How about a thread devoted to endorsements by papers? I'll start. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-end-president-20121021,0,3229774.story
basso kinda already started one. but I don't really understand endorsements. What's it suppose to do?
I don't post in basso's trash masquerading as threads with actual topics, so I don't mind this one at all. So here you go: Utah Newspaper Endorsement Slams Mitt Romney By ABBY D. PHILLIP Oct. 19, 2012 In a blow to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Utah's largest newspaper today slammed his candidacy and endorsed President Obama instead. Despite being credited for saving the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and making Utah his home at one time, the Salt Lake City Tribune said that the state's "favorite adopted son," Romney, has become "the party's shape-shifting nominee." "In considering which candidate to endorse, the Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem-solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago," the editorial board wrote. "Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb." Though the Tribune chose to stiff Romney with its endorsement, Utah remains a solidly red state, as seen on the ABC News political map, and Romney is expected to win all six of its electoral votes. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/utah-newspaper-endorsement-slams-romney/story?id=17519264
I find it weird when newspapers endorse candidates. I would hope that most respectable newspapers employ journalists who are objective, and journalists from either party.
Objective journalism is almost dead in the US. The best journalists are basically dinosaurs now. Endorsements are a tradition here and probably swayed some swing voters in the past. There is so much more information now that people don't have to rely on their morning paper for political news and opinions. The money today is in stirring the pot and vilifying the political opposition. When it comes to news.. People want sex, violence and their political p*rn.
Endorsements come from the editorial board, so I kind of think the paper's journalists could hypothetically claim objectivity.
It might not have been alive for that long, some of the oldest and best papers in this country were founded with obvious partisan ties. Perhaps the biggest issue is the lack of demand which prevents major cities from profitably publishing two full papers.
I doubt that newpaper endorsements of presidential candidates matter very much. How many people actually put significant weight on an editor's opinion for that? However, they do carry considerable weight I'm guessing for other contests where much less information has been consumed -- like county commissioner or bond decisions.
This is not a joke. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-debate-20121023,0,2131672.story
They matter to the candidates: "Q: Thank you so much, Mr. President, for your time. THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, guys. I appreciate you taking the time. I want your endorsement." http://www.desmoinesregister.com/ar...es-transcript-of-Register-interview?Frontpage
Washington Post Endorses Obama The sad answer is there is no way to know what Mr. Romney really believes. His unguarded expression of contempt for 47 percent of the population seems as sincere as anything else we’ve heard, but that’s only conjecture. At times he has advocated a muscular, John McCain-style foreign policy, but in the final presidential debate he positioned himself as a dove. Before he passionately supported a fetus’s right to life, he supported a woman’s right to abortion. His swings have been dramatic on gay rights, gun rights, health care, climate change and immigration. His ugly embrace of “self-deportation” during the Republican primary campaign, and his demolition of a primary opponent, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for having left open a door of opportunity for illegal-immigrant children, bespeaks a willingness to say just about anything to win. Every politician changes his mind sometimes; you’d worry if not. But rarely has a politician gotten so far with only one evident immutable belief: his conviction in his own fitness for higher office. So voters are left with the centerpiece of Mr. Romney’s campaign: promised tax cuts that would blow a much bigger hole in the federal budget while worsening economic inequality. His claims that he could avoid those negative effects, which defy math and which he refuses to back up with actual proposals, are more insulting than reassuring.
