Endorsing the Horse Race

As announced in an editorial on Monday, the SJ-R has started making their endorsements for the November elections. Not surprisingly, that liberal mainstream media outlet kicked things off by casting their lot with two Democratic candidates running for the Illinois House. Or is the real story here that the notoriously conservative newspaper again bowed to their corporate masters by endorsing a Republican in the 18th Congressional District. Either way, their endorsements will surely rankle folks on both sides of the political divide. That’s a good sign for anyone who prefers to vote for a candidate rather than the parenthesized initial that follows their name.

People who nod approvingly to every utterance that escapes Rush’s lips or take as gospel every word posted by the faithful on Daily Kos, for some reason get offended when a newspaper deigns to weigh-in with who they think will best serve the public’s interest. Having gotten used to being preached at from their comfy place in the choir loft, these party zealot’s become confused when presented with divergent points of view and attribute the dissonance to any number of faults or shortcomings harbored by those who don’t sing the same hymns of praise.

While the Web holds the possibility of opening us up to the entire spectrum of political thought, it has better served to reinforce our previously held convictions. No matter how delusional your world view, you can find someone who agrees with you and together you can mock and distrust the rest of us idiots.

That’s why it’s important, for those who don’t view elections as contests between blue and red, to occassionally wade into the media’s mainsteam for a little perspective. And I do think that newspaper endorsements, for the most part, are made with more consideration of more diverse factors than is offered by the Limbaughs and Zunigas of the world.

Not that their endorsements should be written down on the palm of your hand before you enter the voting booth. Their rationale for picking a certain candidate might provide the very thing that sways you to vote for the opponent. If so, then you have still been done a service.

Is there a reason to listen to the people who make up a newspaper’s editorial board any more intently than the five guys who hold court down at the end of the bar? After all, editorial boards are made up of people and all people have biases that slant their objectivity. You can’t assume that the J-schooled bunch is more politically aware than the PBR-fueled bunch, and the guys in the bar may have interests more closely related to your own.

The difference lies in access. Political candidates, especially those running above the local level, aren’t likely to sit down at Pat’s Tap for a little Q&A with the regulars. Those candidates do sit down with the editorial boards. Newspapers also have teams of reporters who attend every press conference and media event. They hear the things being muttered below the din of all the grandly pronounced slogans and promises. It’s almost as if the media in these instances are acting as the eyes and ears of the public - a fourth estate, if you will, to help the public check the powers of the other three branches of government.

That is exactly what a newspaper and other media are supposed to do. Obviously, some fail at this mission. But part of this failure lies not in their inability to report the news, or offer endorsements, with a reasonable degree of objectivity, but in the public’s steadfast refusal to believe anything that challenges their preconceived notions. As any grad student in communications can tell you, sometimes it’s not the message or the messenger that distorts reality, but the receiver.

As stated in Monday’s editorial, the reasons that some newspapers have stopped giving endorsements is because of the perception that it will slant future reporting on the candidates and that the media shouldn’t be in the business of king making. If you do think that all newspapers immediately bow down to the candidates they “coronate”, consider this: while the editorial board at the Chicago Sun-Times was endorsing Rod Blagojevich, the paper’s reporters were busy uncovering more evidence linking the governor to some shady dealings with his recently indicted fundraiser and intimate, Tony Rezko. This does make me question the soundness of their endorsement, but it also affirms that they are still committed to the public’s interest.

It’s amusing that if someone distrusts the SJ-R to the degree that they would respond contrarily to their every endorsement, that that person would be voting across party lines. That’s at least a step in the right direction, even if it is being made blindly.

Postscript

I have, in the past, shown my preference in certain races by not voting for any candidate. To paraphrase Geddy Lee, something I do sparingly as it tends to hurt my throat, by choosing not to decide, I still have made a choice. Some consider this derelict of my duties as citizen in a democracy. I consider it a silent protest. So is voter apathy, when borne out of disgust rather than laziness, a meaningful expression of political preference?