Do Endorsements Matter?

Perhaps the easiest and most publicly visible measure of a candidate's support, the endorsement is likely also the most overrated. Few primary voters will go into the voting booth or their caucus meeting to cast their vote for a candidate because a member of Congress from another state has thrown their weight behind them. And celebrity endorsements go nowhere either. "Whoever Madonna endorses, that won't have any positive impact on that candidate," says national Republican strategist John Brabender.

But certain endorsements -- the ones that don't always merit big national headlines -- do carry with them perks essential to running winning campaigns in early states. And, as different as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina are, so are those endorsements that matter in each state.

Around the country, the value of an endorsement "depends on what the person making the endorsement can bring to the table," says Simpson College political science professor John Epperson. In Iowa, where Epperson teaches, the big-name endorsements are good for two things: A day of headlines and raised expectations. Leading up to the caucuses in 2004, Iowa Senator Tom Harkin chose to stand behind insurgent-turned-front-runner Howard Dean. "Tom Harkin is the soul of the Democratic Party in this state," says Epperson, "and it didn't do Mr. Dean much good."

Instead, many in Iowa suggest it is the people willing to work for a candidate who matter most. "Endorsements that matter are the people who can deliver either straw poll votes or caucus votes," says former Iowa Republican Party Chairman Steve Grubbs, who now works for former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson. "It's just a matter of how much work they're willing to do for you," said former Democratic Party Chairman Gordon Fischer, currently unaligned with any campaign.

Fischer and Grubbs suggest that the valued endorser -- someone Grubbs calls a "super volunteer" -- can fill a bus full of people willing to cast a vote at the Iowa Republican straw poll in Ames, or deliver their caucus for a candidate. Because of the caucus process, convincing one's organization to fall in line behind a candidate of their choice takes a lot more work in Iowa than elsewhere. It's the "elbow grease," says Fischer, that makes the difference.

The Granite State comes with a different emphasis. Unlike Iowa and South Carolina, every office holder must run for re-election every two years. That means, on the first day of Governor John Lynch's second term, he had just twenty two months until he had to face voters again.

Required to operate almost continuous campaigns, the state's governors, executive councillors and state senators must build an effective organization to win. Therefore, when given the chance to endorse a presidential candidate, they have the opportunity to turn on a well-oiled machine for that candidate. Former New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Kathy Sullivan points out that former Governor Jeanne Shaheen's political machine has "produced a lot of very well-trained political operatives," many of whom are running White House campaigns in the state today. Local people, says Republican Brabender, are "very tested, and you're picking up people who know how to win votes in a local municipality."

The state also boasts the third-largest legislative body in the world, behind only the U.S. House and the British Parliament. "In New Hampshire, with a legislature of 424 people (400 members of the House and 24 Senators), I think endorsements of legislators are important because each person has their own network and list of people who are committed to them," said State Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat.

In South Carolina, several Republicans have found themselves confronted by a shift in the traditional conventional wisdom. Whereas former Governor Carroll Campbell and former Senator Strom Thurmond once boasted large organizations capable of delivering votes, no Republican in the state has a similar following. Neither Senator Lindsay Graham, whose own popularity among the Republican base is suspect, nor Senator Jim DeMint, who one source described as not a "pol," but a "policy guy," can guarantee votes, and Governor Mark Sanford's machine is not what Campbell's once was.

Indeed, endorsements from top elected officials have done Senator John McCain little good in the state. He's collected support from Graham, Attorney General Henry McMaster and House Speaker Bobby Harrell, yet a Mason-Dixon poll last month put him at just 7% in the state.

Instead, say multiple sources in the state, it is organizations that deliver votes in the Palmetto State. Earning the endorsement of South Carolina Citizens for Life, the Palmetto Family Council and the South Carolina Conservation League can mean more to a candidate than an elected official. "People who belong to these organizations because they believe in the cause, and they are more likely to go and vote at the end of the day," said one Republican operative.

The operative pointed out that former Governor Mitt Romney is playing the game correctly by focusing, unlike McCain or former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, on leaders of those groups, hiring activist group representatives as top county chairs.

In South Carolina, local sheriffs and law enforcement are also key to building a successful organization. One political operative points out that a sheriff is usually trusted by his or her community, and they come with the most obvious organization in the state: Members of their organization always wear uniforms.

In the end, many top politicians are described as "heavily courted." But in all three primary states, where a voter expects to meet a candidate multiple times before casting a vote for him or her, it is in fact the lower-level operatives, elected officials or activists who can spend the time and energy working for the candidate of their choice.

A Congressman, whose endorsement may merit a prominent story in a local paper, may in fact be less valuable than a sheriff in South Carolina, a volunteer with a bus load of friends in Iowa, or a state senator in New Hampshire who must keep their organization sharp in order to win re-election every two years. Their names don't mean much to the national media, but they're a lot more familiar to a crowd of primary voters or caucus-goers than others give them credit for.