Found this article that speaks to what I was talking about: http://www.npr.org/2012/10/24/163577695/newspaper-endorsements-still-key-in-swing-states [rquoter]Newspaper Endorsements: Prized, But Often Ignored by David Folkenflik October 24, 2012 This weekend, a slew of newspapers in key swing states including Ohio are expected to release their endorsements for the presidency and other elected positions. Such external validation is highly prized by candidates, but it's no longer entirely clear why. The Columbus Dispatch gave a strong endorsement of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney last week, saying President Obama had failed: "Romney brings a wealth of executive experience in the private sector and the public sector that dwarfs that of Obama." The Dispatch is the dominant paper in central Ohio, a swing region in one of the most vital swing states for this presidential field. Voters Not Swayed Yet even those voters who read the paper say they could have guessed who won its endorsement blindfolded. "The Dispatch is traditionally a very conservative newspaper," said Matthew Burton, a 41-year-old stay-at-home father and Obama fan who lives just outside Columbus with his family. "There's the saying they've always endorsed every Republican since Woodrow Wilson. I'd be more surprised if they endorsed a national Democrat." In interviews, a dozen voters suggested they put little to no stock in the editorials, even when they read the papers, and even when they fervently agree with those endorsements. "Honestly, it doesn't influence me at all. There's definitely an underlying mistrust in the media from my perspective," said restaurant manager Mark Piscionari, a Romney supporter who said he preferred "doing my own research and doing my own homework." "The endorsement really has no impact on my thought — or who I will vote for," said computer consultant Chris Malloy, who said he remained unsure of how he will vote. "My opinion is as valid as the editor of the newspaper, and it's my vote, so I will decide for myself." "I think the people should be the ones to make the decisions — as opposed to these newspapers," said Himie-Budu Shannon, a deacon at an Episcopalian church. He said he will drive a bus from his church to voting stations on Election Day, a tacit move to get out the vote for his preferred candidate, Obama. He said it did not influence him for a moment that his hometown Cleveland Plain Dealer strongly supported Obama for a second term. Asked if he remembered when he last relied on newspapers for guidance, Shannon responded: "As a child. Not since I became mature." Newspapers' Decline It's not that these Ohioans — and others like them — are not plugged in. They said they follow politics closely through the Drudge Report, NPR, cable news, PBS NewsHour to the Economist and the Guardian. All cited online aggregators such as Google News and Yahoo News. That's reflective of newspapers' status in many markets: fading print monopolies struggling with sharply reduced paid circulation compared with a decade ago. Newspapers in some smaller cities dotted across the country still bear names that betray (or honor, take your pick) their partisan roots, such as Foster's Daily Democrat in New Hampshire and the Waterbury Republican-American in Connecticut. The move toward objectivity as a journalistic aim in reporting mirrored the decline of vibrant multi-newspaper towns, as surviving newspapers wanted to capture readers, not alienate them. Some major papers, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, no longer make presidential endorsements. USA Today never did. And yet campaigns fixate over which candidate has won more, as the Washington Post recently wrote. On Wednesday, Obama yielded to criticism from the Des Moines Register, the largest paper in the swing state of Iowa, and allowed publication of the full text of his off-the-record interview with the newspaper's executives. David Holthaus. the new editorial page editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, set modest goals for the paper's endorsement. He said it's a civic duty to give readers the benefits of the paper's research. The Enquirer is set to announce its choice this weekend. "What we would like to see is our voice added to the voices across the country," Holthaus said, "and, in that way, present what's important for our community and our readers and have a way to speak directly to the campaigns." Paul Beck, political science professor emeritus at Ohio State, said such editorials now only really matter for local races — like judgeships. "People who pay any attention to presidential politics have all this information about it," said Beck, who has tracked elections for more than 40 years. "They've seen the candidates in the debates. They have seen ... countless ads on television — so many that they are probably tuning them out as well. The newspaper endorsements are, I suspect, minor elements, if at all." Some polling from Pew Research Center and others offers some support for that conclusion. Can Newspapers Sway Undecided Voters? One veteran of four Republican presidential campaigns, Dan Schnur, cited two factors: a shift in political strategy and a rise in polarization reflected both in the tone of new media outlets, such as Fox News and the Huffington Post, and the outlook of voters themselves. "The primary goal of a presidential campaign in the 21st century is no longer to persuade a dwindling number of undecided voters — but rather to find a way to inspire and excite and motivate your strongest supporters," said Schnur, the director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. "A newspaper endorsement is much more effective at persuading someone who hasn't made up their minds." And yet — for all that — Schnur, who was the communications director for Republican John McCain's