Airing across the dial at around 6:20 ET. We will not have video if I can help it, but it’s been ages since we had a good Pony-bashing thread so have at it if you’re watching. What’s the answer to being trounced by coal miners? Having a fabulously wealthy son of a mill worker vouch for your blue-collar bona fides, of course. Can’t hurt, and it would have been a nice get for Hillary as (weak) evidence of a momentum shift, but is there any other politician whose national profile is as grossly out of proportion to his actual base of support? In ten years, he’s won two elections: The 1998 senate race and the 2004 South Carolina primary. He couldn’t even deliver North Carolina to Kerry when he was on the ticket. The left adores him for his fight-fight-fightin’ nutrootsy rhetoric, but for all his alleged boldness he waited around here until Obama locked up the nomination before daring to announce for him. All this accomplishes, really, is pushing Hillary’s West Virginia win off the front pages a few hours earlier and confirming what we already knew, i.e. that party bigwigs are tilting to Obama to try to end the race. And true to Silky’s ineffectual form, she’s still going to crush the Messiah among those southern, Edwardsian, blue-collar voters in Kentucky next week. Maybe now the margin will only be 20 points instead of 25. Maybe.

Exit question one: How long was this being planned? Since last week at the latest, I’m guessing. Exit question two: Did Silky give Hillary a courtesy call? ABC quotes a staffer as saying he did, but Ambinder’s hearing otherwise.

Update (Ed): I’m worried about the transfer of all those delegates and popular-vote totals for Edwards rushing to support Obama as a result of this endorsement.  Oh, wait …. he only had 830,000 votes at the time of his departure in February and 19 whole delegates!  Even in February, Edwards only mustered about 3% of the cumulative popular vote during his official candidacy.  This is only interesting for its inside-baseball implications about the party establishment.