SHREWD CLARK MAKES IT 10
Senator John Edwards calculated carefully. He had to announce his decision not to run for re-election to the US Senate prior to his official announcement of his candidacy for President. If he made both announcements on the same day, then the decision to leave the Senate and speculation about the Republicans' chances of picking up his seat would dominate the news coverage, taking away the coverage of the message that he wants to put forward when launching his campaign in Robbins, North Carolina.

Well, today Edwards is in Robbins announcing how he'll fight for "regular people." But he's being overshadowed by General Wesley Clark, who also announces today that he's entering the race.

Clark hopes to be the more reasonable alternative to the Howard Dean wing of the Democrat party, which looks suspiciously like the George McGovern wing. With 7 of the 9 current candidates lurching further and further to the left, Clark hopes to get traction where Lieberman and Edwards can't and become the alternative to Karl Rove's Dream (the Vermont Governor). By announcing the same day as Edwards, the General shows that he's politically clever enough to ruin the day that Edwards was counting on to get out of the single digits.

His next target will be Lieberman, and Clark will hope to beat Edwards and Lieberman in Iowa, Edwards in New Hampshire and come in at least second in South Carolina, a knock out blow to the Dean alternative who can't crack the top 2.

But neither Clark nor Edwards will win the news battle tonight. The winner hasn't even declared her intentions, but it's looking like she is not focusing on Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. No, hers is a North Carolina strategy, and her name is Isabel.