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Hitch your wagon
(by Matthew Murphy - February 26, 2008)
In the competitive world of politics, endorsements are a highly sought-after prize. The right endorsement can bring manpower, money, connections, credibility and, most importantly, votes.
As the number of closely called primaries and caucuses continues to grow, an effective ground operation becomes increasingly important. Those get-out-the-vote operations require finances and foot soldiers.
Some organizations, including labor unions, have existing operations that can be deployed come election time. In other instances, politicians must bring local, elected officials onboard and tap into their networks of supporters, donors and volunteers.
It’s obvious why campaigns seek out these key endorsements, but what drives those officials to make their endorsements, and what do they stand to gain?
For three state representatives from the city of St. Louis, Reps. Rodney Hubbard, Connie Johnson and Rachel Storch, it comes down to a mixture of policy and relationships. That blend was different for each, however, leading them all to endorse different candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Representative Storch said it was Sen. Hillary Clinton’s approach to health care that put her over the top. Health care has been a legislative priority for Storch, and she has lobbied on behalf of the New York Senator’s health-care proposals here in Missouri.
Storch’s support for Clinton led her to accept the job of state campaign director, a position that oversees the Clinton campaign’s operations around the state.
Rep. Connie Johnson, who serves as the Democratic Whip in the Missouri House, supported Sen. John Edwards because of her relationship to Edwards and her belief that he had a superior understanding of issues like poverty and health care.
“I was with him before,” said Johnson, referring to Edwards’ bid for the nomination in 2004. “There were a lot of [other] people who said, ‘I gave you a shot last time, but I am going someplace else.’”
She felt Edwards had only improved his message in the intervening years while he assisted campaigns in Missouri, including the campaign to raise the minimum wage.
Family connections led Rep. Rodney Hubbard to endorse Sen. Barack Obama. Members of Hubbard’s family in Illinois, who are pastors in East St. Louis, told him about the job Obama was doing in Illinois and helped arrange for him to meet the then state senator. Those early impressions stayed with Hubbard as the race warmed up.
Hubbard said Obama’s heady mix of popular appeal and substance was convincing and reminded him of changes occurring in the city of St. Louis, particularly following the campaign of Aldermanic Board President Lewis Reed last spring, a campaign in which he was involved. That campaign belied some historical voting patterns in the city and forged a coalition that bridged traditional racial and geographical barriers.
“You take someone from the hip-hop generation and someone from the jazz generation, and they are all [talking] about Obama,” said Hubbard, reflecting on conversations he has had with musicians Wynton Marsalis and Nelly.
Why conventional wisdom may be wrong
Although endorsements have become a media obsession, there is little evidence to support the conventional wisdom that endorsements really alter voting patterns, said Ken Warren, a political scientist and pollster based at St. Louis University. He explained the way to measure their effect is to ask, “If you were to hear that X were supporting candidate Y, would it change your feelings about that candidate?” In most cases, 90 percent of people say it would not change their feelings; 5 percent say it would make them more likely to vote for a given candidate; but 5 percent say it would make them less likely.
It is “almost insulting” to voters to assume that an endorsement will sway how an individual will cast his or her ballot, when there are so many other factors in play, he said.
While endorsements don’t really matter in and of themselves, Warren argued, they can be significant if matched by an offer of monetary and volunteer resources. Congressman William “Lacy” Clay’s endorsement was an important one for Obama, because his support translated into a powerful get-out-the-vote operation in North City and North County. Clay has said he is more inclined to work with Obama than he was with Al Gore and John Kerry, the 2000 and 2004 Democratic presidential nominees, who used their own campaign workers in the state and largely bypassed the system that was already in place.
People have speculated that Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill’s highly visible support for Obama was the difference between him winning the state or not. He won the presidential primary with 49 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 48. But if senators are so important, Warren asks, why did Obama lose heavily in Massachusetts, where he had the backing of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, the state’s two senators?
