Moseley Braun

According to the AP, Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun is dropping out of the Democratic race and will endorse Howard Dean.

Moseley Braun was on "The Daily Show" last night and though I was doing some other things, I'm pretty sure she did not mention this.

John Edwards, in contrast, officially announced his candidacy for President on Jon Stewart's outstanding TV program.

Perhaps this is why Moseley Braun is out and Edwards is up?

Dean's camp is hoping that Braun's likely endorsement of the Governor will help insulate him against some of the race issues Reverend Al Sharpton has been raising.

Most importantly, the National Organization of Women (NOW) is freed to endorse one of the other candidates. Conceivably, the high profile candidates might now start paying more attention to issues of greater concern to women in hopes of winning NOW's endorsement.

Since some polls show that General Clark suffers a "gender gap" (Howard Dean would say this is because he's the candidate most like a Republican, who suffer the same problem) he seems to have the most to gain by going out of his way to talk about these issues. Of course, this might not mean what you think it means. Garance Franke-Ruta argued last year that women can be fired up by Clark's anti-terror message, if framed in the right way.

In South Carolina, by the way, Clark is beating Dean among women -- but Dean is leading among male voters. Is this because men in SC likely to be sympathetic to Clark's appeal are registered Republicans?