By: E&P Staff Could receiving the coveted endorsement of Indiana's biggest daily actually be bad news for Hillary Clinton in the state's must-win primary on Tuesday?
CBS News political reporter Fernando Suarez thinks that may be the case. He's making the interesting argument that, with only two big exceptions, both Clinton and Obama tend to lose the state primaries where they win the endorsement of the most influential local newspapers.
"Perhaps it is better to look at it from the angle that almost every time Clinton has lost the endorsement of any major newspaper, she has won the state," he writes in the network's presidential campaign blog From the Road. "Consequently, almost every time Barack Obama won a newspaper endorsement, he lost the state."
Suarez notes that with the exception of the endorsements of The New York Times in her home state's primary and the Concord Monitor in her comeback win in New Hampshire, newspaper backing hasn't helped Clinton.
For instance, she won the endorsement that's the equivalent of the Holy Grail for presidential aspirant, the approving nod of The Des Moines Register. Yet she placed third in the Iowa caucuses.
On the other hand, she squeezed out crucial victories in California, Texas, and Pennsylvania -- despite endorsements of Obama by the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Pittsburgh Gazette, The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, the Albuquerque Journal, and the Boston Globe.
On Friday, Clinton was endorsed by The Indianapolis Star, which cited her grasp of issues and "experience" in making what the editorial board said was a difficult pick between the two candidates.
"Given the track record, the Indy Star endorsement may have been one she would have rather ceded to Barack Obama," Suarez writes.
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