Klobuchar’s Obama endorsement: Risk management in action
Tuesday, April 01, 2008 at 7:45 am
- 8 Comments
Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s endorsement Monday of Sen. Barack Obama is bigger news for Obama’s press shop than it is for Klobuchar. Obama, who won 66 percent of the vote in the Minnesota DFL’s Super Duper Tuesday caucuses, already had the support of Democratic congressional colleagues Tim Walz, Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum and Jim Oberstar.
Nevertheless, the strategic aspect of the endorsing game cannot be discounted.
So here’s the question: was it really an easy decision for Klobuchar? Or were there some very real risks just beneath the glossy veneer of Monday’s announcement, to be mitigated before this move came about?
Continued: Click “Read more”The sequence of events leading to Klobuchar’s endorsement raises an important topic: risk in political campaigns, and how political leaders manage it. In an intense, hard-fought race like this one, the risks associated with a bad endorsement are many: endorse at the right time and your influence is maintained or even increased, but endorse a candidate who later goes down to defeat, and your own political fortunes are at risk. Maybe you’re blamed for the downfall, depending on how bad your timing is. Maybe if you’d endorsed just a few days earlier, a few more votes might have moved and your candidate might have won. Who knows? One can never be sure in such matters, nor can those very real risks be removed from view altogether.
In Klobuchar’s case, the risk now is that something catastrophic happens to Obama’s campaign, and suddenly Hillary Clinton is back in the driver’s seat for the Democratic nomination — leaving Klobuchar out in the political cold. Between Feb. 5 and mid-March, that risk waxed and waned — a string of Obama wins closed Clinton’s window a little, but her win in Ohio and extremely tight margins in Texas earlier this month threw the outcome back into question. Now that Clinton is back on the media downslide (thanks to a few less-than-truthful comments about sniper fire in Bosnia) and Obama seems to have weathered the Jeremiah Wright issue, it would appear that the risk of not endorsing — being left out by both campaigns for waiting too long to get involved — has simply become a greater concern than the risk of throwing in with her constituents’ favored candidate.
A calculated move, and ultimately, a risk-averse one.
Now just two Minnesota superdelegates remain uncommitted, including Rep. Collin Peterson. Peterson represents an interesting challenge for the presidential contenders: he is essentially a red-state Democrat, representing a district that has delivered 54 and 55 percent of its vote for President Bush in his two White House races. That would seem to favor Obama, who has fared well among red-state Democrats across the country. However, Peterson has made quite a career out of opposing his party’s base on a variety of issues. Despite the fact that Obama won most of the counties in Peterson’s northwestern Minnesota district just as he did across the state, it is likely that few other than Peterson himself know which way Peterson is leaning. Having won his most recent reelection bid with a shade over 70 percent of the vote, Peterson is a bit more insulated from the political risks swirling around presidential endorsements than many of his colleagues.
Still — political risks, ever-present, cannot be eliminated. Only managed.
8 Comments
Comment posted April 1, 2008 @ 10:02 am
Democratic Party is Hurting Political risks can be eliminated, sometimes.
A good way for the Democratic Party to eliminate a great number of these risks is to do away with super-delegates all together.
Naming elected officials as delegates is just a time-saving measure anyway.
Are we really to believe that Klobuchar couldn’t have won an election to be a delegate? She won an election to be a US senator. Surely, if it were important to her that she have a say in the Presidential Race, she could have run to be a delegate like the rest of us regular people. She probably wouldn’t have, because, as Joe points out, it exposes her to additional political risk – and there is no political upside.
In no way am I trying to single out Sen. Klobuchar, either… she just happens to be the topic of this article.
Another good way for the DNC and RNC to mitigate the risks its elected officials face would be to give up control of nominating contests all together, and leave it to the states to set the time and manner of nominating candidates.
Contrary to the author’s claim, if the states or federal government took the power to make the rules from the parties and gave that power back to the people, then neither party’s presidential candidates would have to worry about the political risk of alienating voters in states that don’t follow the rules.
Of course, that would present a political risk to the duopoly control of small ruling elites in our country.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties would prefer to lose a presidential election than risk that.
