Why Jeb Bush's endorsement doesn't really matter

If Bush does get his wish at some point in the near future, though, he probably won’t deserve any of the credit for it. In the modern, post-machine-politics era, individual endorsements simply don’t matter as much as we sometimes pretend they do. The exceptions are, typically, the endorsements from those politicians who still do have a machine—or at least a robust activist and fundraising operation—that can be employed on the endorsee’s behalf.

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There’s no reason to believe that a nod from a single politician can bring a campaign like this one to an end, David Karol, an associate professor of American politics at the University of Maryland and the co-author of “The Party Decides,” says. “I just don’t think that there is any one figure—with the rare exception going way, way back—[who] has that power.” Indeed, Karol says, the most recent example he can come up with of a single endorser swaying a nomination might be Teddy Roosevelt backing William Howard Taft, in 1908. (“The Party Decides” is discussed at greater length in Ryan Lizza’s recent article for the magazine about the primaries.)

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