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With the recent endorsement by State Senator Lou D'Allesandro, eight Democratic members of the NH State Senate - a majority of our senate Democrats - have now endorsed Hillary Clinton for president! In endorsing Senator Clinton, Lou said that it is time to move beyond negative politcs, and that she is the only candidate with a strong, positive message.
As a lot of you know, I think different endorsements have different meanings. There are the big ones that make a lot of news, and then there are the ones that are important because the person will actually work for the candidate. I don't think endorsements in and of themselves bring votes - what brings votes is the work done by the people doing the endorsing.
The endorsement by eight of our 14 state senators is great news for the campaign because none of our state senators are ever content to be just names on a press release - they really work and contribute to campaigns.
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Also, the Senators know the people in their district. They have lists of supporters, volunteers, sign locations, community activists; they know who votes, and they know the issues that matter to NH voters. It takes grass roots politics to elect a state senator in New Hampshire, and Hillary Clinton now benefits from the grass roots expertise of these eight senators.
There is some historical evidence that state senators work hard for their candidates. In the last two cycles, the candidate who received the support of the majority of the Democratic state senators went on to win the primary - John Kerry in 2004, and Al Gore in 2000. And at the time of those endorsements, their nominations were far from a sure thing.
Also, the support of the eight state senators shows that Hillary Clinton is appealing to a broad cross section of Democrats across the state who care about a number of different issues. Senators Larsen, Sgambati, Kelly, DeVries, D'Allesandro, Hassan, Reynolds and Estabrook cover a broad range of geographic ares - Manchester, Exeter, Plymouth, Keene, Durham, Concord, Dover, Laconia, Goffstown and Dover. Their range of interests in issues is incredibly broad - health and human services with Senator Sgambati, budget and finance with Senator D'Allesandro, women's issues and finance with Senator Kelly, labor and security issues with Senator DeVries (my senator!), the environment and disability services with Senator Hassan, housing and new technologies with Senator Reynolds, education with Senator Estabrook, and, with Senate President Larsen, civil rights and the environment (each one has a lot more areas of concern and expertise, but I am just giving examples!).
I am very proud to be supporting Hillary Clinton with these eight state senators; they know the issues that New Hampshire faces, and they agree that Hillary Clinton is the best person to help us face those issues!
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