Opinion: John Edwards gains a little ground in South Carolina

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There’s still an awful lot of space between John Edwards and Barack Obama in the South Carolina polls ahead of Saturday’s primary, but as the Zogby folks have found, Edwards is moving to within striking distance of Hillary Clinton for the No. 2 spot.

Caveat: Shifts demarked in a single poll often don’t mean anything, and polls in general are NOT predictors. Being savvy political watchers, you knew that, of course.

But the Real Clear Politics aggregate tracker shows a similar shift amid some serious volatility in South Carolina. Most interesting is that two weeks ago Clinton and Obama were running neck-and-neck, even without the margin of error. Since then -- as the Clinton tag-team lined up against Obama -- the Illinois senator has gained support while the New York senator has lost support (Obama has seen some erosion lately, too).

At the same time, Edwards has been picking up traction. Again, there’s a lot of ground between him and Obama. But not so much between him and Clinton. And if Edwards edges out Clinton again, you have to wonder what that will do to her support in the Feb. 5 states.

-- Scott Martelle