Rich — Good point. And I should add that I don’t think my Clintonite conspiracy theory is the most likely explanation. I think a more likely one is a combination of two things. 1) Edwards is determined to remain “sunny” even though being a sunny loser is a lot worse for his career than a gloomy winner and 2) I suspect that Kerry is determined to be “tough”. I think — again because he’s got horrendous political instincts — he’s internalized the Dukakis lesson of always responding. I also think he thinks he’s so much more of a man than Bush that he must go on the offensive personally and he hates the image of letting Edwards do his fighting for him. Perhaps that’s because Edwards is a far, far better politician than Kerry.
But whatever the reason, if Kerry loses, I look forward to the post-mortems and finger pointing. It should be fascinating.