We Don’t Want Your Early Endorsements
This is my response to what my friend, Jill wrote today on her blog, Writes Like She Talks. In the past, there was no endorsement of a primary candidate. Candidates “slugged it out” on the issues, and the voters of each party decided who should represent them in the general election. But then the expense of campaigning increased, but the dollars available to contribute didn’t increase. Hence, the decade of the early endorsement to try to save contribution dollars for the general election rather than having the party dollars divvied up among candidates of the same party rather than being used to defeat the other party. In an overwhelmingly registered Democrat area like the city of Cleveland, an early endorsement essentially can kill chances for any other candidate in that race receiving significant dollars. On a state level, the idea is basically the same: Tto put the dollars behind one single candidate so that the push can be for a win in November. The problem as I see it with early endorsements is that the political process is not allowed to work. The process should be that the VOTERS decide in the primary who will represent them in the general election.
January 5th, 2006 at 7:12 pm
No surprise that I agree with you Gloria. In fact, one could almost say that the reverse SHOULD be true: that is, spend the money upfront, in the primary, to show us what you’ve got. You’ll energize voters to figure out who should move on to the general election. Then, it’s really showtime - who can do the most with the least, almost.
Of course, that only would work if all parties had the same quantity or paucity of funds. And I guess that’s where the inequality and the strategizing about endorsements starts to come in.
No one else might agree with this analogy, but think of how hard we make our public school teachers work with what they have in poor school districts, and they’re expected to get the same results as all other districts. Maybe the candidates need to observe how teachers and others with constant budget crises manage to get done what they have to. And then they can get done what they have to: get elected.