Dec 17, 2007 11:08 pm US/Eastern
Passion, Not Endorsements, Fuels Campaign Fires
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
It's endorsement season in the race for president.
Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman made news today by endorsing John McCain.
Over the weekend, the Boston Globe came out for Barack Obama and McCain, while the biggest newspaper in Iowa endorsed McCain and Hillary Clinton.
But these endorsements don't matter much, especially in light of very different choices being made by ordinary voters.
Endorsements attract media attention and can help you raise money. In rare cases, like Oprah's endorsement of Obama, they can give you a real boost. But if you look at some of the hottest candidates right now, it's raw passion, not insider support, that's lighting the fire.
Compare Lieberman's sedate McCain endorsement with the raucous Ron Paul rally over the weekend.
And it was Paul, not McCain, who raised a record six million bucks Sunday over the Internet, a one-day record. That'll keep Paul's infomercial on TV straight down the primary stretch.
And it's not insider backing that's propelling Paul, it's a volatile issue -- opposition to continued U.S. action in Iraq.
And what's giving life to Mike Huckabee, once an under-funded also-ran, flush with enough cash after his surge in the polls to mount a major ad buy in Iowa and New Hampshire?
His major endorsement is from has-been action movie star Chuck Norris. But Huckabee has sparked a red-hot love affair with evangelical Christians by playing the religion card unabashedly. Did you catch the cross imagery behind his head in this this ad?
Antiwar or religious passion can warm up a candidate's poll results on a cold night in New Hampshire and Iowa. But is it the basis for a long-term relationship? We'll see. Meanwhile, other candidates with big-name and big-media endorsements would gladly swap them for Paul's bankroll and Huckabee's poll numbers.
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