The Endorsement Game Kicks Off

You will, I hope, forgive the short absence.  Thanksgiving weekend was a very busy one and I have now just started to catch up on work.

Yesterday, Bruce Poliquin kicked off the endorsement game by announcing that he had received the support of Representative Tyler Clark of Easton.

Clark is a freshman representative, and is currently the youngest Republican in the Legislature.  A business student in college, he will be graduating from the University of Maine (Presque Isle) in the spring.  In the 2008 election, Clark won with 67% of the vote – a triumph considering that in 2006 he ran for the seat and lost to Democrat Jacqueline Lundeen.

In the release, Clark explained his endorsement:

“Maine will face tremendous economic challenges over the next four years,” Representative Clark said in a statement. “We need strong leadership in the Blaine House from someone with the courage to make the difficult decisions to improve our economy and create jobs.  Our next Governor must be someone who understands the private sector and brings a new perspective to running state government.”

“I know Bruce has the background, experience and unique qualifications to properly manage our state’s finances and make state agencies accountable to the people they serve.  Bruce is the right person at the right time to handle the problems we have today.  I fully support his candidacy for Governor and encourage my colleagues in the State House to do the same.”

This is the first legislative endorsement that I have been made aware of – and it will obviously not be the last.

So how important are endorsements?

Normally, they are almost entirely irrelevent.  Voters do not make decisions about who to vote for based on who other people tell them to support.  They vote out of self interest, a connection to a candidate, ideology and any number of other reasons – but who a northern Maine state rep thinks is a good candidate is not on the list.

However, in this rather unique primary endorsements will matter (to a point).  We are dealing with a number of untested, unproven, first time candidates – and the same question is on everyone’s mind when we consider people like that:  “is this person legitimate?”.

In other words, we have a lot of options, but since name ID is low and most of these people are inexperienced, voters will need some way to weed out the legitimate from the illegitimate – and endorsements are one of those ways.

Indeed, on a macro level, we witnessed this in the 2008 presidential campaign.  Barack Obama was in many respects the fresh, new outsider with no establishment credentials, and many people were still wondering if he was really a legitimate contender for the presidency.  The endorsement he received from Ted Kennedy immediately established him as somebody who the establishment could rally behind, and who was worthy of a voters time and belief.

Now, this is Maine, and the game is a lot different than presidential politics – but the concept is the same.  By rallying a large number of legitimate, establishment people behind you via endorsements, it can go a long way toward convincing the voters that you are worthy of their time.  A candidate who fails to find that kind of support may be viewed by voters as an outsider who is incapable of building a strong coalition – and candidates like that get dropped to the side very quickly.

It will be interesting to see endorsements such as this come out over the next several months – but more interesting to me will be if and when other, more prominent leaders weigh in on the race.  Who will Josh Tardy and Kevin Raye back?  Will we hear from past candidates like Chandler Woodcock and Peter Cianchette?  Are there prominent business or community leaders who have a lot of weight behind their name who will chime in?

Such support would be worth 100 Tyler Clarks (no disrespect to him, of course) – and would quickly consolidate the air of legitimacy behind someone.

Game on.