Thread: Boston Herald, NY Post endorse McCain

POST ENDORSES JOHN MCCAIN

September 8, 2008 --
THE Post today enthusiastically urges the election of Sen. John S. McCain as the 44th president of the United States.

McCain's lifelong record of service to America, his battle-tested courage, unshakeable devotion to principle and clear grasp of the dangers and opportunities now facing the nation stand in dramatic contrast to the tissue-paper-thin résumé of his Democratic opponent, freshman Sen. Barack Obama.

Big Mac Gets Big Bounce in Polls

Sarah Palin to Face the Media

Get MORE Election Coverage at NYPost.com

McCain has been in Washington for many years now, but he is not of Washington. He knows where the levers of power are located - and how to manipulate them - but he is not controlled by them.

McCain's selection of the charming, but rock-solid, outsider Sarah Palin as his running mate underscores the point.

Neither plays well with others.

And this is an unalloyed asset at a time when special interests - lobbyists, lawyers and organized labor chief among them - wield enormous influence in the nation's capital.

McCain's Democratic opponents, Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden, lead a party constructed of special interests - public-employee unionists in particular.

There are many reasons to support the McCain-Palin ticket. Here are but a few:

* National security: The differences between McCain and Obama are especially stark.

McCain says 9/11 represented a two-decade "failure . . . to respond to . . . a [growing] global terror network." He understood that Iraq is a critical front in the war on terror - and he urged perseverance even in the dark days that preceded the success of "the surge."

Obama backed policies that would have abandoned Iraq to its fate, he bitterly opposed the surge, and once insisted that US forces invade Pakistan in search of Osama bin Laden - seemingly without regard for the potential consequences of attacking a nuclear-armed nation, ally or not.

Regarding a nuclear Iran, McCain has pushed for the strongest possible international sanctions and diplomatic pressure. Obama opposes sanctions.

And, when Russia invaded the former Soviet republic of Georgia, threatening a return to the Cold War, McCain reacted with stern disapprobation: "We must remind Russia's leaders that the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world require their respect for the values, stability and peace of that world."

Obama called for UN action - unaware, apparently, that Russia's Security Council veto would have prevented any.

* Taxes: McCain knows that when government absorbs ever-larger shares of national income, the economy suffers.

High tax rates diminish investment, killing jobs and stunting growth.

And while Obama promises tax cuts for "95 percent" of Americans, what he actually is proposing is some $650 billion in tax-credit-driven hikes in entitlement and other spending, to be paid for with heavier imposts across the board, but especially on investment - like a sharply higher capital-gains tax.

This is bad news for the millions of ordinary Americans who own stocks, either personally or through pension funds or who plan someday to sell their homes or other real property.

McCain, wisely, vows to keep capital-gains taxes at 15 percent and to keep the Bush-era tax cuts in place - understanding that new growth will boost revenue, and promising to make up the rest with spending restraint.

And he's called for a one-year freeze on most discretionary spending and an end to pork-barrel giveaways.

* Trade: "I object when Senator Obama and others preach the false virtues of economic isolationism," says McCain - noting that "globalization is an opportunity" for US workers. He adds that while emerging economies like those of China and India are worrisome, the answer is competition informed by education and innovation - not protectionism.

* Energy: On the economic issue most vexing Americans today - energy prices - McCain is aggressive

He is a strong convert to offshore drilling: "We have trillions of dollars' worth of oil and gas reserves in the US at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy."

He also strongly backs nuclear power - a carbon-free form of energy that America can produce relatively cheaply.

Obama, meanwhile, hews to the Democratic Party line on energy: no nukes, no drilling and no comprehension of the consequences of such policies.

None of this implies an iota of disrespect toward Obama. It took a formidable candidacy to defeat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton - a candidacy, by the way, which we strongly supported earlier this year.

And the intelligence, the organizational skills and the ability to communicate that Obama demonstrated from the beginning dramatically underscore the history that is being made by the first African-American to head a major-party presidential ticket.

He should be around for a long time, and we hope that he is.

In the end, though, sound security, economic and energy policies - plus allegiance to principle - are critical to keeping America safe and strong.

On all counts, John McCain and Sarah Palin understand this - and that's why we're in their corner to the finish.

California
Bakersfield Californian
Napa Valley Register *
Press-Enterprise (53) (R)
San Diego Union Tribune
SF Examiner * (R)

Colorado
Daily Sentinel
Mountain Valley News
Pueblo Chieftain (R)

Florida
Tampa Tribune (38) (N)

Maryland
Baltimore Examiner

Massachusetts
Boston Herald (51) (R)
Lowell Sun (R)

Nevada
Las Vegas Review-Journal (59) (R)

New Hampshire
Foster's Daily Democrat (R)
Union Leader (R)

New York
New York Post (6) (R)

Ohio
Columbus Dispatch (47) (R)
Findlay Courier (R)

Oregon
Bend Bulletin (R)

Texas
Amarillo Globe News
Beaumont Monitor
Corpus Christy Caller-Times
Dallas Morning News (13) (R)
San Antonio Express-News (34) (R)
Wichita Falls Times-Record

Virginia
Daily Press

Washington
Spokesman Review (R)

Washington DC
DC Examiner

West Virginia
The Intelligencer
Wheeling News Register

I know I'm partisan.. but I can't help feeling that the fact that a man like Obama even has a chance is pretty shameful.

