WHAT OPRAH'S ENDORSEMENTS ARE WORTH

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KATHY POSNER ON ENDORSEMENTS
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GEORGE FORMAN GRILL
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Barack Obama

My webmaster, Jason Baumann sent me an e-mail saying, “The Tribune wrote that they will not endorse a Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Neither will the unions. I am very independent and am pulling a Democratic ticket this year only because of our friend Stella Black running in the Democratic primary for Metropolitan Water Reclamation Commission. What are endorsements really worth?” The most publicized endorsement ever of a candidate was when Oprah Winfrey endorsed Barack Obama for President. In August 2008, two University of Maryland economists, Craig Garthwaite and Tim Moore, quantified the Oprah endorsement at 1 million votes in a study they published. "Winfrey’s ability to influence the actions of her supporters is impressive. Polling evidence suggests that this effect on consumers’ decisions may translate to politics," the economists wrote. "Furthermore, Oprah is regarded as one of the most prominent and influential public figures in the United States: if a celebrity endorsement is ever going to have an empirically identifiable influence, then it is likely to be hers." The economists recognized in their report that few studies have ever even documented a clear link between endorsements of any kind and voter behavior. While there might not be have been many scientific studies linking voter behavior to endorsements, there have been many polls. One done by USA TODAY during the 2008 Presidential election showed that 16% of people felt endorsements were very important; 21% at somewhat important; 23% not too important and 38% at not important at all. The fact that 16% of potential voters felt endorsements were important is really a huge number when one considers that many elections are usually won by only a few percentage points. Mayor Daley, the most prominent Democratic in Illinois ( sorry Mike Madigan!) said on Saturday that he won't be endorsing anyone running in the Feb. 2nd Democratic primary contests because he's too busy to worry about elections. "If I do endorse, you'll say, 'Boss Daley does this,' you guys will spin that," Daley told reporters. "In this day and age it's completely different, it's a completely different environment in politics, and I’ll be very frank. Endorsements don't mean as much as they used to mean in the past. "There's enough issues out there, whether it's public transportation, whether it's the parks, whether it's the schools, I'm focusing my energy and my experience on making sure everything's done for the city." In explaining why the Tribune is not endorsing either Democratic candidate for Governor, the editorial said, “We cannot endorse either (Quinn or Hynes) of these candidates in the primary. Neither one has inspired confidence that he can make the difficult, unpopular decisions that must be made to resolve this state's financial crisis.We don't see this as tantamount to an early endorsement of the Republican nominee in the general election. The Democrat who wins the primary will have nine months to make a better case for himself. We hope he proves our skepticism wrong. But if he doesn't, we think voters will have an easy choice.” When George Foreman signed a $137.5 million deal with Salton Inc. (recently merged with Applica Incorporated), entitling the grill manufacturer to global, unrestricted use of Foreman’s name in marketing the Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine and related products, who knew that more than 100 million grills would be sold? Salton later expanded the line to include many other products. In Foreman’s case, the public knew that his endorsement had been bought and paid for. While we hope that newspapers base their endorsements on who they think is the best candidate, how many of the general population know that at the slating session held by the by the Cook Cook Democratic Party a few months ago, potential judge candidates were asked if they were slated could they contribute $25,000 to the party and other candidates were asked for $40,000? If they answered, “NO,” they obviously would not be endorsed or slated. So while endorsements can have an influence in how the population votes, I think it is important to know how the endorsement was obtained. At least we knew Foreman’s was bought and paid for; we don’t always know that in politics. Click here for more from Kathy Posner....
Photos By: Sara De Boer/RD/Dziekan/Retna