Posted by chicagomedia.org on October 19, 2008 at 07:30:59:
Endorsement ends drought for Democrats
Well, apparently you have recovered, picked yourself off the floor and have resumed reading your Sunday Tribune. Grab an ice pack and a seat, and let's consider this whole endorsement thing.
With Barack Obama, the Chicago Tribune's editorial board has indeed backed a Democrat for president in the November general election. That's something you don't see every day. Or ever.
At a time when there's good reason to wonder whether newspaper endorsements have any impact at all, here is one that—for those with a sense of the past, at least—has the power to knock the wind out of you, even coming, as it does, more than half a century since the famously conservative Col. McCormick left the Tower, so to speak.
Never before has the 161-year-old paper of Abe Lincoln endorsed a Democratic nominee for the White House, although it did throw its support behind Horace "Go West" Greeley, who ran as an independent but was eventually backed by the Dems in a failed bid to unseat Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.
One hundred thirty-six years is a long time. Heck, the Cubs have won the World Series twice since then. Twice.
The only time in the interim that the Tribune has bypassed the GOP nominee was in 1912, when it gave its seal of approval to Teddy Roosevelt, the former Republican president then heading the Bull-Moose ticket, over incumbent Republican chief executive William Howard Taft in advance of Democrat Woodrow Wilson winning the White House.
Even at that, we're talking 96 years—a span in which the Cubs have played in six World Series—a looong time.
The Trib's West Coast cousin, the Los Angeles Times, has never in its nearly 127 years endorsed a Democratic presidential nominee. But its 1972 push to re-elect Richard Nixon apparently left such a bad taste in its institutional mouth, it couldn't bring itself to back a candidate for the next eight presidential elections until its editorial board, too, went with the Illinois senator less than an hour before the Chicago Tribune put its endorsement online.
In response to the question that's probably already occurred to you, a spokesman for parent Tribune Co. said those endorsement calls were made wholly at the local level. Corporate management had no input whatsoever.
Based on e-mails and phone calls I've fielded during this campaign, the Chicago Tribune's backing of Obama may not be such a stunner to Sen. John McCain's supporters, who feel like the paper's coverage—if not always its editorials—belied its Republican heritage, not just when it came to Obama, but on social issues and Iraq.
Obama supporters, while probably pleased their man got the nod, still may view the endorsement of the hometown candidate warily, wondering if it's just a play for popular support. The fact the Trib had no problem spurning Adlai Stevenson in the '50s is ancient history.
Even outsiders aware of the paper's GOP DNA may not fully sense the significance. After Obama referred to the Tribune as "a Republican-leaning newspaper" in last week's debate, a pal at another media outfit sent a one-sentence jab: "Since when do you guys lean right?"
Those debates, if you believe the polls, weren't game-changers for the two candidates, who have been campaigning long enough that much of the electorate feels it knows enough to have chosen by now. Those who already had a preference believed that's who won, and it's unclear the undecided were swayed.
There's no shortage of info out there, and with all the commentary on the air, in print and online for people to process over the last 20 months, newspaper endorsements come late in the process to make a difference.
But, obviously, they can still make history.
(Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune)