A Few Big Endorsements

Obama has picked up a lot of endorsements lately. Here are a few biggies:

• Teddy Kennedy: this is huge. It helps liberals get behind Obama and along with the endorsements of Patrick and Caroline (of nytimes editorial fame) cements the new narrative that Obama is inspiring in the JFK mold.
  
• SEIU-CA: SEIU has deep pockets and lots of members in CA. There are 600-650,000 members in that state alone. Campaign finance laws don't constrain their right to communicate with their members. Expect a lot of money to be spent on internal GOTV.
• Move-On: they have 3.2M members but it's not clear to me whether the negative publicity trumps the power of their endorsement. It might help convince conservatives to stay away from BHO buy does it convince liberals to flock to him. I sure hope it helps with the latter.
• Paul Volcker: This is huge. It adds economic cred to the BHO campaign. He needs to show comeptence in what shapes up to be, in part, an "it's the economy stupid" election. Volcker served Carter and Reagan as Fed Chair. He is behind only Greenspan in this field given that Bernanke can't endorse.
  
• El Piolin: Thought not quite and endorsement this important Latino radio host had Kennedy spiel on Obama for 20 minutes on his show the week before super tuesday.
  

A lot of these endorsements leverage each other. For instance, Piolin combines with Kennedy, and SEIU CA to help influence SW Latinos to vote BHO. That is a huge demographic and there are your 3-points-of-contact.

HRC has shored up her "i'm ready" cred. Obama hasn't yet. Endorsements of major pols help him tremendously with the assertion that he is ready. Volcker should help accross the board. Kennedy should help with liberals in addition to young folks, baby boomers, and Latinos. It's been a very big week for Obama.