In the flow of endorsements in recent days and weeks -- and indeed over the past few months as well -- one thing we haven't seen is very many Senate candidates come out and endorse in the presidential race. There have been a few -- both Jeff Merkley and Steve Novick in Oregon have endorsed Barack Obama, for instance. But by and large, top-tier Senate candidates have refrained from wading into the presidential contest, whether out of fear of alienating half of the party or a desire not to make press in that way. Yet today, an endorsement from a Democratic Senate hopeful and Congressman (and thus a superdelegate to boost) for Obama.
Congressman Tom Allen is throwing his support behind Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee.Allen, a superdelegate to this summer's Democratic National Convention, said Monday he believes Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton are both "supremely qualified" to be president. Allen has been friends for decades with Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton.
But Allen says most of the nation's primary voters have spoken, and that the time has come to bring a "graceful end" to the primary campaign.
Thus far, people like Mark Warner and Tom Udall and Mark Udall -- the top-tier of Democratic Senate hopefuls -- have not come out and endorsed either candidate for President. As alluded to before, in the eyes of most Senate campaigns, the risks of such an endorsement outweigh the potential benefits. Or at least they did.
It remains to be seen if the Allen endorsement foreshadows more to come -- if it is a dipping of the toe in water, in a sense -- or if it simply represents one American coming to a public decision about his views on the race for the Democratic nomination. In the coming weeks, we will have to wait to see if any more Udalls or Warners come out and publicly support either Obama or Hillary Clinton. But if others do follow in Allen's footsteps, we could see a new stage of coalescing in the Democratic presidential primary in which the campaign class of the party, as well as candidates who will actually face the voters in competitive general elections in the fall, are ready to see one nominee emerge.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 168 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
