As former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson endorses Rudy Giuliani for president, political reporters are speculating whether Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Al Gore will endorse a candidate in the 2008 Democratic primaries. Question is, do endorsements matter all that much? Probably not. Remember: Gore's last endorsement didn't turn out too well. One could argue that a lot of endorsements are a good indicator of elite support for a given candidate. This would apply to the 2008 Democratic race for president, as most of the Democratic establishment has rallied behind Hillary Clinton. (Al Gore is the front-page story on Clinton's website, by the way; that's not the case on Obama's or Edwards's site.) Of course, around 50 percent of Democrats nation-wide support Clinton, too, so you could also argue that elite endorsements are chasing public opinion.