Tomorrow at American University, Ted Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama. I find it tricky to try and game out what endorsements "mean," but Kennedy's probably brings both a boost in Massachusetts (which is a pretty delegate rich state) and increases Obama's momentum in the media. And, in an obvious way, it situates him in the tradition of John F. Kennedy, and suggests that this is the guy for the liberal establishment to rally around. One interesting sidenote of Kennedy's endorsement -- which we saw with Kerry's endorsement, and McCaskill's endorsement, and Webb's endorsement, and so on -- is that for all you hear of the power and memory of the Clinton machine, most of these politicians don't seem afraid of it at all. Obama isn't even the frontrunner, and they're endorsing at the most critical, contentious, controversial time, the sort of moment when Clinton would beg them to keep quiet, offer them anything in exchange for support or even neutrality. The Clinton machine like so many machines, is more myth than fact. Bill Clinton can get a lot of media coverage, and the operatives around them know how to run a campaign, but there's nothing particularly fearsome or unassailable about their orgaization.
