SALON

Friday, Dec 30, 2011 7:09 PM UTC

Endorsement Game Intensifies, But Does It Matter?

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Endorsement Game Intensifies, But Does It Matter?FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2009 file photo, Forbes Media Chairman and CEO Steve Forbes arrives for a charity event for the Make a Wish foundation, in Mumbai, India. It may be overrated, but the political endorsement race will not stop _ and it's only accelerating as voting nears. Hoping to bolster credibility and build political muscle, Republican presidential contenders have jockeyed for months to win over governors and congressional lawmakers, state senators and county sheriffs, newspaper editorial boards and tea party activists. It's a game that's been dominated so far by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who appears to have captured more endorsements than the rest of the field combined. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade, File)(Credit: AP)

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — It may be overrated, but the political endorsement race won’t stop. In fact, it will only accelerate as voting in the GOP presidential contest nears.

Hoping to bolster credibility and build political muscle, Republican presidential contenders have jockeyed for months to woo governors and congressional lawmakers, state senators and county sheriffs, newspaper editorial boards and tea party activists. The game has been dominated so far by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who appears to have captured more endorsements than the rest of the field combined.

But Jeff Frost, like many Republicans in early voting states, isn’t impressed. Frost, who is chairman of the Manchester Republican Committee, said New Hampshire voters don’t much like being told which candidate to support.

“We’re a stubborn bunch of horse traders,” he said.

Indeed, candidates and voters alike suggest the impact of political endorsements is unclear at best. Any potential blowback, however, isn’t enough to stop campaigns from trotting out new supporters as quickly as they can sign them up.

It didn’t matter that the New Hampshire Union Leader has a spotty record of picking winners. Newt Gingrich claimed instant credibility after capturing its endorsement. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum proudly won over Iowa social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, while touring Iowa, recently dispatched his latest high-profile supporter, conservative businessman Steve Forbes, to New Hampshire.

In most cases, the campaigns shop their big-name backers to local reporters, arrange meetings with voters and use their names and voices in fundraising appeals. Some also offer an instant infrastructure to handle nuts-and-bolts political chores that have tripped up less-organized candidates. That was the case recently in Virginia, where leading Romney supporter Lt. Gov. Bill Boiling shared his political network to help collect thousands of signatures so Romney could qualify for the primary ballot. Gingrich and Perry failed to qualify.

There’s also the buzz that comes with any endorsement, producing days or a few hours of positive media coverage that may inspire confidence among wavering supporters.

Republican candidate Jon Huntsman has struggled to attract big names but recently won the backing of three New Hampshire newspapers, including the capital city’s Concord Monitor. His campaign blasted news of the endorsements to reporters.

But even Huntsman acknowledged their impact may be minimal come Election Day.

“It’s recognition that you are a legitimate candidate and people think well of you,” Huntsman said. “What it does in terms of bringing support around in real numbers that would be quantifiable, I don’t have any way of measuring that. I just don’t know if it matters at all at the end of the day. But anything that provides additional credibility is a good thing.”

The people who endorse candidates are also freer to go negative. Romney supporter and former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu has repeatedly jabbed at Gingrich for “whining.” Forbes did much the same thing in New Hampshire for Perry, suggesting that the Texas governor has more “soul” than Romney.

Forbes, once a presidential contender himself, is considered popular in New Hampshire. But a handful of public appearances and media interviews are unlikely to sway any voters, according to Phyllis Woods, one of New Hampshire’s two members of the Republican National Committee.

“I think in New Hampshire, there are precious few people who will make their decision based on an endorsement,” she said.

There are always exceptions.

Romney helped create an air of inevitability in the fall after earning the endorsement of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an outspoken conservative favorite. That was strengthened when Romney subsequently won over a tea party favorite, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Dave Roederer, an unaligned Republican who was John McCain’s Iowa campaign chairman in 2008, said such high-profile endorsements are helpful.

“Iowa’s not a big endorsement-type state, but the fact of the matter is that people will obviously stop and listen to somebody who’s a big name like that,” Roederer said of Christie and Haley. “It helps.”

Santorum hopes people will notice rounds of lesser-known Iowa Republicans, from pastors and politicians alike, whom he’s courted with some success in recent weeks. His top prize so far has been Vander Plaats, whose Family Leader organization worked to oust judges who helped usher in gay marriage in Iowa. The organization itself, however, declined to endorse.

In the endorsement race, which candidate gets the most is also a contest.

Romney’s campaign says he’s collected more than 1,900 endorsements, including conservative activists and current and former elected officials in all 50 states. The list includes four governors, 48 House members and 11 senators.

No one else comes close.

More Steve Peoples.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
353 points354 points | 116 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
60 points61 points | 3 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
38 points39 points | 4 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
38 points39 points | 13 comments
vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
40 points41 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations