By: Greg Mitchell As in past years, E&P will be charting every editorial endorsement for president. Only a few have come down so far, and we covered them here, but soon we will be presenting a daily chart with this year's tally, how each paper "voted" in 2004 and who is winning the "circulation race."
Please send along any editorial (not op-ed) endorsements that you make or see, to me at gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com
Also, go on over to our new blog, The E&P Pub, for daily updates, at
The E&P PubToday's endorsement tally includes the San Jose Mercury News, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Santa Fe New Mexican. California seems to be safe for Obama, but Washington is somewhat in doubt and once again New Mexico is a "swing state" -- and the Santa Fe editorial seemed time to the start of "early voting" in the state, a growing and possbly critical trend this year. Excerpts from the two editorials follow.
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POST-INTELLIGENCER:
If the country ever needed new direction under a fresh, steady, calm president, this is the time. Sen. Barack Obama is the country's hope, the kind of promising, intelligent leader who comes along perhaps once in a generation.
Obama is the best candidate for president. He has the vision, patience and fortitude to put America on a track to recovery after an eight-year run of financial irresponsibility, aggressive adventurism abroad and mismanagement, secrecy and dissembling on numerous fronts.
The issues and the superiority of the Obama-Joe Biden team have become clearer than ever in the past few days. Obama spoke the unvarnished truth when he called the need for a record-breaking economic rescue plan a "final judgment." It was a sweeping verdict not just on the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush but also on the Republican deregulatory obsessions that Sen. John McCain has shared broadly.
MERCURY NEWS:
For the better part of a century, Americans have assumed we would always remain the world's greatest power, regardless of which party or president occupied the White House. We were too important, rich and strong to falter, our democracy too wise to fail.
The economy's unraveling this fall is but the latest grave reminder that nothing is guaranteed. In a few short years, we have squandered our resources and international prestige on an ill-advised war. Through blind faith in deregulated markets, our leaders have undermined the nation's economic stability while recklessly creating a national debt of $10 trillion.
Americans need a clean and dramatic break from the derelict policies of George W. Bush. We desperately need a president who will restore our standing in the world and re-energize us at home by turning attention to issues that Bush ignored: the need for energy independence, the stagnant wages of the middle class and the lack of affordable health care.
Barack Obama will be such a president. He speaks to Americans' yearning for renewal. He has the ability to restore America's confidence and guide this country toward a more stable and secure future.
Not since John F. Kennedy has a presidential candidate so moved a young generation. His election would be historic. It would alter the perception that minorities are limited in what they can achieve; the world would see an America that not merely preaches racial equality but
lives by it.
NEW MEXICAN:
Our nation needs a leader we can believe in. Barack Obama is that leader.
The Illinois senator?s political trajectory has been spectacular; so spectacular that his veteran opponents ? first for the Democratic nomination, now for the presidency of the United States ? have tried, without success, to campaign against his freshness to the political scene.
But as Obama showed once again during the first debate, he?s a statesman: gracious, decisive, perceptive and quick-minded. He has a head for issues international and domestic, and he confronts them with knowledge that could wonderfully serve his fellow citizens of today and tomorrow.
Neither he nor John McCain alone can overcome the many challenges facing our next president ? but already he has surrounded himself with people we can trust to help him right today?s dangerously teetering ship of state....
New Mexico is being called a swing state in this election: Its five electoral votes are a drop in the bucket of 270 needed to win, but for all we know, the election might be that close. Four years ago, our state somehow saw four more years of Bush/Cheney as preferable to a presidency responsive to working Americans. We and the rest of the country are paying the price ? economically and spiritually.
When Obama late last month urged Northern New Mexicans to make their predominantly Democratic voter-registration count, it was an eloquent call for a strong turnout.
This week, early voting begins in our state. You have a chance to make a difference in the direction our country goes. We urge a vote for Barack Obama.
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