'Landslide' for Obama -- He Now Leads in Newspaper Support 194-82

Alaska's biggest paper, The Anchorage Daily News, today endorsed Barack Obama for president, despite -- or at least partly because of -- its state governor's presence on the opposing ticket. But it was just one of many joining in the Obama landslide of endorsements this weekend. It's now a rout, with Obama leading (in our Monday update) 194-82. John Kerry and George Bush virtually split the tally in 2004.

My magazine, Editor & Publisher, has been charting all of the editorial endorsements around the country and Obama now leads by a whopping 160 to 59. More than 35 papers have switched from Bush to Obama. The latest major papers to flip: The Providence Journal and The Fort Worth Star-Telegram today in Texas. That, amazingly, gives Obama three of the five major papers in that state, with the Houston and Austin papers earlier flipping their support from Bush to Obama.

Just on Sunday Obama picked up the backing of (besides the papers listed above) the Baltimore Sun, St. Petersburg Times, Des Moines Register, Charlotte Observer, Hartford Courant, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and many, many others. McCain held on to his home state Arizona Republic and papers in Richmond and Cincinnati.

In a nutshell: The Indianapolis Star, which backed Bush the last time, decided not to endorse anyone. The Times-Picayune, which also sat out 2004, endorsed Obama today.

In fact, a Democratic candidate for president has never done this well with editorial endorsements. E&P reviewed our tallies since 1940 and in that time only LBJ in '64, Bill Clinton in 1992 and John Kerry last year earned the most backing, and in the last two cases, just barely.

In fact, Obama has carried at least 9 out of 10 major metros, including both dailies in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. He is even winning the majority of papers in Red states.

While praising Palin's energy and bright future, the Anchorage paper's editorial today added, "Yet despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time."

For full list of editorial endorsements go here.
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Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publisher and its hot new blog The E&P Pub. His latest book, on Iraq and the media, is "So Wrong for So Long."

Comments

[yellow72]

with so much voter suppression by the repubs and their nasty campaign in full force, obama needs to win by a landslide. I've been reminding everyone to go vote.

[Bulbul]

Speaking of news paper endorsements....
It is embaressing to be in Cincinnati , OH , now, the local news paper endorsed McCain/Palin for all the wrong reasons they cited, what gives ? Come on voters in OH , prove them wrong !
Incidentally the other two red states papers I checked, Kansas City star & Times and Tenessean , both endorsed Obama.

Vote early
Vote now
I have voted Obama/Biden.

[munki]

Another HISTORY

[B4warned]

Remember what happend in Florida? Sooo many disenfranchised voters, all because the Republicans tried to steal the election and DID! If you can, VOTE EARLY, make sure your vote counts. The Republicans are counting on "those who will stay home from the polls because they say "my" vote doesn't count because they gonna put in office who they want to anyway". Don't be fooled, YOUR vote Does count!

[BOFOREVER]

Don't worry. This will not happen this year. We have a plan. The stars are finally in alignment. BO will be in the whitehouse in another 3 months and we can finally turn the country around.

We can finally take the country back.

No more rich guys running the country.

Everyone will finally be equal. No more rich, no more poor. Barack will FINALLY even the score.

[Bitsko]

My friend, you are a hopeless romantic.

[indepavoter9]

I lead a newspaper, I wouldn't want to be connected with McCain's sleazy campaign either.. WELL DONE.

[chf2go]

Because of the dishonorable campaign he has run, I don't think McCain will leave honorably. He will most likely cry voter fraud, despite all the evidence that he simply was out of his league in campaign organization, fund raising and character.

He will be a very sad shell of the man he once was, but he chose that path for himself when he hired the same Bush team to run his heinous campaign. He deserves every moment of his defeat and I hope he feels it intensely and reflects on the terrible choices he made.

[suec03]

Out here in the Palm Springs area, many of us are outraged that our local Gannett paper, the Desert Sun (known derisively as the Desperate Sun and other names) cast aside all the evidence of leadership ability shown in the economic crisis and stuck to their Republican roots and endorsed John McCain for President. Many of us are considering canceling our subscriptions. The comments posted at their online website are running strongly against their endorsement. I hope Sen. Obama increases turnout and gets a lot of votes here in traditionally conservative, but significantly Latino, Riverside County.

[Shrinath]

Fine, good. Awesome that these newspapers endorsed Sen.Obama. What matters most is that there is a landslide victory. That means tremendous voter turn out. This will not be over on Nov.5th. McCain will only go down fighting. This is his last chance to become the President. Unless there is a huge difference he is going to cry foul. The build-up to that, we have all witnessed. Acorn is just a small beginning.

