A little while back I had said that there are probably very few figures whose endorsement could single-handedly swing many votes, and that on the Republican side, one of two I could think of was former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

But we won’t be seeing an endorsement until the Republican nominee is clear.

“President Reagan had a tradition, a policy actually, of never endorsing a candidate. He would never pick one Republican over another, and Mrs. Reagan will continue in that vein,” said Wren Powell, spokeswoman for Mrs. Reagan. “She will not be endorsing any candidate in the primary.”

If tradition holds, Mrs. Reagan will endorse the Republican candidate after that figure has won the nomination. There were unconfirmed reports that supporters of Sen. John McCain had sought an endorsement early in the 2000 cycle, but Reagan endorsed Bush after it was clear he would be the nominee. Mrs. Reagan’s office declined to comment on those reports.

Twice in recent memory that Mrs. Reagan stepped into electoral politics was in last year’s Senate race, where she asked Democratic candidate Jim Webb to take down an ad that used footage of her husband talking about Webb, that she felt implied an endorsement. She also asked the Club for Growth to not use her husband’s image in a 2004 ad supporting President Bush.