campaign firing Amanda and Melissa, even though that was clearly the (understandable) initial instinct of at least some folks over there. These sorts of cannings used to be a simple matter, but now the campaign has to decide which activated constituency it'll annoy. It would seem they could amass a lot of goodwill by releasing a strong, aggressive statement against the attacks, possibly one that goes on the offensive against smear artists like Donahue.

For that matter, I do wonder what the upside would be of firing the two bloggers. The right will always know they hired them in the first place. The language of any conceivable attack ad -- "John Edwards hired an atheist as his blogmaster!" -- won't even change. And the press certainly won't fall over themselves offering positive coverage. It'll just be a black eye. In a weird way, I think everyone is assuming the two will get fired because that's always been the rule. But given the new constituencies in the netroots, the post-Rove focus on base mobilizations, and the high value Democratic primary voters place on partisan streetfighting skills, is the old model still operative, or are people just following it because they've always followed it?