{"id":17333,"date":"2016-09-30T20:52:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17333"},"modified":"2016-09-30T20:52:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:52:25","slug":"before-we-cheer-these-endorsements-consider-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17333","title":{"rendered":"Before we cheer these endorsements, consider this …"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hillary Rodham Clinton is rolling up some impressive support among the nation’s major newspaper editorial boards.<\/p>\n

Let’s see: The Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic, the Cincinnati\u00a0 Enquirer, the San Diego Union-Tribune all have weighed in on Clinton’s side in her campaign against Republican Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n

All the papers mentioned\u00a0have something else in common: They\u00a0virtually never\u00a0have endorsed Democrats for president.<\/p>\n

Clinton also has racked up more endorsements from normally friendly editorial boards, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.<\/p>\n

It’s impressive. But will it be decisive?<\/em> Will these media giants’ editorial opinion on the merits of Trump and Clinton determine the electoral outcome all by themselves?<\/p>\n

Trump has earned, all told, zero editorial endorsements from major newspapers. He might get a smattering of endorsements from papers of smaller size. As a point of personal privilege, I’m waiting to see how my former employer, the Amarillo Globe-News — which is owned by the very conservative William S. Morris family of Augusta, Ga. — weighs in on this campaign.<\/p>\n

I pose the question about whether these endorsements will make the difference for a good reason. Let’s flash back to 2010.<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was running for re-election. He faced a stout challenge from within his Republican Party from then-U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Perry defeated Sen. Hutchison handily in the GOP primary.<\/p>\n

Then he faced former Houston Mayor Bill White, a conservative Democrat, in the general election. Perry then did something quite interesting: He declared he wouldn’t meet with any newspaper editorial boards. The governor didn’t need to talk to us ink-stained wretches. He’d talk “directly to the people of Texas.”<\/p>\n

The result was that Perry got virtually zero editorial endorsements from newspapers around the state. Even the Globe-News, as reliably Republican-friendly as any paper in Texas, backed Mayor White.<\/p>\n

What was the electoral result? Gov. Perry cruised to re-election. He barely broke a sweat while defeating White 55 percent to 42 percent.<\/p>\n

Rick Perry knew how to win in Texas. He was first elected to statewide office in 1990 and was as familiar with the state’s political landscape as any politician anywhere.<\/p>\n

I make this point to caution those out there who consider these media endorsements to be deal makers and\/or deal breakers for the candidates involved.<\/p>\n

There might be plenty of other issues that swing this election toward Hillary Clinton’s favor. I’m dubious, though, about believing that newspaper endorsements will be among them.<\/p>\n

As my friends on the right are fond of reminding me: Newspapers don’t pack as heavy a punch as they did in the old days.<\/p>\n\n

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Hillary Rodham Clinton is rolling up some impressive support among the nation’s major newspaper editorial boards. Let’s see: The Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News, the (Phoenix) Arizona Republic, the Cincinnati\u00a0 Enquirer, the San Diego Union-Tribune all have weighed in on Clinton’s side in her campaign against Republican Donald J. Trump. All the papers mentioned\u00a0have … Continue reading Before we cheer these endorsements, consider this …<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,13,14,18],"tags":[1424,2139,3296,3951],"class_list":["post-17333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","category-state-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-newspaper-endorsements","tag-rick-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17335,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17333\/revisions\/17335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}