North Carolina Governor and Superdelegate Mike Easley will endorse Senator Clinton.

Last week Howard Fineman had the scoop that Elizabeth Edwards was backing Clinton and was considering appearing at an event in support of her. Today the Times adds weight to the story.

On the other hand, Mrs. Edwards, her husband’s closest and most trusted adviser, has made it clear that she favors Mrs. Clinton; aides said she had recently tried to persuade Mr. Edwards to do the same.

The story also adds further weight to the notion that John Edwards is sitting on the sidelines in the hope that he will play a role in the next Democratic administration. “He doesn’t want to pick the loser,” is the continued word from those around him.

My take? As I have said before, John doesn’t gain much politically by coming out for either candidate right now. With that said, many of his supporters are people who believe he is honest and driven by conviction. If he believes the potential loser is the best choice, it would serve him well with his base to come out and say it.

ABC News is reporting that John Edwards is seriously considering an endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton. He met with Clinton secretly recently and was supposed to meet with Obama on Monday but that meeting was cancelled at the last minute.

As he weighs a possible endorsement in the Democratic race, former Sen. John Edwards is as split as the party he once hoped to lead — and is seriously considering supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, despite the sharp criticism he leveled at her on the campaign trail, according to former aides and advisers.

n deciding between his one-time rivals, Edwards appears deeply divided. Several former advisers likened his thought process to a heart-versus-head split — with his heart favoring Sen. Barack Obama’s strong message of change, and his head attracted to Clinton’s tested nature and commitment to tough fights.

Though he sometimes aligned himself with Obama — and against Clinton — as a candidate, several Edwards campaign insiders say the former senator began to sour on Obama toward the end of his own campaign, and ultimately left the race questioning whether Obama had the toughness needed to prevail in a presidential race.

Reports are Hillary Clinton secretly met with John Edwards thursday in Chapel Hill. Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with him tomorrow.

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How do we know John Edwards is now being heavily courted by Obama & Clinton? One Joe Trippi told us so. Two, check out the candidate’s Web sites!

Reports are that John Edwards will announce he is dropping out of the race today in New Orelans.

The Associated Press reports that Edwards will not immediately endorse a candidate.

CNN Reports:

A top Edwards aide said the former senator contacted Obama and Clinton on Tuesday, telling them he was considering dropping out of the race and asking them to make poverty a top issue of their campaigns and — if either reaches the White House — a central part of their administration.

Both candidates agreed, the aide said.

Obama made the following statement on the withdrawl of John Edwards:

“John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn’t popular to do or covered in the news. At a time when our politics is too focused on who’s up and who’s down, he made a nation focus again on who matters – the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington. John and Elizabeth Edwards have always believed deeply that we can change this – that two Americans can become one, and that our country can rally around this common purpose. So while his campaign may end today, the cause of their lives endures for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America.”

Clinton reaction:

Well Senator Edwards is a friend of mine, he was a colleague in the senate and I have the highest regard for him, and I’m really admiring of what he has done to make sure that poverty was on the agenda here in America. He encouraged all of us in his passion and advocacy and I hope he will continue that work because it is really important that we stay focused on what we’re going to do to help people.

On Debate “I was trying to represent the grown-up wing of the Democratic party”

Meanwhile Edwards let Letterman mess up his much talked about hair. You can see just that clip below.

The New York Times looks into the Edwards campaign’s fight following a very poor showing in Nevada. With many wondering why Edwards would stay in the race, the story lends some insight. Put simply, Edwards has made this campaign about his life’s work.

“I think it’s a cause, and it looks like it’s a way of life,” said Merle Black, a professor of politics at Emory University who is an expert on Southern politics. “It’s hard to let that go, it’s hard to let that cause go. I think he really, really believes that he’s destined to be president of the United States.”

Most interesting from the article is the following:

But his aides have said privately that they do not expect Mr. Edwards to win a single primary state. And the results of the Nevada caucuses threw the campaign’s top advisers into hours of strategy meetings Saturday night, debating how the shellshocked campaign could feasibly continue.

In the end, the campaign held onto its longstanding position of simply hanging on. “There’s just no reason not to go to South Carolina, pick up delegates and watch the dynamics of the race play out for a while,” one adviser said.

Edwards will undoubtedly continue into South Carolina, perhaps as the piece suggests angling as a spoiler for Hillary Clinton by grabbing up some of the white vote that might otherwise go to her. It is conceivable, with the way Democrats apportion delegates, that Edwards will stay true to his word and continue fighting through the convention, acting as a dealmaker/dealbreaker there leveraging whatever delegates he takes up.

One thing is for certain though, Edwards is losing his standing with a media that wants to frame this as a two-person contest and with only a few percentage points won in Nevada it seems he is quickly losing interest among Democratic voters.

[techtags: Democratic Convention, Democratic Delegates, John Edwards, South Carolina, Spoiler, politics]

After twenty minutes of Tim Russert, Natalie Morales and Brian Williams focusing solely on race and gender issues, and twenty minutes of the three candidates BEGGING to be asked difficult and substantive questions, someone finally stood up. A lone protestor shouted “these are race based questions” and yelled at the moderators to stop focusing on them.

The mood is terrible thus far on the debate. Morales chimed in with a question to John Edwards about being a white male that was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard on one of these.

As they seem to work in the background to take care of the man shouting, I hope the moderators get the point and start asking questions that actually have some substance.