Very little would change.
First off, so many things were wrong with Edwards' 2008 campaign. For example, he
did not spend a single dime on polling. That is insane. When you are the candidate, "polling" doesn't mean the cheap stuff you see in newspapers, telling you whether you're winning. "Polling" means detailed interviews, in order to find out
why you're winning or losing, and
how you could improve.
Then, after the campaign ended and the world found out about the affair, you have to ask yourself, what could Edwards have aspired to instead? His political ambitions are all aimed at the wrong places -- as Kay Hagan proved, a Democrat can win a Senate seat in North Carolina, and yet John Edwards has never said anything about trying to get another statewide office. And he's useless as a Cabinet official -- he may be famous, but he doesn't have the sort of experience running a bureaucracy or being a specialized policy expert that Obama has clearly made his #1 and #2 criteria for his Cabinet picks.