As I have done in prior elections, I will be keeping track of endorsements for the 2011 elections. You can argue all you want about the value of endorsements – clearly, some are more valuable than others, and some mean more to some candidates than to others – but my view is simply that they’re another piece of information about a candidate or a race, and that more information is better than less.
All endorsements will be noted on the 2011 Election page. Note that some groups may not issue all their endorsements at once, so check it periodically for updates.
I mostly learn about endorsements via press releases and candidate emails. There’s no guarantee that I will hear about any particular endorsement – for better or worse, not everyone sends me their releases and emails – so if you want me to know about an endorsement your group has made or your candidate has received, tell me about it via email: kuff – at – offthekuff – dot – com. As of this year, I have one requirement for listing an endorsement: There must be a webpage for that endorsement to which I can link. In the past, I have saved press releases as Google docs or pasted them into blog posts, and linked to those things. I’m not going to do that any more. If you’re an endorsing organization, I believe you owe it to the people you’re endorsing, all of whom likely had to fill out a time-consuming questionnaire and maybe sit through an in-person screening, to make your endorsement easy to find. It’s a simple matter of respect. Provide a link to your list of endorsed candidates, or don’t bother with it. Thanks very much.