Bush’s Hometown Newspaper Endorses Kerry
Yes, Texas is not exactly what you’d call a “battleground state”. There is little doubt that the Lone Star State will lean heavily pro-Bush on November 2nd. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the entire state is marching blindly in lockstep behind Dubya. He can’t even get the endorsement of his hometown newspaper.
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The newspaper in President Bush’s adopted hometown of Crawford threw its support on Tuesday behind Bush’s Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry.
The weekly Lone Star Iconoclast criticized Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and for turning budget surpluses into record deficits. The editorial also criticized Bush’s proposals on Social Security and Medicare.
“The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda,” the newspaper said in its editorial. “Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry.”
It urged “Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.”
Bush spends many of his weekends and holidays at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
The Iconoclast’s publisher and editor-in-chief, W. Leon Smith, said the newspaper is sent to Bush’s ranch each week. “But I don’t know if he reads it,” Smith said.
Somehow I doubt The Iconoclast is on Dubya’s reading list. In fact, it probably has a featured place on the toilet paper roll in the master bathroom. Sure, The Iconoclast is “only” a small-town newspaper, but from where I sit, their endorsement of John Kerry is significant in that it shows that there are Texans who are willing to evaluate the candidates on the issues and on where they plan on taking our country.
In the final analysis, of course, the endorsement of one small-town Texas newspaper likely won’t amount to much. Even so, it should make you wonder. If people who know and live near George W. Bush won’t endorse him, shouldn’t that be a red flag to the rest of us?
It has a proud four year history and a circulation of under 400 -- which in my book makes it like a winery that has been producing superb vintages since last Thursday.
What would the majority of people in the area consider their local paper?
Since Crawford only has about 700 people living in it, a circulation of 400 isn't all that bad. I'd imagine that most folks there consider it to be their local paper. I'd imagine they also read the Waco papers too.
Though I doubt such a small paper not endorsing Bush makes much difference one way or another, I still thought it was pretty funny.
To me, the striking thing about the endorsement is that they weren't intimidated or bullied by the pro-Bush Texans who surround them. I've gotten the extended middle finger more than once from pickup-driving rednecks for daring to express, via a bumper sticker, an opinion that differs from theirs. But I'm still hoping, against hope, that the Chron will change it's mind from the 2000 election and endorse Kerry. Since 2000, the Chron has run editorials (way too many to count) consistently arguing against the Bush position on just about every imaginable issue. One wonders whether all of their criticisms will come to mean anything when it comes to promoting the home-town boy again.
Actually, the fact that they were not bullied or intimidated is proof that we of the GOP do not intimidate or bully our opponents, like the left has done since the Russian Revolution (heck, since the Reign of Terror).
Watch your overgeneralizations there, Greg. I would wager that "the left" bullies and intimidates about as much as "the right" in our countries. Which is to say, both sides do it too often for my liking, but it would still be wrong to consider this a feature of everybody on one particular side of the fence or the other.
It's easy to say both sides do it. It's harder to accurately assert that they do it equally.
Consider left's propensity (at least in this country) to be sore loosers after their candidate fails to win, filing lawsuit after lawsuit and when those fail, continuing to fuel emotional bias over it.
Can you cite a republican action following an election that is analagous to what the democrats continue to try and exploit?
Are you aware of any lawsuits filed or funded by republicans that seek to remove another party's candidate from a ballot simply because their candidate is not good enough to hold out against competition?
Actions such as these clearly define the democrat leadership in this country as a group that cares more about gaining power than they do about the fairness of the process. It has become the party of hipocrisy, and northstar is right, "We deserve better."
For a right wing pundit comparable to Michael Moore, I can easily cite Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. All three have been caught out in lies and distortions and have been visceral in their hatred of the other side.
Certainly the actions of certain Republicans following Bill Clinton's 1996 election equate to the actions of certain Democrats in being sore losers and using whatever legal trick they could in order to try and re-fight the election. It's only the fact that Bill Clinton's victory was far more clear cut than Bush's that we didn't get a repeat of the Florida debacle.
And for Democrats who are striving to keep Ralph Nadar off the ballot, what about Republican officials in Ohio that are seeking to deny hundreds of voter registrations on the basis of a technicality?
There is plenty of hypocrisy going on in a number of elections. I'm coming to the conclusion that one of the prerequisites to partisanship is a blindness to one's own failings and a false sense of moral superiority over the other side.