Ohioblog: A Swing State Journal

An endorsement update: Bad news for President Bush 

Editor&Publisher has again updated its list of endorsements and created a list of the endorsing newspapers by candidate and state. The findings would be bad news for President Bush if people used the endorsements as what they are meant to be - one part of the decision-making process. Read Akron Beacon Journal Public Editor Mike Needs' Sunday column and it continues to be obvious that many people consider endorsements as intrusions into their singular thought process. There aren't enough people such as Art Blair of Akron, who believes the endorsements are ``a moral obligation.'' John S. Knight, late Beacon Journal editor and founder of Knight Newspapers (now Knight Ridder) would agree. He used to say about his hometown that he didn't care who led it, but someone had to. Often that was Knight and his newspaper.

And as Roger Bryant of Akron so aptly observed in Needs' column, the closer to home the political contest gets, the more people need information and even judgments of those who have spent time studying the candidates. That, of course, is among our political ironies: We know more about the presidential candidates than those who will affect our daily lives more directly in our schools, courts and city halls.

Watch for the Beacon Journal election guide on Wednesday. The
Plain Dealer published its guide on Sunday and its contents are available on line. In the meantime, check out the E&P findings: There are 24 newspaper that have ``flip-flopped'' from endorsing President Bush in 2000 against Vice President Al Gore to supporting Sen. John Kerry. Only two newspapers have switched from Gore in 2000 to Bush this year. Kerry has received 125 endorsements (16 million circulation) compared with Bush's 96 (10 million).

- Steve Love
posted by Ohioblog: A Swing State Journal at 7:44 AM