Weeks to late to be really relevant, Richardson endorses Obama

After weeks of public wavering between Clinton and Obama, Bill Richardson finally made up his mind. You might remember the deal he made with Obama in the Iowa caucuses, providing the Illinois Senator with crucial votes in the realignment vote. You might remember that he watched the Super Bowl with Bill just 2 days before Super Tuesday. But the final decision came in the form of an e-mail to his campaign list yesterday night past midnight... The best way to make it on the morning news and control what story dominates today.

In the release, Richardson emphasized Obama's ability to bridge divisions and cited the Senator's speech on race given three days ago. Here are excerpts (full text available here):

The 1990's were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward. Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.

Senator Obama has started a discussion in this country long overdue and rejects the politics of pitting race against race. He understands clearly that only by bringing people together, only by bridging our differences can we all succeed together as Americans.

Richardson is one of the major Democratic figures whose endorsement matters. For one, Richardson is a superdelegate. So count one more convention vote for Obama. And Richardson has enough influence in the party that he could bring a few other superdelegates along with him, starting with some in New Mexico.

Second, Richardson is a former presidential candidate who has always been close to the Clintons and has extensive foreign policy experience. This helps Obama boost his credibility against Clinton's attacks on his preparedness and it also provides for a very bad round of stories for Hillary, since this is after all one of her husband's secretaries that is now endorsing her adversary.

Third, Richardson can help the Illinois Senator among Hispanics, a group that Clinton is winning handily in contest after contest and that provided her with winning margins in places like California, Texas and... New Mexico.

But it's hard to shake off the feeling that Richardson's endorsement comes too late to truly matter. He came on the verge of endorsing both candidates in the week leading up to Super Tuesday, and that could have tipped the balance for Obama in one state or two (including New Mexico, which Clinton won by a hair). Or he could have endorsed Obama in the week leading up to March 4th to bury the New York Senator when she was most vulnerable and he could have boosted Obama among Hispanics, which he lost 2:1 (while losing overall by only 4%). Instead, Richardson jumped on the Obama wagon at a time where it is already leaving the station, and given how much he flirted with both candidates it looks like he is doing so because Obama is ahead more than anything else.

The states with large Latino electorates in which Obama could really have been boosted by Richardson's support have mainly already voted. The Latino vote will not make or break a candidate in Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Indiana. The only upcoming contest with a significant Hispanic population is Puerto Rico (on June 1st) but voters there are very unlikely to be influenced by the word of a New Mexico politician.

Speaking of Democratic politicians who are endorsing too late to really matter, John Edwards has still to make his preferences known. We were hearing a lot about how torn he was between Obama's message of change and his worries about some of his rhetoric, but even that chatter has died down now. I suspect that Edwards would have a much easier time endorsing Obama than he did a month ago, simply because the health care discussion has faded, whereas it was one of the main issues at the end of February. Considering Obama's frontal assaults on the Clinton-Edwards support for mandates, Edwards was in a difficult position.

People thought that the fomer Senator might finally break out of his silence yesterday when he appeared on Jay Leno's late night show, but he did nothing of the sort. Edwards could have provided a huge boost to either candidate in the days leading up to Feb. 5th and March 4th but he is now in the same situation as Richardson: Most of his supporters have probably already chosen a camp, and he already lost some of his pledged delegates in Iowa at the county conventions.