The Flip Side of Endorsements?
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
The point of endorsements is to “throw” support to a preferred candidate. But there is an underside as well. Yesterday’s endorsements of Barack Obama by the angry-left organization MoveOn.org and of Mitt Romney by anti-gay radical former Sentator Rick Santorum provide indications of how endorsements can damage as well as promote. Moderates who had a fondness for Obama now have to take a second look and ask whether the BDS brigades that fill MoveOn’s ranks see something real in Obama that fulfills their hate-fueled vision of politics. On the other side, socially tolerant conservatives have to wonder whether Romney’s “Captain America” image might hide something that really appeals to the uglier underside of the conservative movement represented by Santorum and the much more vile Fred Phelps.Or perhaps endorsements mean nothing at all.
This is very interesting. What if O.J. comes up and endorses Hillary Clinton?
Santorum and Phelps in the same sentence? Man, that’s as vile as insults come and not actually based on fact. I would have thought that beneath you.
I make it clear that Phelps is far worse than Santorum, so I did not equate them. But it is, in my opinion, fact that they are both bigoted against homosexuals and that this kind of bigotry is part of the uglier underside of social conservatives. Not all social conservatives are anti-gay bigots, but it seems to be awfully common to hear some of the most unbelievably bigoted anti-gay comments in social conservative circles.
And I am saying this as someone who has many times defended social conservatives against others’ bigotry. So its not that I just hate social conservatives. But I think they have a legitimately serious problem in this area. I should know. I used to be just as bad as Santorum.
With endorsements, as with a lot of other things, it’s really critical to distinguish between two points:
- if someone you respect and generally agree with makes an endorsement, that’s a reason to consider his opinion carefully.
- if someone that you consider a a horrible person with terrible ideas makes an endorsement, all you can reasonably do is ignore it.
Nobody controls who decides to endorse them. And lots of people make endorsements based on what they would like to believe they see in a candidate. Trying to smear someone, based on the opinions of someone else who endorsed them, is just silly.
I disagree. Like with Voldemort (good name for a certain libertarian still running for the Republican nomination in spite of his repeated 5th place finishes — say his name, and his Death Eaters appear), who someone’s friends are often winds up revealing the code they are speaking. Do you think that Voldemort’s endorsement by Stormfront and his association with racist newsletters a decade earlier was just coincidence?
Of course candidates are not responsible for the statements or behavior of their supporters. But the identity of those supporters may also indicate what kind of people would be empowered if the candidate were elected.
After a less than stellar run-in with Internet technology, I’ll add my two cents.
I doubt that endorsements change very many minds. Generally speaking if you don’t like a candidate, you aren’t likely to change your mind just because someone you like endorses them. Likewise, if you like a candidate, your unlikely to be swayed by people you don’t like much endorsing them. I like Obama and the fact that the teenagers at MoveOn endorsed him doesn’t change much. Likewise, I don’t like Hillary, but the fact that the crazy ladies at NOW endorsed her doesn’t worsen my opinion of her.
At the most they MAY affect people who are on the fence or affect turnout. For instance, the California Service Union, with 650,000 members, has just endorsed Obama. Now, I don’t think that people who are thinking of voting for Hillary will suddenly change their votes, even if they are members of the union. However, I think that maybe, if a member of that union already liked Obama but wasn’t feeling motivated enough to go out and vote, this endorsement might tip him or her over the edge and turn them out.
In essence, negative endorsements will reinforce negative images you already have of a candidate, while positive endorsements will reinforce positive images, if you have them.
I think there is a definite down side to certain endorsements, and MoveOn is very controversial. Surfing the net today, I find members of MoveOn rabid because of the way this "survey" was done, and let’s add the National Journal article with Obama as the #1 Liberal Senator for 2007. I find that those who thought Obama was appealing to the "center" and the independents are now going - WHOA!!
MoveON & the #1 spot for Liberal Votes in 2007 will hurt. I read it all day today. It will behoove everyone to remember how much the Union endorsements in Nevada helped Obama …. not a bit. Union bosses aren’t the guys who vote and they can’t force a Clinton vote to Obama. If those unions have a strong Latino membership - Clinton has that vote, and it won’t matter who the Union boss promises it to.
The methodology of that ranking is somewhat questionable, though I wouldn’t deny that Obama is fairly liberal, as is Clinton. As it turns out, the difference between Clinton and Obama in the ranking can be traced to a difference in two votes, where you can find conservatives voting on the "liberal" side as well. You can see a short explanation on the matter here.
Its not about liberal ratings. Well it is but they are both pretty liberal senators. For me it is about their supporters because it was not George Bush screaming at the antiwar 1 trillion times your all cowards and anti patriots….It was Bush’s base. For Obama it is his base that was screaming GWB is a Nazi, and the RR is the American Taliban that turns me off to his base. I would abandon Hillary in a minute if her base was that base.
I think Obama will appreciate the MoveOn.org endorsement. MoveOn provides money and volunteers through its 3.2 million members. How many members does the largest Clinton Derangement Syndrome conservative site have? MoveOn provided online tools for 1.7 million GOTV calls in the 2006 election. You might remember how that turned out. Obama has been raising over a million dollars a day for over a month before this endorsement and MoveOn members put their money where their mouth is. I expected Mitt "strap the dog to the car roof" Romney to get the Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum endorsement.
You can see a short explanation on the matter here.
Time in partnership with CNN
says it all. They would try to convince you ducks cant swim if it meant a few more votes for liberal politicans.