Obama Pulls Off ‘Major Coup’

Earlier today, I relayed a tip that Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign was set to announce legislative endorsements. A few hours later, they announced endorsements from state legislators Rich Olive, Frank Wood, Helen Miller, and Janet Peterson.

I wrote earlier that it would be a “major coup” for Obama to overtake Biden for second place in the legislative endorsement mini-horserace. These four endorsements put Obama over Biden’s total of eight legislative supporters. I guess I might have been exaggerating when I said this would be a major event, but the number of endorsements was higher than I expected.

Also of note: the Obama release announcing the endorsements claims that 10 state legislators are public endorsers. One of the ten is State Rep. Elesha Gayman, a young, well-liked first-term Representative who is actually on Obama’s payroll as Eastern Iowa Political Director. If a campaign is paying someone to work for them, are they allowed to claim them as an endorsement? (Granted, every endorsement costs a campaign money, but it is usually in the form of PAC contributions and fundraisers.) Even without counting Gayman, though, Obama is ahead of Biden by one.