(Updated 12:32 p.m., Feb. 20)
With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both looking for an edge to win the Democratic presidential nomination, the role of governors’ endorsements is looming larger.
All Democratic governors are “super-delegates” who could decide the nominee if the Democratic contest isn’t sewn up by this summer’s convention in Denver. If the race stays neck and neck, “the fight for super-delegates becomes really, really intense,” said Roy T. Meyers, professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Both the Clinton and Obama camps are no doubt wooing the 10 Democratic governors still on the sidelines and trying to stay in good favor with the 18 Democratic governors who already have endorsed.
Frontrunner Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, entered the Feb. 19 primary in Wisconsin with the backing of Gov. Jim Doyle (D), one of eight governors publicly in Obama's corner. Obama won the Wisconsin Democratic primary.
If a governor’s endorsement indeed helps with state voters, Clinton has an advantage heading into Ohio’s crucial primary on March 4 and contests in Pennsylvania on April 22 and Oregon on May 20. The Democratic governors there all support the U.S. senator from New York. Ten of the 28 Democratic governors have publicly endorsed Clinton.
Among the 10 uncommitted governors is former Democratic presidential contender Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who dropped out of the race Jan. 10 after fourth-place finishes in both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. The other nine Democratic governors who have yet to endorse are from Colorado, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain may be inching closer to support of all Republican governors. The Arizona senator will headline a Feb. 23 dinner for the Republican Governors Association in another sign that party leaders are rallying behind McCain’s White House bid.
In tapping McCain for the dinner, insiders say that the RGA is turning its back on a former member: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who remains in the presidential race. Huckabee has just one governor’s endorsement – from Gov. Mike Rounds (R) of South Dakota, whose primary isn’t until June 3. McCain already has the endorsement of eight of 22 GOP governors, to three for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who since has dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain.
Governors' endorsements can be important in rallying state voters, but as results this primary season show, they don't always translate into wins for a presidential candidate. So far, contests have been held in seven states where Clinton was endorsed by the governor, and she won three: in Arkansas, where she was first lady when her husband was governor, New Jersey, and her adopted state of New York. She also won Michigan, where Gov. Jennifer Granholm endorsed her, but will not receive any delegates because the state broke early primary rules. Clinton failed to win a majority of primary voters in Delaware, Maine and Maryland despite their governors’ support.
Obama had the endorsements of six governors going into their states’ primaries and took four, plus the District of Columbia. He won Illinois, where he spent seven years in the Statehouse; Kansas, where his mother was born; Washington state and Virginia – all with the governors there campaigning for him. (Iowa Gov. Chet Culver stayed neutral during his state's first-in-the-country Jan. 3 caucus but endorsed Obama Feb. 7.) Obama lost in Arizona and Massachusetts despite their governors' support.
But this year, governors' endorsements are taking on added potency with their additional role as super-delegates to the Democratic convention. They are among 795 party leaders and elected officials appointed by their states who could cast tie-breaking votes if neither Clinton nor Obama wins the necessary 2,025 delegates from state primaries and caucuses to clinch the nomination outright.
Both Clinton and Obama are courting uncommitted super-delegates, who aren't bound to vote how their state voted. As de facto heads of their state parties, governors could play a key role in influencing uncommitted super-delegates.
There are both rewards and risks for governors making endorsements. “Obviously people who are there early and make the right pick could be favored in the new administration and perhaps disfavored if they backed the wrong candidate. It depends who is elected president and how open-minded that person is,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “The feeling is that since Gov. [Tim] Kaine was one of the first governors to come out for Obama, if he becomes president, that would be important to Virginia and to Kaine.”
President George W. Bush’s Cabinet, for example, brimmed with fellow Republican governors who stumped for him in 1999 and early 2000, including former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, sworn in as the country’s first Office of Homeland Security advisor in 2001 and then as first head of the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Also during Bush’s first term, the president turned to Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to serve as secretary of Health and Human Services and New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Governors who fail to deliver their state to their favorite candidate risk losing political clout at home and within the campaign. But so far, experts say, that hasn’t happened this year.
McCain failed to win Minnesota, yet Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) was one of McCain’s first supporters and is rumored as a possible vice-presidential or Cabinet pick. McCain’s loss in Utah to former Massachusetts Gov. Romney on Super Tuesday was not unexpected given that a majority of Utahns are Mormon, like Romney. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. endorsed McCain and also is talked about as a possible VP contender.
Meyers, the Maryland political scientist, said it was never really expected that O’Malley would deliver Maryland for Clinton. O’Malley has been in office only a year and his popularity has taken a hit because of a controversial tax increase he pushed last year. Meyers said O’Malley’s political fortunes aren’t weakened by Clinton’s loss in the state’s Feb. 12 primary.
Even though Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) failed to push Arizona to the Obama win column, she is viewed by some insiders as Cabinet material in an Obama administration.
Much was made of Obama’s loss in Massachusetts, where despite the backing of the state’s U.S. senators – Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate – and Gov. Deval Patrick, Clinton still won.
Paul Y. Watanabe, political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, said Clinton’s win doesn’t diminish Patrick’s standing. As only the second African-American in the country to be elected as governor, Patrick had a broader audience than strictly Bay State voters when he endorsed Obama, who could be the country’s first black presidential nominee. “Often governors do have their eye on trying to rally support within the state they govern. I think it’s pretty clear that in Deval Patrick’s case, he had his sights set on a much larger audience,” Watanabe said.
Even though Patrick served in Bill Clinton’s Justice Department but endorsed Obama, Watanabe said he doesn’t think Patrick would be shut him out of a Hillary Clinton administration. “There’s relatively a small island in a sea of Republican administrations,” he said. “If there were grudges, that would pretty significantly limit whom she would be able to work with on the Democratic side.”
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