EDWARDS HATIN'. From Mike Crowley's excerpts, it really does look like Shrum's got the long knives out for Edwards, which may or may not be a point in Edwards' favor. Shrum isn't alone, though. Despite the recent affection for Edwards among young, social democrat policy wonk types, there's a deep animus towards him in more mainstream Washington circles. When I did my profile of the guy, Chuck Todd, who's got a pretty good sense for these sorts of things, marveled to me, "for some reason he's pissed off half of DC. I can't tell you why, I don't know. But half of the Democratic elite here in DC just hate John Edwards. It's amazing, some of it's irrational, and the Edwards people know it and see it as a badge of honor, somewhat. Maybe they feel like it's because he didn't play ball, maybe they feel like he forced himself onto the ticket, that he was too brazen in how he campaigned for that second slot. There's no one rational reason, but there's a not insignificant clique of elites in DC who are not Edwards fans, and who are borderline irrational about it. It's not unlike that sort of clique of Republicans and John McCain." Whether the distaste for Edwards among some establishment types amounts to anything serious or impactful is, for now, an open question. But given Edwards' recent tendencies to run against the Senate, it's only going to get worse. --Ezra Klein
