In the days of my youth, when I worked in politics, the Sundays before elections were times of great anticipation as you’d wait to see which candidates earned which endorsements from the local papers. In my town of St. Louis, these picks were generally pretty predictable – the Globe-Democrat was reliably Republican and the Post-Dispatch was reliably Democratic – but there were always a few surprises along with a few unexpected digs and compliments.
In today’s Internet age, conventional wisdom is that such endorsements are less important than they used to be and I suspect that’s probably true. Even so, each editorial represents the judgement of some thoughtful writers and merits consideration.
In 2004, John Kerry won the editorial endorsement race 213-205, a squeaker by anyone’s standards. The kind folks at Editor & Publisher – who compiled the 2004 stats – are again tracking this aspect of the election and so far it doesn’t appear to shaping up to a close one. The current count is 76-18 in favor of Senator Obama and includes some papers – like the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune – that have never endorsed Democrats and a slew of papers that are conservative-leaning and/or endorsed Bush in 2004 – the Denver Post, the New York Daily News, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Austin American Statesman, the Houston Chronicle and the Salt Lake Tribune.
– Austin wage calculator fine
The Same Rowdy Crowd 