What can one possibly figure Elizabeth Edwards was thinking with her most recent criticism of Senator Clinton, to the effect that the junior senator from New York is a less “vocal…women’s advocate” than her husband. Certainly Senator Edwards, the former, who has been focusing his campaign on poverty, must catch some lightning in a bottle if he is to revive his effort to stay in the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. In recent surveys, he is losing ground to Governor Richardson of New Mexico, undermining his claim to be part of the top tier of contenders, along with Mrs. Clinton and Senator Obama.

Mrs. Edwards was previously reported as having said that her life was “more joyous” than Mrs. Clinton’s. That was a curious “attack” on the leader in the Democratic field. By that standard our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who suffered chronic depression, should never have been elected. This time, Mrs. Edwards told Slate.com that professional women “want to reassure [their male counterparts that they’re] as good as a man. And sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women’s issues. I’m sympathetic — she wants to be commander in chief. But she’s just not as vocal a women’s advocate as I want to see. John is.”

The Drudge Report used its rapier news sense to run the story out under a headline to the effect that Mrs. Edwards had accused Mrs. Clinton of “behaving like a man.” But what of the charge that Mrs. Clinton is insufficiently vocal on issues that pertain to women? It’s possible that Mrs. Edwards was referring to abortion rights, and if so, her criticism ignores recent developments among the Democrats following Senator Kerry’s defeat in 2004. A Democratic pollster, Stanley Greenberg, conducted a survey that concluded that the party’s unabashed support for the pro-choice position substantially eroded support for Mr. Kerry among white Catholic voters. President Clinton carried white Catholics by 7 percentage points in 1996; Kerry lost them by 13 points.

At the same time the strategists are poring over evidence from the polls that majorities among both Democrats and Republicans eschew the hard line foisted on the parties by activist minorities. That’s why national Democrats began playing with the idea of centering the party on the abortion issue. In a meeting with organizers after losing in 2004, Mr. Kerry provoked “gasps” when he said Democrats should do more to welcome candidates and voters who say they’re pro-life and to make it clear that being “pro-choice” doesn’t mean being “pro-abortion.”

One result: an up tick in pro-life candidates, like Senator Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania, whose father, then the pro-life governor of Pennsylvania, was denied a speaking role at the national convention that nominated Bill Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has been advising Democrats to seek “common ground … with people on the other side” and expressed respect for “those who believe with all their hearts and conscience that there are no circumstances under which any abortion should ever be available.” So all in all, it’s quite an issue Mrs. Edwards has opened up for a party whose most loyal constituencies have been professional women and unmarried women.