Warren was also dubious about how often established politicians have a free hand in choosing which candidates to back due to pre-existing alliances. For example, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay came out in support of Clinton’s presidential bid early on. Even if the platform of another candidate appealed to him more, he is answerable to senior Democratic Party figures such as Joyce Aboussie and Richard Gephardt, both of whom have helped him. “Slay owes his political career to Joyce Aboussie,” Warren said.
“Different elected officials make endorsements for different reasons,” said John Hickey, head of Missouri Progressive Vote, an organization that works to elect politicians who support progressive policies. Hickey has spent a lifetime working in and around Missouri politics.
Politicians look for ways to enact their policies, said Hickey. That desire leads them to endorse candidates they believe will support their issues, or whose supporters they can tap into in order to further their own interests and issues. It’s often a balance of ideology and self-interest.
Rallying around the final candidate
Divisions over endorsements, even among members of the same party, can stir some internecine tension.“Endorsing the ‘wrong’ candidate, meaning the losing candidate,” can cause problems because “politicians have long memories,” Warren said. Some will hold grudges for decades, while in other cases there are conscious attempts to mend fences, he said.
However, now that the Democratic presidential primary is down to the final two candidates, local Democrats are working to keep any division behind closed doors.
Hickey said the differences in the Democratic race are unlikely to create much friction.
“Right about half the people would have agreed with your endorsement; right about half would disagree,” said Hickey.
“It is a conversation piece,” said Storch of the differing endorsements. “We are steeped in politics after all.”
Storch added that Democrats have an “incredible luxury,” given their field of candidates. No matter which candidate lands the nomination, that person will find the party rallying around him or her, she said.
Johnson said she was aware of criticism directed at her because of her support of Edwards. She shrugged it off as the nature of politics and said that some people misunderstood her position, which was governed by loyalty.
Following Edwards’ decision to drop out of the race on Jan. 30, Johnson moved her support to the Clinton campaign. The move surprised some because of criticism directed at Clinton last year while she was working for the Edwards campaign.
Johnson said that her colleague Storch, who had reached out to her even before Edwards dropped out, convinced her that Clinton’s health-care platform would carry on Edwards’ ambitions.
It’s a decision that demonstrates how close Obama and Clinton are on a number of issues.
“Who was most like John,” said Johnson of her decision between Obama and Clinton. “It’s like fifty-fifty.”In a race like this year’s Democratic nomination, it could be argued that there is little to be lost in endorsing the “wrong” candidate. The ideological and policy differences between the candidates are not insurmountable.
By contrast, the race for the Republican nomination turned into a battle over the title of “true conservative,” with rival charges of failure to hew to conservative orthodoxy or worse. On his Feb. 4 radio show, conservative icon Rush Limbaugh said that John McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, “had it in for the Republican Party, and one of his objectives is to destroy it and change it.” Limbaugh made that statement one day before the Super Tuesday elections and three days before McCain’s main rival, Gov. Mitt Romney, dropped out of the race. However it is also notable that since then various senior Republicans, including President George W. Bush, have given their backing to McCain in the hope that the rest of the party will coalesce around him.
Rewards for backing a winner
There is always something to be gained in an affiliation with a winning candidate. If a politician is on the winning side of a ticket, it can benefit a position directly. Legislation is a collaborative process, and gaining the right support may provide the critical votes.
“You potentially have a strong ally down the hall,” said Johnson.
Other benefits may be less concrete.
If your base is leaning toward a candidate that you have endorsed, that can solidify your base, Hubbard said.Hubbard has announced his candidacy for the State Senate’s 5th District seat. He hopes to build on the energy and boost in turnout that Obama brought to the city. The 5th District primary is in August, with the general election following in November.
It will take some time to know where all the chips will finally fall in Missouri. Political relationships can be a daunting tangle to tease apart and one that can change shape quickly.
Elected officials weigh many factors when making their endorsements, and often they can’t predict the outcome. Races may change underneath them, or the environment can become less hospitable to a contrarian politician. In the end, it is often their relationships that define what steps they can and will take.
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