L.A. Times May Break Tradition, Make Choice for President

By: Joe Strupp The Los Angeles Times, which has not endorsed a candidate for president since the 1972 election, may change its policy this year under new editorial/opinion editor Michael Kinsley.

"If it was up to me, I imagine we would do it," Kinsley told E&P about the prospect of offering a presidential endorsement this year. "Every four years it gets discussed and it is under discussion."

Kinsley, the former Slate and New Republic editor and longtime TV "Crossfire" commentator, took over the top editorial post June 15. Since then, he said the editorial board has considered bringing back the White House endorsement.

"There are pros and cons. The pro is that editorial pages are supposed to have opinions and this is the most important opinion going," Kinsley said. "The con is that you have to deal with making the decision and there is a tradition we have had of not endorsing."

Under the Chandler Family, which sold the Times to The Tribune Company in 2000, the paper had routinely endorsed Republicans for president until 1972, when it backed Richard Nixon.

Tony Day, who served as editorial page editor from 1971 to 1989, said Otis Chandler, the former publisher, had wanted to steer the paper away from its "ferociously Republican" roots and toward a more mainstream approach, so he stopped presidential endorsements after 1972. "At the time, it was the best thing to do because the paper was able to break with the past and continue what I think was a rather long march toward a more sophisticated, and dare I say more liberal, newspaper," Day told E&P.

Otis Chandler could not be reached for comment.

Kinsley said the decision about whether to endorse will be made with input from Editor John Carroll and Publisher John Puerner. "It is not entirely up to me," Kinsley. "There is a diversity of views."

Regardless of whether a presidential endorsement is offered, Kinsley plans to write columns supporting the candidacies of George W. Bush and John Kerry, one of which may run as an endorsement editorial.

Kinsley also said the paper plans to take a stronger line on the many ballot measures facing voter approval this fall, especially the 15 statewide initiatives. His opposition to the state's voter initiative process, which critics say has been co-opted by big money and often does the work state legislators should be doing, will likely mean fewer endorsements for this year's crop of ballot questions than in the past, he said.

"There was a tendency (at the Times in the past) to say, 'this is a terrible process, but let's support this or that'," Kinsley said about the ballot measures. "Now the tendency is going to say, 'we don't like the process and we are against the initiative, even though the issue is a good one'."

Since coming to the Times, after splitting time between Seattle and Washington, D.C., Kinsley said he has had a chance to view the California voter initiative process up close, and does not like what he sees. "To me it is shocking," he said. "The professionalized approach of the petition-gathering, that's not democracy."

The Times ran an editorial in Sunday's paper explaining its position on the voter initiatives and warning readers to expect tougher standards for endorsements on such ballot questions. "We are going to let our skepticism of the process weigh more heavily in our bottom line than before," he said. "We will ask, 'is the goal (of the ballot measure) a good one? And is the method a good one?' We already know the method is a bad one."