Newspaper Endorsements - Worthless?

There was a time in this country when getting the endorsement of a major (or even a small-town) newspaper was a necessary element of a political campaign.   Newspapers were the major way that voters learned about the candidates, and an endorsement by a newspaper could mean thousands of votes that a candidate would not have had otherwise.   In many races it was the difference between winning and losing an election.

But we live in a different world these days.   In this age of television and computers, there is mounting evidence that the political endorsement of one or more newspapers doesn't carry much weight -- maybe no weight at all.   A prime example of this is the 2010 race for Texas governor between incumbent Republican Rick Perry and Democrat Bill White.

Rick Perry is a far right-winger who has aligned himself with the teabaggers.   I think he knew that he would not be able to adequately answer the tough questions about his teabagger views to the satisfaction of newspaper editorial committees (who are known to throw tough questions at all candidates).   So he made a political decision.   He decided to not put himself in any position where he would have to answer any tough questions.

Part of this was to refuse to debate or appear with his opponent.   But another part was to refuse to meet with any newspaper editorial boards or answer any questions posed by them.   He had a ton of money and pinned his hopes on flooding the state with advertisements, while making appearances only before groups he knew were friendly to him.

The result was that Perry did not get a single newspaper endorsement.   Even right-wing friendly and traditionally Republican newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News and my own hometown paper, the Amarillo Globe News, endorsed Perry's opponent Bill White.   What else could they do?   White was the only one who would talk to them.

What did this landslide of endorsement support from state newspapers accomplish for Bill White?   He lost by nearly 13 points -- an even larger deficit than any of the polls had predicted.   It turns out that the newspaper endorsements accomplished nothing for the Democratic candidate (except maybe to give some Democrats false hope before election day).

Now Perry did have a couple of advantages.   He had a lot of money, and every Texan already knew who he was.   It is debatable whether he could have gotten away with ignoring the media had he been less well-known.   Sharron Angle (Nevada) and Christine O'Donnell (Delaware) tried the same tactic and lost.

But it is still obvious that all of the state's newspapers endorsing Bill White did him no good at all.   A case can easily be made that while newspaper endorsements were once a valuable commodity to a campaign, they no longer are.   They are now just an anachronism -- of interest only to us political junkies.