Folks note that it is McCain's pride at stake. He does not care about the country. His legacy proves that. A game of one up on his father and grand father. Which is why it is all the more dangerous. Bad enough that he became the R nominee. Worse that there are still 7% undecided. That is what worries me. Unlike what the polls are predicting, this race is going to be close. So get out of your houses, urge as many as you can in your neighborhood to vote. VOTE VOTE VOTE. And make sure that you select the right candidate. WE NEED OBAMA-BIDEN to have a huge majority. I want to be wrong in my assessment that this race will be close. I pray for that.

OBAMA-BIDEN for PEACE AND PROSPERITY!

Cheerio!!

[MathIsTruth]

This reminds me of the primary season when their was a nearly daily juggernaut of super-delegates announcing their support for Obama.

Now we have a daily drumbeat of newspapers, Republicans and even conservative pundits coming out for Obama.

The Bush way of winning was to get JUST ENOUGH people to support you, get a bunch extra votes by cheating and then have about 49% of the people hate you.

The Obama way of winning is to draw strongly from nearly every demographic and every part of the country.

I like the Obama way better.

[nellie]

Take nothing for granted.

Vote everybody.
Vote early.

[BuckeyeGal]

35 major papers have switched from -- Bush (!?) -- to Obama.
Assuming the author isn't referring to something else entirely (or just typo-ed), Obama's strategy of linking McCain to Bush has been a brilliant success!
Awesome.

[carrieanna]

Yeah, that confused me at first. He means that papers who touted Bush in 2004 have switched over to the Democratic presidential support for 2008.

[ANewAmerica]

The Financial Times endorsed Obama today, obviously the well money folks are behind Obama!

[larry278]

You just noticed that, really? Endorsments are somewhat strange. Some papers endorse a candidate only when they see that the voters are going to vote in a candidate regardless of who the paper favors.
The USA's power elite have had their fill of W. They annointed Obama POTUS #44 well before the melt-down. McCain would be a clone of W. W, as usual, has botched the bail-out. Obama will make the changes the USA's establishment will need to survive. W, at 1st, made enimies for the USA, now W's bungling & bludering our recovery is making the USA a laughing stock among both friend & enemy. The USA must rebrand itself to the Obama brand. We can't ever again be associated with W, neo-cons & fundies with their go-it-alone blunders. The establishment is made of negoitators who negotiate & compromise their way to power & make compromises to keep power constantly. W, neo-cons & fundies find compromise to be anathema; they never negotiate, After 9/15/08, you must negotiate or lose your power. Obama knows that; W & Co will never learn that. The same goes for McCain.

[krocklin]

In a year when the Republicans are so unpopular, especially among the more literate Republicans, this gives the lie to the media being liberal.

This is about 38% of all the papers endorsing Sarah Palin in effect. That is pretty high a percentage.

[twisted-european]

With her mindset and attitude, will she ever be ready? I wholeheartedly doubt it ...

[fosimmons]

The race is far from over and I admit I am nervous over Palin. Really, is this woman capable of stepping in and taking over? Probably she will not have to, but in the backs of all our minds there is that creepie Halloween feeling that 'what it?' McCain can probably get through the first term just assuming modern medical science can keep him pasted together. What exactly he says he's going to do and what he might actually do are very different questions. I think the war is number one to get out of and the economy is also number one ... not one is one and the other is number two. Both are disasters brought to us by Bush/Cheny/Rove and many, many years will pass in order to make up for the loss of the blood and treasure this great nation has suffered due to these fine folks so erroneously elected. Sen. Obama, if he ends up winning, will have to undertake the overhaul of overhauls. The mother of all reformations. Part of that will be the reining in of Pelosi and Reid. Sen. Obama will have a most difficult job and he will be dogged each detailed step of the way by the Republicans. Get us out of Iraq, put regulations into place that would protect investors throughout this wild economy.

[jobecky20]

This race is still too close for comfort and many races are tight. I think tight races have a recent history of swinging to Republicans due to complacency on the part of Democrat voters and maybe some hi jinx at the polls. There are probably a lot of low information voters out there who might vote for McCain just because he's been around longer...a default vote, without knowing much about where the candidates stand on the issues. It's the low information voters that have me worried....which is why I am looking forward to Obama's Wednesday night ad. I am hoping enough people from all political stripes (not just the rabid Obama supporters) will watch it. If It's anything like the two minute ad he just released, it will be very convincing. It might actually result in creating more battleground states that McCain will have to defend. PLEASE let it be so!

[one4obama]

Well, there is no Democrat complacency this year! No sirree - you can tell by the unpaid volunteers for the Obama Campaign - by the enthusiasm of the Obama supporters - no one is taking anything for granted nor or we sitting on our behinds.

[leftcoastindy]

"Part of that will be the reining in of Pelosi and Reid."

Even if that were possible, why would we want him to? What would YOU like to stop them from acheiving?

[Antifascist-08]

I agree with fosimmons but I am not going to talk about it until after the election.