A la caza del mejor endorsement

Cuando apenas quedan unas semanas para que los primeros votos sean depositados en las urnas de Iowa, hemos podido ser testigos en los últimos días de una cascada de publicitados pronunciamientos de destacadas figuras políticas, sociales y culturales, apoyando a uno u otro candidato en la carrera presidencial. Siendo el más destacado, por la sorpresa y la repercusión mediática desencadenada, el apoyo del polémico Pat Robertson a Rudy Giuliani. Mucho se está discutiendo sobre la influencia real de algunos de estos movimientos, si son realmente beneficiosos o, por contra, traen más problemas que otra cosa. El New York Times reflexiona sobre el papel del endorsement.

(...) Mr. Gore is a case in point.

Early in December 2003, he shrugged off his old running mate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, and endorsed the former Vermont governor Howard “Netroots” Dean. (Way back four years ago, December was considered early in the political cycle.) To listen to political consultants and reporters, it was game, set, match for Mr. Dean.

“It is a blockbuster event for the Democrats,” David Gergen said then. “The prohibitive front-runner if something doesn’t go horribly wrong,” opined an NPR commentator. An “air of inevitability” had descended on Mr. Dean, most agreed.

As it happened, Mr. Dean lost primary after primary. The air of inevitability wafted over to John Kerry, who picked up a raft of endorsements.

This was endorsement pain redux for Mr. Gore. He had alighted in New York City during the 1988 primary season, an ambitious young Tennessean in search of a presidential nomination. Mayor Koch endorsed him (What a coup!) and promptly declared that Jews “have got to be crazy” to vote for Jesse Jackson.

Mr. Gore began the New York primary at 7 percent in the polls and ended with 10 percent of the vote; he promptly dropped out. The former mayor takes an optimist’s view: “I was good for 3 percent of Gore’s vote,” Mr. Koch said. “Not bad.” (...)