Conterfactuals are Fun!

Shorter Howard Wolfson during the primary:

If we count Florida and Michigan, and don't count the caucus states, Clinton wins.

If we count the big states and not the small states, Clinton wins.

If we count the states Clinton won, Clinton wins.

And Wolfson, doing the only thing he knows how to, introduces yet another stupid counterfactual:


So the argument is: If Edwards' affair would have been revealed earlier, Clinton would have won Iowa, and thus, she would have won the nomination.

I thought about this a little earlier, and I imagined a scenario in which Edwards' affair could have affected the race: what if the affair came out right after he dropped out? Say it did. Is there a contingent of women out there who considered voting for Obama, but the Edwards' affair reminded them too much of their painful personal circumstances with their unfaithful husbands, and that convinced them to vote for Hillary to "stick it" to their philandering husbands?

I'm sure it's plausible, but it all seems so far-fetched. But then again-- most of what Wolfson had to say during the primary had an alice-in-wonderland quality to it.