In politics, you’re either on message or you are losing. Let’s get to it.
Welcome to On Message, a weekly look at where the battle lines are drawn and who is winning the war of words.
This week… SEAL OF APPROVAL.
As the clock ticks under three weeks until ballots begin arriving in the mail, campaigns are looking for every opportunity to give voters a reason to fill out the bubble by their names.
One thing you’ll see more and more of are high-profile endorsements.
These endorsements almost always fall along party lines. Look for Senator Mike Lee’s campaign to have Republican office holders and former office holders publicly express their support. Former Vice President Mike Pence did so last week. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see the governor and the former governors express their support for Lee in the coming days. Huntsman is a no-brainer; Lee was his general counsel. Governor Cox has encouraged Republicans to support Lee, as well.
Likewise, state legislators are likely to rally to help the party and make sure their constituents know of their support for Lee.
Don’t be too quick to jump to a conclusion based on timing of an endorsement. Most of the time campaigns will hold endorsements to roll them out when they can bring the biggest benefit. And sometimes they won’t get them until the endorser knows his or her bet is a safe one.
And then there are the endorsements that may not be all that welcome. When someone who may not help your cause wants to come out publicly, you try to do it quietly or get them to hold off indefinitely.
That lack of enthusiasm may not have anything to do with the actual relationship between candidate and endorser; it usually has everything to do with the perception of the endorser among the voters a candidate is still working to win over.
So, what’s the value of an endorsement? Late in the game, it’s honestly not much. Maybe in a tight race it can have a benefit.
Of course, there are the big ones. For many Republicans a Trump endorsement is worth whatever it costs – but less so at this point of a campaign as you try to win over moderate voters.
So, look for the names who start to line up behind each candidate but don’t look for any one endorsement to swing the election.
That’s it for this week.
More On Message in the next issue of the Utah Political Underground.
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