Bush's Hometown Paper Stands Behind Iconoclastic Endorsement

By: Erin Olson The Lone Star Iconoclast -- the small weekly published in Clifton, Texas, that bills itself as the hometown newspaper of President George W. Bush -- drew national attention last week for "wholeheartedly" endorsing Sen. John Kerry for president. Then a bunch of businesses canceled ads and some subscribers also cut their orders. Leon Smith, the paper's publisher, said he would make the same decision again, even knowing the consequences.

The worst news for the Iconoclast was the angry advertisers and subscribers. Smith reported that the paper lost about 18 advertisers and that a number of readers had canceled their subscriptions, though he didn't know exactly how many. "But we have had a few people who have offered to buy some ads to make up for the ones lost, and a few people who have offered to subscribe to make up for the subscriptions that were lost," Smith added. "They appreciate that we did what our conscience told us to do."

As of today, Smith didn't know how much money the paper, which has a circulation of about 500 in and around the president's Crawford hometown, had lost.

Smith said the office's three phone lines were busy all day last Tuesday when the paper containing the editorial hit the stands. (It's now being auctioned on eBay.) "Ninety percent of the calls were extremely vicious," he said. "The next day we received just as many calls, and 90 percent were positive." In addition, Smith said, he received close to 2,000 e-mails from all over the country, most of them positive.

The editorial board reached the decision to endorse Kerry, but Smith said that, as publisher, he could have trumped the board. He chose not to because he agreed with the decision.

Smith said he and the two other writers wanted to write a perfect editorial. "We wanted it to be fair, we wanted it to be something that would be persuasive and accurate," he said. He called the presidential race an "employment issue" and explained, "We compared the two individuals as to who we thought would be the best employee for the job."