Well, in the coming weeks, I will finalize the last details of my relocation, and I will become a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia. (”Commonwealth” is an old English term that means, “a state that has to be difficult and not call itself what everybody else does.”)

This will also mark the first time in my life that I will vote in a party primary, and Virginia’s primary might still be meaningful, depending upon events. Or at least it will seem comparably meaningful; when you live your adult life in the District of Columbia, your vote really doesn’t matter, as your officeholders are pretty much selected by the Democratic primary. If you vote for a Republican in general election, you get to see your vote counted on election night as the results are being updated. “Hey, Bush went from a total four votes to five in the last hour! That’s my vote!”

I notice that our friend Erick Erickson has endorsed a candidate — Mitt Romney — and then retracted that endorsement, and says that Hugh Hewitt, who wrote a book on Romney, has come as close to endorsing Romney as you can without actually endorsing him.

I understand why organizations endorse candidates, and I understand why publications endorse candidates. But I’m not quite sure whether the endorsement of any one individual carries all that much weight. I won’t be blogging about my choice, because A) I don’t want my preferred candidate’s rivals to complain that I’m biased, etc. and B) I don’t really think anybody cares about who I vote for. It’s just one vote, and in the general election, Mrs. Hillary Spot is almost certainly going to cancel mine out, anyway.

So I’ll put it to the great political minds and memories of my co-bloggers… has there ever been an endorsement by an individual that swung a race?

Marshall: Great question, Jim. I can’t think of one on the national stage, but at the state level, it happens all the time. The clearest examples go back a ways, when men like Senator Harry Byrd dominated politics in their state simply by giving “the nod.”