Cuccinelli stays silent on candidate endorsements
By JR Hoeft | Monday, December 5th, 2011 | Catch-All, PoliticsAfter an eventful week where Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli declared his intention to seek the Republican nomination for governor and then participated as a panelist in an extremely substantive presidential forum on Fox News, he remains low-key in the presidential and U.S. Senate races today.
“We’ll be supporting the nominees,” said Noah Wall, Cuccinelli campaign spokesperson. “Ken has not made a decision of who he will be supporting.”
When asked if an endorsement will be made soon, Wall said that the Virginia presidential primary remains months out in March and the U.S. Senate primary is in June.
In contrast, Cuccinelli’s GOP opponent, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling endorsed presidential candidate Mitt Romney early in 2007, where he served as Romney’s state campaign chairman. Bolling is also currently serving in this role for the Romney campaign. Additionally, Bolling endorsed U.S. Senate candidate George Allen earlier this year.
When Governor Bob McDonnell was attorney general, he was involved in presidential politics, supporting Fred Thompson.
This election cycle, McDonnell has stayed out of the presidential fray, largely due to the continued buzz that he is on “anyone’s short-list” for vice president. However, he did endorse Allen about a month ago.
Clearly Cuccinelli is biding his time in coming to a decision, if he even decides to make one publicly.
The question is, “Why?” In my opinion, he, like many of us, either hasn’t made up his mind, is trying to politically calculate the best time to announce – and the political consequences of doing so (or not doing so at all), or he just has other things to think about.
So, this leads to a few questions:
1) Will an endorsement from the attorney general matter in either of these races? If you think it does, how long do you think he has to make a decision?
2) If the AG endorses when it appears the races are a forgone conclusion, will that lessen your opinion of him as a leader?
3) Do endorsements from elected officials matter at all?
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Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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5 Responses to "Cuccinelli stays silent on candidate endorsements"
Maybe he’s waiting to see if Huntsman will surge next (j/k), probably holding out hope that Santorum’s All In Iowa Strategy pays off.
Well, I have been looking forward to hearing who AG Cuccinelli might support out of this playing field, notably because of how dynamic these campaigns have been, and the lack of a clear (consistent) frontrunner. I have not been 100% satisfied with any of the past (or current) leaders in the polls, and I would like to see who a strong conservative leader like Cuccinelli would endorse – it would definitely have an effect on my opinion on some level (at the very least, would urge me to take a closer look at the candidate of his choosing). At the moment, I tend to support Santorum, who seems like the only consistent, morally upstanding one of the bunch that doesn’t repeatedly stick his foot in his mouth. But I have not seen the type of assertiveness out of him that I would like in a Presidential candidate – especially considering the stakes involved in this race, against a candidate like Obama who will still enjoy an enthusiastically blind following. Romney is just too moderate for my taste, and Newt, while having accomplished a lot in his day, has too much questionable history for me to support him as a person. I believe Cuccinelli’s endorsement would definitely have some amount of impact on the polls, and hope he makes his endorsement known sooner rather than later.
Newt and Mitt’s progressive tendencies would be out of character for Cuccinelli me thinks..
I have no idea if an AG endorsement is worth anything. Are there any studies, any supporting data that show that endorsements make a difference?
Q1. Will an endorsement from the attorney general matter in either of these races? If you think it does, how long do you think he has to make a decision?
A. That’s actually two questions. Does his endorsement matter? Probably to some of his hard-core team of supporters. But not to anybody else, except maybe the person he endorses. I don’t see any up side for him to endorse anybody. Ditto, LG.
Q2. If the AG endorses when it appears the races are a forgone conclusion, will that lessen your opinion of him as a leader?
A. YES. And it isn’t very high to begin with.
Q3. Do endorsements from elected officials matter at all?
A. See above. They matter to the person they endorse, but probably not many others. In fact, it can really piss off some of your own supporters–not a good thing. Best for elected officials to stay in their own lane.
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