presidential bid in 2000, disagreed with what has become the new conventional wisdom outside political circles. "If you are the newspaper in the most important swing market in the most important swing state in a very close presidential election, you still matter a lot," Schnur said. "And the Columbus Dispatch endorsement really does matter." (Dispatch editorial page editor Glenn Sheller declined to be interviewed for this story, writing in an email that he did not trust NPR to treat Republicans or conservatives fairly.) Schnur said that Republicans could ensure that people far beyond the Dispatch's readership would learn of its endorsement, by incorporating it into TV advertisements, social media updates, radio commercials and direct mailings to convey momentum toward the White House and rally the faithful. So in this case, Schnur said, limited to a vital battleground region, Buckeye newspaper editorialists might well help stimulate a few more Romney voters to hustle to the polls, and help pick a president.[/rquoter]
Tomorrow's Sunday New York Times Barack Obama for Re-Election The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged. That is the context for the Nov. 6 election, and as stark as it is, the choice is just as clear. President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas. Voters may still be confused about Mr. Romney’s true identity, but they know the Republican Party, and a Romney administration would reflect its agenda. Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about that. We have criticized individual policy choices that Mr. Obama has made over the last four years, and have been impatient with his unwillingness to throw himself into the political fight. But he has shaken off the hesitancy that cost him the first debate, and he approaches the election clearly ready for the partisan battles that would follow his victory. We are confident he would challenge the Republicans in the “fiscal cliff” battle even if it meant calling their bluff, letting the Bush tax cuts expire and forcing them to confront the budget sequester they created. Electing Mr. Romney would eliminate any hope of deficit reduction that included increased revenues. In the poisonous atmosphere of this campaign, it may be easy to overlook Mr. Obama’s many important achievements, including carrying out the economic stimulus, saving the auto industry, improving fuel efficiency standards, and making two very fine Supreme Court appointments. Health Care Mr. Obama has achieved the most sweeping health care reforms since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. The reform law takes a big step toward universal health coverage, a final piece in the social contract. It was astonishing that Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress were able to get a bill past the Republican opposition. But the Republicans’ propagandistic distortions of the new law helped them wrest back control of the House, and they are determined now to repeal the law. That would eliminate the many benefits the reform has already brought: allowing children under 26 to stay on their parents’ policies; lower drug costs for people on Medicare who are heavy users of prescription drugs; free immunizations, mammograms and contraceptives; a ban on lifetime limits on insurance payments. Insurance companies cannot deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Starting in 2014, insurers must accept all applicants. Once fully in effect, the new law would start to control health care costs. Mr. Romney has no plan for covering the uninsured beyond his callous assumption that they will use emergency rooms. He wants to use voucher programs to shift more Medicare costs to beneficiaries and block grants to shift more Medicaid costs to the states. The Economy Mr. Obama prevented another Great Depression. The economy was cratering when he took office in January 2009. By that June it was growing, and it has been ever since (although at a rate that disappoints everyone), thanks in large part to interventions Mr. Obama championed, like the $840 billion stimulus bill. Republicans say it failed, but it created and preserved 2.5 million jobs and prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent. Poverty would have been much worse without the billions spent on Medicaid, food stamps and jobless benefits. Last year, Mr. Obama introduced a jobs plan that included spending on school renovations, repair projects for roads and bridges, aid to states, and more. It was stymied by Republicans. Contrary to Mr. Romney’s claims, Mr. Obama has done good things for small businesses — like pushing through more tax write-offs for new equipment and temporary tax cuts for hiring the unemployed. The Dodd-Frank financial regulation was an important milestone. It is still a work in progress, but it established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, initiated reform of the derivatives market, and imposed higher capital requirements for banks. Mr. Romney wants to repeal it. If re-elected, Mr. Obama would be in position to shape the “grand bargain” that could finally combine stimulus like the jobs bill with long-term deficit reduction that includes letting the high-end Bush-era tax cuts expire. Stimulus should come first, and deficit reduction as the economy strengthens. Mr. Obama has not been as aggressive as we would have liked in addressing the housing crisis, but he has increased efforts in refinancing and loan modifications. Mr. Romney’s economic plan, as much as we know about it, is regressive, relying on big tax cuts and deregulation. That kind of plan was not the answer after the financial crisis, and it will not create broad prosperity. Foreign Affairs Mr. Obama and his administration have been resolute in attacking Al Qaeda’s leadership, including the killing of Osama bin Laden. He has ended the war