Winner of the Week

House Majority Leader Denise Merrill (D-Mansfield) claimed the biggest victory of the week on Wednesday when she announced an endorsement cull of 71 House Democrats for her bid for secretary of the state. The list runs the ideological (narrow as it’s become) and geographical gamuts in the Democratic caucus.

Those endorsements provide a bountiful harvest of delegates at the May Democratic state convention. State representatives can be very helpful in persuading hometown activists to toss some votes to a colleague in the legislature. That should be especially easy to do for Merrill since she’s handed out a lot of goodies and protected funding for many programs as Co-Chair of the Appropriations Committee before she became majority leader in 2009.

Merrill wins full marks for understanding how many of her friends she’d have to disappoint in next year’s budget bloodbath. She wouldn’t have 71 left if she’d stayed, so she’s looking for a quiet life as secretary of the state.