Kerry officially endorses Obama

South Carolina has an Open Primary.

With Bush on the ballot?

Too bad Gore got burned by endorsing Dean in 04, otherwise he would almost certainly have endorsed Obama by now. But besides Gore, what’s a more important endorsement than last election’s nominee?

God…

What makes you think Gore would endorse Obama? With Clinton on the ticket, I think Gore would wait until after the Dem Primaries no matter what.

Ditto.

With unaffiliated voters able to vote in either primary.

I really don’t have a clue if this has any impact, but it has to be neutral to good for Obama. He’s been seen as the darling of the young voters, the independents, but the general thought pattern has been that “traditional” Democrats are all behind Hillary. This may give Obama a little credibility with the more mainstream Democrat voter. It also may give some who are backing Hillary by default (which still makes me scratch my head, since the only thing that makes her the frontrunner coming into this campaign is her last name) pause.

Adams, Harrison, Roosevelt and Bush. It’s happened before.

Yeah, you’re not really getting this: Kerry lost those states to Bush because those states voted for the Republican nominee. Republicans don’t show up at Democratic primaries and vote for “Democrats suck.”

In an open primary, it is entirely possible for people to vote as a spoiler in the other party’s primary. You could very easily see Republicans voting for Edwards to try and tip it such that he wins and the Democratic primary gets even nastier for example. Or you could see Democrats crossing party lines to vote for Huck because he’ll be the easiest to beat in the general.

You mistake possible for probable. This would require a statewide effort among Republicians, i.e. something we’d be well aware of by now.

Yes, but even if that did happen (which it doesn’t as far as I know), that’s a calculated strategy move, not an actual vote based on how you feel about a candidate because of an endorsement they’ve collected or anything else.

The fact that he hasn’t already endorsed Clinton says to me that he doesn’t feel like he has to, and probably doesn’t want to.