in Iraq. Mr. Romney, however, has said he would have insisted on leaving thousands of American soldiers there. He has surrounded himself with Bush administration neocons who helped to engineer the Iraq war, and adopted their militaristic talk in a way that makes a Romney administration’s foreign policies a frightening prospect. Mr. Obama negotiated a much tougher regime of multilateral economic sanctions on Iran. Mr. Romney likes to say the president was ineffective on Iran, but at the final debate he agreed with Mr. Obama’s policies. Mr. Obama deserves credit for his handling of the Arab Spring. The killing goes on in Syria, but the administration is working to identify and support moderate insurgent forces there. At the last debate, Mr. Romney talked about funneling arms through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are funneling arms to jihadist groups. Mr. Obama gathered international backing for airstrikes during the Libyan uprising, and kept American military forces in a background role. It was smart policy. In the broadest terms, he introduced a measure of military restraint after the Bush years and helped repair America’s badly damaged reputation in many countries from the low levels to which it had sunk by 2008. The Supreme Court The future of the nation’s highest court hangs in the balance in this election — and along with it, reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all, to name just two issues. Whoever is president after the election will make at least one appointment to the court, and many more to federal appeals courts and district courts. Mr. Obama, who appointed the impressive Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, understands how severely damaging conservative activism has been in areas like campaign spending. He would appoint justices and judges who understand that landmarks of equality like the Voting Rights Act must be defended against the steady attack from the right. Mr. Romney’s campaign Web site says he will “nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito,” among the most conservative justices in the past 75 years. There is no doubt that he would appoint justices who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade. Civil Rights The extraordinary fact of Mr. Obama’s 2008 election did not usher in a new post-racial era. In fact, the steady undercurrent of racism in national politics is truly disturbing. Mr. Obama, however, has reversed Bush administration policies that chipped away at minorities’ voting rights and has fought laws, like the ones in Arizona, that seek to turn undocumented immigrants into a class of criminals. The military’s odious “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule was finally legislated out of existence, under the Obama administration’s leadership. There are still big hurdles to equality to be brought down, including the Defense of Marriage Act, the outrageous federal law that undermines the rights of gay men and lesbians, even in states that recognize those rights. Though it took Mr. Obama some time to do it, he overcame his hesitation about same-sex marriage and declared his support. That support has helped spur marriage-equality movements around the country. His Justice Department has also stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act against constitutional challenges. Mr. Romney opposes same-sex marriage and supports the federal act, which not only denies federal benefits and recognition to same-sex couples but allows states to ignore marriages made in other states. His campaign declared that Mr. Romney would not object if states also banned adoption by same-sex couples and restricted their rights to hospital visitation and other privileges. Mr. Romney has been careful to avoid the efforts of some Republicans to criminalize abortion even in the case of women who had been raped, including by family members. He says he is not opposed to contraception, but he has promised to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, on which millions of women depend for family planning. For these and many other reasons, we enthusiastically endorse President Barack Obama for a second term, and express the hope that his victory will be accompanied by a new Congress willing to work for policies that Americans need.
Detroit News-- Mitt Romney http://www.detroitnews.com/article/...008/OPINION01/Editorial-Mitt-Romney-President "President Barack Obama came into office in 2009 riding a wave of hope and change. Unfortunately, he has not delivered on the nation's yearning for change nor on the specific promises he made to fix what is broken. The president is asking the country to be patient, but his plan isn't producing results that would merit more patience, and the president hasn't spelled out what he would do differently in a second term."
top 4 Iowa papers endorse Mittens, including DMR, which had previously endorsed McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama. it's a BFD.
Newspaper endorsements are often very informative as they are from people who have been looking at the campaigns and issues for awhile. That said I can tell you as someone who worked for a losing candidate who swept all but one of the endorsements for governor in 2010 in MN that they often don't matter much.
I noticed that this morning that the Des Moines register had endorsed Romney which is a bit of a surprise. That said though they cited their endorsement of him in the caucus so not a total surprise. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20121027/OPINION03/121026026 In other news the Pittsburgh Post Gazette endorse Obama. http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...de-over-mitt-romney-is-no-alternative-659567/ I figure with the election as close as it is there is going to be a good split of endorsements and they will probably be a wash.
