Presidential contender John Edwards has announced that he will not seek reelection as Senator in North Carolina "in order to devote all of [his] energy to running for president." Unless he makes a Clintonian comeback, I think that this is a calculation to put his name on the second line of the ticket. This of course means that his seat, which would have been a gimme for for the Democrats, is now up for grabs. The New York Times reports that earlier speculation points to Erskine Bowles running for the seat for the Dems.