Campaign Notebook: Presidential update

It’s been a busy 24 hours in the presidential race — let’s break down recent events:

Mitt Romney endorses John McCain: This wasn’t entirely unexpected — for Romney to come out for Mike Huckabee, who has virtually no chance of securing enough delegates for the Republican nomination, would be political suicide in Romney’s position, and leave him badly placed for a job in a Republican administration or a campaign in four years. The move essentially ties up the nomination for McCain with a nice little bow on top, sending more attention in the upcoming primaries toward the Democratic candidates.

SEIU/UFCW endorse Obama: Two large, politically influential unions, the Service Employees International Union and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, have endorsed Barack Obama’s bid for the White House. Both unions have heavy membership in Texas and Ohio, and have enough time to mount significant contact and turnout campaigns in those states, where upcoming primaries on March 4 have the potential to bring the Democratic primaries significantly closer to a conclusion. SEIU in particular has been active in Texas, organizing thousands of janitorial employees in Houston. Originally, SEIU was split so evenly among the three leading Democratic candidates — Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards — that no endorsement was possible, but it would appear that Edwards’ exit from the race removed that block.

John Lewis, D-Ga., will vote for Obama at convention: The wording here is important, but the effect is nonetheless powerful: Lewis, a huge figure in the black political community, has previously endorsed Clinton but said Thursday that as a superdelegate, he will vote for Obama at the Democratic National Convention. The announcement has two layers — here is a superdelegate saying publicly (regardless of his previous endorsement) that he will vote with his district, which went heavily for Obama, but Lewis is also a big name in the Democratic congressional caucus community, and represents a crack in Clinton’s establishment support. Clinton’s campaign has said recently that even without a majority of pledged delegates, she will attempt to win the Democratic nomination with support from superdelegates, so a move like this from such an influential superdelegate represents at least a minor loss for that strategy.

Wisconsin upcoming:  It was a risk for Wisconsin to leave its primary on Feb. 19, well after Super-Duper Tuesday, but it paid off, and now the focus is on our neighbors to the southeast. A weekend and a day stand between now and that primary, and Clinton’s campaign organization in Minnesota has been calling out volunteers to make phone calls into Wisconsin, while Obama’s has been quiet. Of course, we don’t know if this means merely that Obama’s ground organization in Wisconsin itself is doing fine by itself, so take it for what you will.

After Wisconsin, there’s a small break in the calendar, and then the critical Texas and Ohio primaries on March 4.  What will we prognosticators and opinionators do with ourselves?