Presidential Endorsements - Do you care?

[twainny]

I was watching the news the other day, and the anchor said something like this "The Governor of PA has just announced that he/she will endorse Hillary Clinton. This is the 20th governor that has endorsed Clinton. This will give Hillary's campaign a huge bump."

Really? Do you care who endorses someone? Does it make you want to vote for someone cause your governor likes them? Or a celebrity for that matter. If George Clooney or Steven Spielberg hits the campaign trail for a candidate, does that help? Personally, I could care less.

(on the flip side, if Tom Cruise would endorse a candidate would you run from that campaign? LOL)

Just wondering.

[HisSpicy]

Individual endorsements - No, I can not think of a single person whose endorsement would matter to me.
Organizations - Yes. For those that I feel embody ideals/values/causes/rights that are very important to me, their endorsement would make me really examine that candidates history with that organization/what they support. (Same thing for those organizations I don't support.)

[LyLMyssChaos]

On some level, I think that other politician's endorsements do. For me, if someone whom I admire politically says "I like this person" it will at least cause me to look at them to see if I would like them as well.

[Niobe]

No, not really. I can read and make my own decisions, TYVM.

Though, I was glad to see Oprah endorse Obama. A lot of women seem to follow her word as gospel and I'm always glad to see sheep flocking to my candidate. ;)

[msnicolea]

I care about organizational endorsements, absolutely--individuals, not so much, although I am always curious to learn who supports whom.

[ysolde]

It makes no difference to me.

[kedzieb]

In a way I care. If 20 governer's endorse a candidate, it is a good sign that if that candidate is elected they will work well with a variety of states. I guess it's more of a cumulative thing though than an individual endorsement.

But for me, sometimes it's more of a negative effect. If someone I consider particularly heinous supports a candidate, it usually means it will be a candidate I will be against as well.

[Rose]

It doesn't make a difference to me either.

[phoenics]

Nope.

[tgr68]

Nope. As Niobe said, I can think for myself! :)

[phoenics]

I do wonder though (even though it doesn't matter to me) how the Kennedy endorsement will impact things - I wonder how others (not on CC) are reacting to it... if it would really sway voters who were apprehensive about voting for Obama...

Just wondering.

[imagirliegirl]

I don't care or really even notice who makes endorsements. I like who I like.

I also know that candidates can't really control who endorses them so if some nut like TC endorsed Obama, I wouldn't hold it against him.

[kendriln]

Ehhh... not really. Although I was excited about Oprah's endorsement because hopefully where Oprah goes, millions will follow.:D

I was watching an interview with George Clooney and he was discussing that he was actually not going to endorse Obama because he didn't want it to affect Obama negatively.

[jennylou]

It depends. In the case of the Democrats running for President, I do sort of care. Because Dem Governor's are super delegates, which might sway the outcome of who is the Democratic nominee.

It doesn't influence who I vote for, but I do care in that case, since it could have consequences (good or bad) in August.

[mar5195]

Not so much, but as a Democrat I'm actually pretty curious who Al Gore is going to back.

[LaughAtlantis]

Interestingly, endorsements swayed my parents toward Obama when I couldn't. My parents grew up in Massachusetts and live in Rhode Island now and my mom was blown over by the whole Kennedy thing. My dad, who is older than the Kennedys, was moved by Lincoln Chaffee, who is a former Rhode Island Republican Senator, now a regular old citizen who registered independent this year for the first time so he can vote for Obama in the primary. Apparently that really resonated with my father.

[ginadc]

Endorsements aren't usually a big deal to me. And I already backed Obama anyway. But I have to say I was quite taken by the fact that Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama, simply because she has stayed so far away from politics for so long. The fact that she chose to get involved at this point says a lot to me, and since I have a lot of respect for her, I was pleased that she endorsed him.

[Sarah Smyth]

Actually, yeah, I'd be a bit swayed.
Reason being that I'm working on the assumption I know next to nothing about any given candidate, no matter how much I read. The governors and senators and whatnot who make these endorsements, however, get to meet these candidates. They have the potential to 'talk shop' about all the little things going on that tend to get hidden away from me as a voter, such as the compromise processes. After all, no one wants to see their candidate half-ass a stance or make a politically outrageous trade(even though it's the only way to get shit done).

So I figure if another politician endorses a candidate, it means one of two things:
1) The politician will get something out of the deal by endorsing a candidate, a political bribe, or...
2) Since they came into contact, the politician was able to see in greater detail the issues, stance, points of interest, and focus of a particular candidate, and is thus better equipped to make an informed, well-rounded decision on who to support, which the majority of voters are entirely unable to do.

Take for instance two candidates who are extremely similar: Clinton and Obama. Choosing between them is, for the most part, a personality comparison. If politicians tend to choose one over the other for some mysterious reason, I would at least pay attention.

However, I'm not a politician or a poli-sci major, so most of this is guesswork. I'm basically talking out my ass, but I think they're okay guesses and it's mostly sound logic. I hope.

tl;dr: Governors, senators, and representatives know more than me.