Tag Archives: media endorsements

national news

Do these endorsements really matter?

Joseph R. Biden Jr. is a happy man today.

He received a ringing endorsement from a powerful South Carolina politician who said Biden is the best among the Democratic contenders running for president of the United States.

Rep. James Clyburn, a fellow Democrat, is all in with the former vice president. But I have to ask: Will it really matter?

Clyburn is the senior African American member of Congress. He is a fine fellow, from what I have been able to hear. He packs plenty of clout. It remains unclear to me whether his endorsement of Joe Biden is going to persuade South Carolina Democrats, who appear to be drifting toward Sen. Bernie Sanders in the late stages of the state’s primary campaign, to change their minds.

Which brings me to a significant point. Do endorsements of any nature really bring along votes?

There once was a time when voters waited to read what their local newspaper editorial boards thought about a campaign. They waited to see who the newspaper would endorse. They were motivated for two reasons. They either followed the newspaper’s advice, or — and this is for real — they cast their vote against the candidate the newspaper favored.

These days, with a plethora of information flooding us constantly, 24/7, nonstop, unrelentingly, many voters no longer look to those learned editors’ world views. They make up their minds, seemingly based on the views thrown at them by TV and radio blowhards.

It is becoming an exercise in futility for many politicians and others who get paid to offer their opinions on issues of the day and the candidates who are their champions.

The Dallas Morning News this year has announced it won’t endorse anyone for president. The paper’s editorial board didn’t say it, but my sense is that there is a possible back story borne of frustration that the newspaper would have little impact on its readers’ political leanings. So, why bother? The DMN instead is going to concentrate on the issues it deems critical to the voters and to the candidates who are seeking voters’ support.

I trust that Joe Biden will take James Clyburn’s endorsement seriously. He will ascribe high motivation behind it. Perhaps it’s merited. I will wait along with many other Americans to see if it translates into actual votes in a key primary state that propel the former VP back to front runner status.

media news, national news, political news

‘Atlantic’ makes history with endorsement

96b/33/fott/4810/10

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s pile of media endorsements has added a significant new voice.

While I have conceded that endorsements from elite media organs don’t pack the wallop they once did, this one has gotten some traction.

“The Atlantic” has issued its third presidential endorsement in its 159-year history. The first one went to the nation’s first Republican presidential candidate, a guy named Abraham Lincoln, in 1860.

Five score and four years later, in 1964, “The Atlantic” weighed in with an endorsement of President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Now it has backed Hillary Clinton.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-case-for-hillary-clinton-and-against-donald-trump/501161/?utm_source=atlfb

Here’s a snippet from the editorial: “Today, our position is similar to the one in which The Atlantic’s editors found themselves in 1964. We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.”

This is a fascinating development as the campaign heads for its final month. I’m so glad it’s almost over. I am running out of stamina listening to the candidates trashing each other.

“The Atlantic” concludes its editorial endorsement with this: “We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.”

Ouch, man!

To be candid, the endorsement doesn’t convey unbridled confidence in Clinton’s standing. It’s more of a non-endorsement of  Donald J. Trump. I suppose that sums up what has shaped up to be the theme of this campaign: The candidates cannot stand on their own record exclusively, so they pound away at their opponents’ weaknesses.

Trump is the most profoundly unqualified and unfit candidate for the presidency most of us ever have seen.

Will this endorsement matter? Will it be the difference between winning and losing? I doubt it. Still, it’s worth your time to read and to digest what the editors of a distinguished publication have to say about the next election for the presidency of the United States.

Oh, I am so glad it’s about to be over.