Are they really backing the Clintons or trying to wreck them with their support...I say their endorsement is as bad a having Al or Jesse on your team...Hillary may be TOAST.

well, Rangel's district in Harlem went for Clinton -- against the tide for blacks in NYC and everywhere else. So I'd say he helped.

Jackson-Lee will help -- but I doubt as much.

The only endorsements that really matter are urban machine politicians, because they control the patronage systems that drive votes your way.

The GOP doesn't really have an equivalent in their primary fights. Even evangelical leaders are really just opinion shapers. But the urban machine pols actually know how to run up vote totals that pollsters can't see... not because they cheat, but because their get out the vote operations are based on patronage and decades-old models of where the voters are and how to turn each group out. They are the most tactically proficient people in politics.

Anyone interested in this phenomenon, by the way, should watch the documentary "Street Fight" about the Newark Mayoral Election between 24 year incumbent Sharpe James and young reformer Corey Booker.

In that documentary, you can see the context of how the democratic party functions writ large -- how the constituencies break down, and why one side of the party or the other wins elections.

To wit, the only reason the reform candidate (Obama) is even competitive against the establishment machine side of the party (Clinton) in these primaries is because the black vote is the machine's biggest firewall -- and in this case it has flipped to the reformer. That's why Obama was always a threat to Clinton and Edwards never was.

OUGwave Wrote:well, Rangel's district in Harlem went for Clinton -- against the tide for blacks in NYC and everywhere else. So I'd say he helped.

Jackson-Lee will help -- but I doubt as much.

The only endorsements that really matter are urban machine politicians, because they control the patronage systems that drive votes your way.

The GOP doesn't really have an equivalent in their primary fights. Even evangelical leaders are really just opinion shapers. But the urban machine pols actually know how to run up vote totals that pollsters can't see... not because they cheat, but because their get out the vote operations are based on patronage and decades-old models of where the voters are and how to turn each group out. They are the most tactically proficient people in politics.

Anyone interested in this phenomenon, by the way, should watch the documentary "Street Fight" about the Newark Mayoral Election between 24 year incumbent Sharpe James and young reformer Corey Booker.

In that documentary, you can see the context of how the democratic party functions writ large -- how the constituencies break down, and why one side of the party or the other wins elections.

To wit, the only reason the reform candidate (Obama) is even competitive against the establishment machine side of the party (Clinton) in these primaries is because the black vote is the machine's biggest firewall -- and in this case it has flipped to the reformer. That's why Obama was always a threat to Clinton and Edwards never was.

Chicago is well known for its Urban Machine-and having dead people vote.

Sheila Jackson Lee is "Cynthia McKinney Lite"

RobertN Wrote:

OUGwave Wrote:well, Rangel's district in Harlem went for Clinton -- against the tide for blacks in NYC and everywhere else. So I'd say he helped.

Jackson-Lee will help -- but I doubt as much.

The only endorsements that really matter are urban machine politicians, because they control the patronage systems that drive votes your way.

The GOP doesn't really have an equivalent in their primary fights. Even evangelical leaders are really just opinion shapers. But the urban machine pols actually know how to run up vote totals that pollsters can't see... not because they cheat, but because their get out the vote operations are based on patronage and decades-old models of where the voters are and how to turn each group out. They are the most tactically proficient people in politics.

Anyone interested in this phenomenon, by the way, should watch the documentary "Street Fight" about the Newark Mayoral Election between 24 year incumbent Sharpe James and young reformer Corey Booker.

In that documentary, you can see the context of how the democratic party functions writ large -- how the constituencies break down, and why one side of the party or the other wins elections.

To wit, the only reason the reform candidate (Obama) is even competitive against the establishment machine side of the party (Clinton) in these primaries is because the black vote is the machine's biggest firewall -- and in this case it has flipped to the reformer. That's why Obama was always a threat to Clinton and Edwards never was.

Chicago is well known for its Urban Machine-and having dead people vote.

Yes it is -- and I'd point out that Obama has traditionally been on the other side of the machine... he was a big supporter of Harold Washington, for instance. He later learned how to selectively engage it without directly antagonizing it. But he definitely never used it to win any election, and challenged it in his 2000 race against Bobby Rush and his 2003 Senate Primary campaign