Endorsements don’t usually count for much. But if they’re big enough and come at critical moments they can count for a lot. And the string of endorsements Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) picked up in the days after his narrow defeat in the New Hampshire primary is, I believe, a major story that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

Since losing New Hampshire just over a week ago, Obama has been endorsed by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D). Additionally, he’s also been endorsed by Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Sen. Pa trick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ned Lamont. But they’re in a slightly different category, and it’s the first four I want to discuss.

The first nod came from Sen. Johnson, who put out word he’d be endorsing Obama the day after New Hampshire. Johnson is a protégé of former Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). And Daschle, who carries the title of “senior adviser” in the Obama world, has a bunch of ex-advisers and staffers who went to Obama after 2004.

Because of that, when I saw word of the Johnson endorsement, I figured this was something Daschle or his former staffers had helped put together to help stabilize Obama’s fortunes after the surprise New Hampshire loss.

But now you have three others — Nelson, Napolitano and McCaskill. Nelson and Johnson are from very red states, while Napolitano and McCaskill are from swing states.

There are a bunch of things you can draw from this spate of endorsements. One is that these folks don’t seem worried about running themselves or having their supporters run with Obama at the top of the ticket. And these are people from either very conservative or somewhat conservative states. Despite the fact that Obama is running in some ways to the right of New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (at least tonally, as the candidate of unity and bipartisan reconciliation), there are still a lot of questions inevitably being asked about whether the country is “ready” for Obama — whether that’s about his race, his name, his background in community organizing, his youth, liberal voting record or whatever.  

But these folks think America’s ready; in fact, their endorsements suggest they think the country is more ready for Obama than for Hillary.

But that isn’t the biggest significance. The key is timing. You don’t hit a big-time politician like Hillary Clinton when she’s down unless you’re really against her and you’re at least fairly confident she’s not getting back up. After winning in New Hampshire, albeit narrowly, and after the clobbering in Iowa, there’s been a sense that Clinton may be back on track to consolidating her front-runner status and perhaps following a modified version of the standard script in which the anointed front-runner gets a scare in the early states before mopping up the competition as the race goes national. As of mid-January most polls still show her with a solid lead nationwide. And big states like California, New York, Florida and New Jersey show, if anything, even larger leads. But these four clearly don’t want that to happen. In fact, they’re sticking their necks pretty far out to help make it not happen. And their endorsements, coming right now, tell me they have some confidence it won’t.

Then there’s the Senate angle. By my count, by the last day of 2007, Hillary Clinton had garnered 10 endorsements from her fellow Democratic senators. Obama had two in December. And since then he’s picked up five more, making the total seven to 10.

Like I said, endorsements don’t usually amount to much. And they’re usually given to the front-runner. But this time I think these may mean more than people realize.

Marshall is editor of talkingpointsmemo.com.   His column appears in The Hill each week.  E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it