Comment posted April 1, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
you know she probably could win an election as a regular delegate, but I know I’d be pretty peeved if I was trying to get the delegate gig and she was in my subcaucus, since I’m pretty sure people would pick her over me.
or not. I am pretty charming…
Comment posted April 2, 2008 @ 7:25 am
Sure the Senator would beat you, Robin But how is that different from now?
I’m a Franken supporter, myself, but I confess was a little peeved when I discovered most of his campaign staff is renting apartments in my senate district.
So, in spite of delivering everyone left from my precinct to the subcaucus we chose, two staffers got to be delegates and I ended up an alternate.
In the end though, those experienced Democratic operatives are going to cast votes at the convention that line up with the votes I would have cast.
I’ll be represented by the delegates my sub-caucus selected.
Senator Linda Higgins was also in my sub caucus. I also support Linda – love her really. But not only will she be represented by the delegates her sub-caucus elected, she’ll be voting herself.
The point I was making is that the super delegates screw up proportional representation.
I personally think it should be really important to preserve the principal of equal representation. And I sure hope it turns out to be a moot point in the presidential contest, as I think a lot of other people believe in equal representation too, especially independent swing voters.
Comment posted April 2, 2008 @ 7:26 am
No worries though Who really wants to be a delegate anyway, though.
It’s my son Lennon’s brithday today. He’s 1.
So we’ll just do fun one-year old stuff off the floor on our vacation to Rochester. No skin off my nose, I guess.
Comment posted April 1, 2008 @ 5:02 am
Democratic Party is Hurting Political risks can be eliminated, sometimes.
A good way for the Democratic Party to eliminate a great number of these risks is to do away with super-delegates all together.
Naming elected officials as delegates is just a time-saving measure anyway.
Are we really to believe that Klobuchar couldn't have won an election to be a delegate? She won an election to be a US senator. Surely, if it were important to her that she have a say in the Presidential Race, she could have run to be a delegate like the rest of us regular people. She probably wouldn't have, because, as Joe points out, it exposes her to additional political risk – and there is no political upside.
In no way am I trying to single out Sen. Klobuchar, either… she just happens to be the topic of this article.
Another good way for the DNC and RNC to mitigate the risks its elected officials face would be to give up control of nominating contests all together, and leave it to the states to set the time and manner of nominating candidates.
Contrary to the author's claim, if the states or federal government took the power to make the rules from the parties and gave that power back to the people, then neither party's presidential candidates would have to worry about the political risk of alienating voters in states that don't follow the rules.
Of course, that would present a political risk to the duopoly control of small ruling elites in our country.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties would prefer to lose a presidential election than risk that.
Comment posted April 1, 2008 @ 7:30 am
you know she probably could win an election as a regular delegate, but I know I'd be pretty peeved if I was trying to get the delegate gig and she was in my subcaucus, since I'm pretty sure people would pick her over me.
or not. I am pretty charming…
Comment posted April 2, 2008 @ 2:25 am
Sure the Senator would beat you, Robin But how is that different from now?
I'm a Franken supporter, myself, but I confess was a little peeved when I discovered most of his campaign staff is renting apartments in my senate district.
So, in spite of delivering everyone left from my precinct to the subcaucus we chose, two staffers got to be delegates and I ended up an alternate.
In the end though, those experienced Democratic operatives are going to cast votes at the convention that line up with the votes I would have cast.
I'll be represented by the delegates my sub-caucus selected.
Senator Linda Higgins was also in my sub caucus. I also support Linda – love her really. But not only will she be represented by the delegates her sub-caucus elected, she'll be voting herself.
The point I was making is that the super delegates screw up proportional representation.
I personally think it should be really important to preserve the principal of equal representation. And I sure hope it turns out to be a moot point in the presidential contest, as I think a lot of other people believe in equal representation too, especially independent swing voters.
Comment posted April 2, 2008 @ 2:26 am
No worries though Who really wants to be a delegate anyway, though.
It's my son Lennon's brithday today. He's 1.
So we'll just do fun one-year old stuff off the floor on our vacation to Rochester. No skin off my nose, I guess.
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