ON ENDORSEMENTS.

Brian makes a great point here:

By my count, before Sunday, Hillary Clinton had won the support of seven senators (Robert Menendez, Diane Feinstein, Evan Bayh, Debbie Stabenow, Maria Cantwell, Barbara Mikulski, and Sheldon Whitehouse) to Obama's four (Durbin, Leahy, Kerry, and McCaskill). And, yes, seven is a greater number than four. But I think (as I've hinted before) that there was something telling under the surface the senatorial endorsements as they looked yesterday; specifically that whereas the Clinton endorsements all have a sheen of obviousness about them, there is, in my reading anyhow, a significance to particularly Leahy's and McCaskill's endorsements that raise questions about how effectively Clinton could actually manage the presidency.I think the Kennedy news just brings the point home. Kennedy chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions atop both Clinton and Obama. He is, at the same time, a very senior member of the Armed Services Committee, which is the same committee that supposedly has served as Clinton's home school for acquiring her widely praised military expertise. He is, in other words, not just the nation's most trusted and revered Democrat, but also, coincidentally, the one who's had the greatest opportunity to see the young candidates at work. And he came away supporting Obama.All of which indicates to me that--except where centrist, hawkish Democratic senators like Feinstein and Bayh are concerned--Clinton wouldn't have as easy a time working the legislative bureaucracy as she'd have her supporters believe. And Obama--messy desk notwithstanding--might not do such a bad job of it.

Now, Senators are people too, and they endorse for all manner of reasons, some idealistic, some cynical. The calculation is influenced by everything from the Senator's personal impression of the candidate to their estimation of his or her chances to their predictions as to how much influence they'd have if each candidate won the presidency. It may be that Kennedy feels Obama will respect him as an elder statesman while Clinton will treat him as one of one hundred. It may be that he's personally moved by Obama's campaign. Or it may be none of those things. But just as is true with the battle for advisers, where Obama got quite a number of high profile Clinton appointees, we're really not seeing a hard swing towards Clinton among the bureaucracy she claims to better understand and more effectively work.