[Balding_Eagle]

Thanks for posting this. It confirms what I already suspected.

Something doesn't make sense though. You said "It genuinely hurt the staff that one story turned the town so strongly against them."

How could they be so out of touch with the citizens they are writing stories and columns about each week that they were surprised by the reaction?

[Richard Kimball]

A couple of things surprised everyone. I'm not sure anyone expected the endorsement to receive the level of national response that it did. They expected a firecracker of response. They got a stick of dynamite.

Small towns are kind of like the Las Vegas commercials, "what happens here, stays here." Nobody in town is going to get upset if someone else is voting for John Kerry, and that wasn't the real issue. In the paper, they attacked Bush pretty soundly, and that didn't go over well, but the real anger was over the national implication that the town endorsed Bush.