Edwards’ backpedaling over his conversation with Hillary Clinton may get him into even more trouble, as he’s now setting himself up for what may be a real debate between him, Clinton, and Kucinich. If Clinton agrees to participate in the smaller group with Kucinich, which Edwards claims was his intention all along, then these two top-tier candidates may possibly be committing campaign suicide. Dennis is simply the better candidate on every issue, and that would be more than obvious with such a format.

Clinton and Edwards have really put themselves in a pickle with this one. If they don’t debate Kucinich then they’ll have to admit they were conspiring to manipulate the democratic process. If they do debate him then voters will see the emperor and empress have no clothes. And to top it all off - this fantastic turn of events, which may put the most liberal candidate in the spotlight, was all the result of Fox News leaving their mics on. How’s that for irony?

Much thanks to Anita for the story

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards renewed his call Tuesday for smaller, more substantive candidate forums, agreeing to MSNBC�s invitation to debate Sen. Hillary Clinton and Rep. Dennis Kucinich on live television.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina and the Democrats� vice presidential candidate in 2004, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., were captured on open microphones criticizing Kucinich, D-Ohio, by name after an NAACP candidates forum last week…

…The comments reflected a perennial complaint of high-profile campaigns that minor candidates distract attention from candidates with a legitimate shot to win, but Edwards explained in an interview on MSNBC�s �Hardball� on Tuesday that he did not mean to suggest that less visible candidates should be excluded from the Democratic forums.
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Instead, he said that the large forums involving all of the Democratic candidates at once were unwieldy and that a better way to explore issues in depth should be found. �I think it�s just the nature of having a lot of candidates,� Edwards said. �The hard thing … is trying to find a way to not have this be a sound-bite debate.�

Edwards accepted host Chris Matthews� challenge to face off with Clinton and Kucinich on �Hardball,� but only if the show would arrange similar small discussions that included the rest of the Democratic field. �Any way we can have a more serious discussion with smaller groups, I am happy to participate in,� he said.

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