The silence from Gore, Kennedy, and Kerry does say something...but what?

An endorsement from anyone on the aforementioned big 3 would mean a great deal to any campaign. I find it telling that Gore, Kennedy, or Kerry have not even dropped a hint regarding who they may endorse. From this voter's perspective, that does not bode well for Hillary.

She has carried the mantle of front runner for over a year now, and yet it may be that her wave has crested. Even with M$M polls being bedfellows of the corporations, we can at least point to general trends; and those trends suggest that both her nomination and competitive chance in the GE are far from assured.

I think if she was not so polarizing, there would be much more enthusiasm on the part of Gore, Kennedy, or Kerry to endorse her. Their silence speaks volumes. If she is not good enough to endorse by now, what will change in 6 months? Applying the same question to all of our candidates, it may suggest the race is far more fluid then the M$M wants folks to believe.

We may have quite a horse race after all, and the winner could be very different from who the M$M has been assuming all along. In fact, that is my belief. The tide is shifting. Add to that a Gore endorsement of Edwards or a Kerry endorsement of Obama...the entire donkey cart would be upset. All bets would be off!

What do you make of such big name Dems being so quiet? :shrug:

It IS too early.

Many Democratic organizations have a policy, often written into their bylaws, that they will refrain from endorsing a candidate until after the primaries. They do not care if individuals within that organization work for a candidate, but the overall organization will not make a statement.

That is hard for Democratic organizations in Illinois, where Obama is a favorite son. Durbin has endorsed Obama, but I can understand that.

The big name Democrats are wise to keep their own counsel for now.

I think they could regain some of their power if they would do it again. Their endorsements do not mean as much as they used to during the heyday of union power, but they still mean something. And unions give a lot of money to campaigns.

If the unions could get promises from the candidates, there is no guarantee that the promises would be kept. But at least the candidates would be sitting down with the unions. And the unions could tell the other candidates, and the opposition, what they had been promised.

My husband is a Teamster officer at the grassroots level. I am going to talk to him about some of this. Also, I am well acquainted with some of the IBEW officers around here. I know at least one guy who is going places. He will not be a regional officer for long. Maybe I can use my position within my own Democratic county organization to talk to a few people.

I still think early endorsements should be a big no-no.

can mean a lot, but it isn't all necessarily positive.

I think it actually is early yet, but OTOH, the primary calender is earlier, so one would think that would speed up the big endorsements.

Endorsements do matter especially in terms of the ground operation and the media splash they will create. Good old fashioned momentum, if you will. However, as my Gore example shows, it doesn't always mean enough to overcome other obstacles.

Al Gore took such crap about endorsing Dean so early last time he may sit out for now, and Kerry gave Gore such crap about the Dean endorsement that he may wait for a nominee also.

Gore who he endorsed over Bradley, who was closer to him politically, endorsed Dean. Kerry then gave Gore a speech at the convention - as he did for Carter - two very nice gestures. (It was the first convention where Carter spoke since his own.) Gore gave Kerry a nice endorsement in that speech.

Kennedy endorsed Kerry at least by Dec 2003 or January 2004.

and their own campaigns.

Recall in early 2006 how Kerry and Kennedy begged other senators to lead a filibuster of Alito, as Kennedy had just been attacked relentlessly by the GOP and its mediawhores for two weeks before, during and after the hearings, and Kerry was scheduled to be out of the country for an economic conference for his own senate committee duties.

So Kerry leaves and then hears that the caucus argued against it (Hillary and Schumer led the attack on filibuster and Kerry in that caucus. Kerry had promised he would filibuster so he did, and he took every hit from the BushInc, the media AND the slams made against him from other Dem senators and their 'staff' who attacked him relentlessly with smears against his motives.

And the Vanity Fair article last month made it clear that Gore's people observed quite a bit of sabotaging of their 2000 campaign.

As did observers in 2004.

Historian Brinkley, April2004:
http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=13354

Woodward at WH on election night:
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did_carville_tip_bush_off_to_kerry_strategy_woodward

Then there's Hillary, herself on Oct2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

Kerry has said that none yet have both the proposal AND the record he would look for on the environment. The "and" is interesting as it seems hard to imagine how you get a long term record if you don't have it. (I suspected that he might have been signalling supporting Gore.) He also (back in spring) took pains to add the names of the second tier candidates. He has gone out of his way to speak of how the difference between Republicans and Democrats is night and day versus the narrower differences between individual Democrats.

Kennedy endorsed Kerry many many times from 2004 until he opted not to run. (The first I saw was when Kerry got an award at that Kennedy center around February 2005 - Kerry's reaction was as much startle as happy.) The last time on a talk show, he was specifically about HRC if Kerry didn't win, he said some positive things, but with none of the enthusiasm he had for Kerry, the closeness or the extreme praise.

Gore has really said nothing about any of them to my knowledge.

I assume that they are all quiet because they will support the candidate nominated.

All the Dems have some good qualities as our eventual candidate. I appreciate this 'big three' holding their endorsements for now. We haven't even had the Iowa caucus yet.