Bush Shrinks Kerry lead in Newspaper Endorsements (to 19)

E and P ^

[StopDemocratsDotCom]

As editorial endorsements wind down along with the election campaign, only a few major papers remain on the sidelines, with their picks expected this Sunday or before. This small group includes, among others, The Providence Journal, The Sun in Baltimore, and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press.

But in today's updated E&P list of endorsements, mainly adding small and midsized papers, President Bush made some gains, picking up 20 while Sen. John Kerry added 15. Kerry now leads in endorsements 142 to 123 and in the circulation of those papers (roughly 17.5 million to 11.5 million).

Kerry picked up two more "switches": both the Edwardsville (Ill.) Intelligencer and the Monterey County (Ca.) Herald were Bush backers in 2000. The president nabbed one Gore supporter from 2000, The Post-Crescent in Appleton, Wis. So Kerry now holds a lopsided margin in switchers (that we know of), picking up 37 flip-flops compared to Bush's six.

[Ciexyz]

My local paper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the conservative paper in Pittsburgh) hasn't made an endorsement yet, but it will be Bush when they announce it -- probably this coming Sunday.

[Clinging Bitterly]

The most surprising thing about this is that anybody cares. The Eugene Red Guard endorsed "Not Bush" (that was the headline) and life went on as if nothing at all happened.

(Anybody know who the Bloom Picayune is going for?)

[weegee]

Well I'm not voting for Chuck Rosenthal (DA) in Houston and I'm not voting for the Democrat challenger either. If one man can be held accountable for the Supreme Court's activist decision on the state sodomy law (and by extension all sodomy laws, even those that do not "discriminate"), it was Mr. Rosenthal.

I know that I heard a city official (possibly one of the sheriffs but I believe it was Mr. Rosenthal himself) discussing this case at length on conservative talk radio years ago. The local position from the city was "we don't want to enforce this law anymore but it is on the books and so we do need to charge people with it when we see it." It sounds as if they wanted to help get the law tossed out in the courts rather than forcing the legislature to act.

I won't encourage others to follow my lead and don't care if he remains in office, I just cannot vote for him in good conscience.