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John Edwards wins the endorsement of Rep. Bruce Braley from Iowa's First District. Braley was elected to Congress in 2006. He supported Edwards in 2004.
Representative Bruce Braley, who represents Iowa’s First Congressional District in the eastern portion of the state, is scheduled to announce that he is supporting the presidential candidacy of Mr. Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina. The development was confirmed to The Caucus by two Democratic officials familiar with the endorsement....The announcement will take place Monday in Waterloo at Hawkeye Community College at noon.
He is the first of Iowa’s three Democratic members of Congress to announce his endorsement. The value of any endorsement is always an open question, but as Mr. Edwards seeks to compete for attention and support with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, this rollout signals the beginning of an intense final month of the Iowa caucus campaign.
**Update**
MyDD notes that endorsements don't mean a huge deal, but this is big news for Edwards because it will be news and remind the media that it is a 3 person race.
As a lot of folks have noted before, endorsements don't necessarily make a terribly large impression on voters decisions directly. However, the Braley endorsement does do at least a couple of important things for Edwards. First off, this could be the big piece of news in the statewide media Tuesday, and perhaps more importantly it could prompt the national media to remember Edwards, who they have been perhaps too quick to forget given their focus on the scuffles between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. What's more, a Braley endorsement could bring some of the organizational support and expertise that helped put Braley in Congress last fall.
1 comment:
This and the Cownie endorsement are mostly important as media stories. They fuel the narrative that Hillary doesn't have momentum in Iowa.
For Edwards especially, the endorsement is welcome, because a few weeks ago Yepsen and others were predicting that his support might "collapse" (that was ridiculous, but it was in danger of becoming CW for national media).
Now Time's Mark Halperin links to the Braley endorsement, commenting that only a fool would count Edwards out.
That is a much better narrative for Edwards.
desmoinesdem
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