"08 Clinton Endorsements Yield Long-Term Dividends For PA Pols

The Huffington Post has a smart piece today on the ongoing legacy of Pennsylvania's drawn-out 2008 presidential primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

In short: Pennsylvania politicians who endorsed Clinton are cashing in their I.O.U.s with the county's 42nd president. Obama-backers are being left in the cold.

The most recent example comes from Kathleen Kane's win over Patrick Murphy in yesterday's Democratic Attorney General primary. Murphy entered the race with the backing of Democratic power brokers like Ed Rendell and Michael Nutter. Kane's largest asset: her husband's willingness to pour company money into her campaign. But Kane had worked for Clinton during the 2008 race, and called in a favor with former President Bill Clinton.

From the HuffPo article:

The Democratic congressman thought his credentials were in order. He was popular, from a prominent district and the ranking member of a key committee. Most important, he had not endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential race. So through an intermediary, he asked Bill Clinton to headline a fundraiser. The answer: no.

The go-between reminded the former president that the congressman had remained neutral in the race between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

 

"Yeah, but neutral was the same as endorsing Barack," the former president said, according to the intermediary, who declined to be named because of continuing friendships with both men. "The answer is still no."

 

Bill Clinton prefers to help Democrats such as Kathleen Kane, a lawyer who won the party's nomination for attorney general of Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. In 2008, Kane, who hails from a prominent political family, raised money for Hillary and was her northeast Pennsylvania coordinator. The former president not only endorsed Kane in this election; he also offered to speak at a rally in the Philadelphia suburbs earlier this month.

 

"He called us and said, Can I do an event?' and we said ... 'Heck YES!'" recalled Frank Keel, Kane's press aide. "He's unbelievably popular in the state."