Originally Posted by busyLivin

I know I'm partisan.. but I can't help feeling that the fact that a man like Obama even has a chance is pretty shameful.

Partisan?? Zealot... drum beater..

Originally Posted by min0 lee

Partisan?? Zealot... drum beater..

I really want to believe him but it's too late for that, didn't he agree with most of Bush's policies?



McCain Emphasizes Distance From Bush


Criticism of Administration Stepped Up
By Michael Abramowitz and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 21, 2008; A01

BELTON, Mo., Oct. 20 -- Battling George W. Bush for the GOP presidential nomination in 2000, John McCain lashed out at the Texas governor, denouncing his proposed tax cuts as a giveaway to the rich.

Eight years later, this time running as the Republican presidential nominee, the senator from Arizona is again criticizing Bush and his financial policies, as he renews his efforts to demonstrate that he would represent a departure from the current administration.

At virtually every campaign stop, McCain is reprising a line he used last Wednesday in his final debate with Sen. Barack Obama: "I am not George Bush." And in a television ad introduced last week, McCain looks into the camera and says, "The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?"

As he struggles to pull his campaign out from beneath the shadow of a president whose approval ratings have reached historic lows, McCain is offering some of his toughest criticism of the Bush White House. In recent weeks, he has focused his message on the administration's handling of the nation's financial crisis, suggesting that the Treasury Department has been more interested in "bailing out the banks" than helping struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.

"I am so disturbed that this administration has not done what we have to do, and that is to go out and buy up these bad mortgages," McCain told Jewish leaders in a conference call Sunday morning.

The new rhetoric has drawn roars of applause at some campaign stops and represents a tacit acknowledgment that McCain has not distanced himself sufficiently from the administration in his bid. One senior adviser said the campaign had to do something to counteract the Obama operation's decision to spend "tens of millions of dollars pushing" the idea that McCain is a virtual clone of Bush. "The majority of the swing voters don't believe it, but some do, and we have to convince them that we are different from Bush," said this adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss campaign strategy.

Bush is hardly the only problem for McCain as he struggles to close a gap with Obama. Voters perceive Obama as better prepared to handle the economic crisis, the GOP brand has been severely tarnished in recent years, and McCain is at a huge financial disadvantage.

But with the Republican president's approval ratings languishing, the perceived connection with him is a significant drag on the party's nominee. Nearly half of all voters in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said McCain would mainly carry on Bush's policies, and among those who would consider a McCain presidency as a continuation of the current administration, 90 percent support Obama. And the prized independent voters who link McCain and Bush also overwhelmingly tilt toward the Democrat.

McCain has made progress in distancing himself from the president. Among independents, 54 percent now see the senator as offering a new direction, up from 44 percent before the third presidential debate, where he introduced his new language on Bush.

Among all likely voters, the percentage associating McCain with Bush is less than 50 percent for the first time, albeit barely, at 49 percent. Forty-eight percent said McCain would mainly continue to lead in Bush's footsteps.

A senior Republican close to the campaign said internal GOP polling underscores those findings.

"It's night and day," the source said. "You have somebody whose public approval is in the 20s. There's just not a 'there' there anymore in terms of residual support."

After the two waged a fierce campaign for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain remained a burr in Bush's side in the early part of his administration, although he strongly supported the Iraq war and came to endorse Bush's tax cuts despite initial misgivings. During his 2008 campaign, McCain has irritated the White House with his coolness, criticizing as a "failure" its response to Hurricane Katrina and almost never appearing in public with Bush.

Yet these efforts have done little to convince a skeptical electorate. Even McCain's acknowledgment of Bush's wartime leadership at the Republican National Convention, without mentioning him by name, made listeners unhappy, according to internal GOP focus groups.

Many Democrats doubt that McCain will be able to make enough progress to change the trajectory of the race in the final two weeks, no matter what new rhetoric he may offer. They argue that he dug his own grave when he embraced Republican orthodoxy on the utility of tax cuts to help stimulate economic growth, shifting his own position and embracing the approach Bush pushed aggressively.

"McCain, like Bush, is emerging as someone who makes rapid, gut-level decisions," said Bill Galston, a centrist Democratic strategist who worked in the Clinton White House and is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He said McCain "has made remarkably little headway with the 'I'm not Bush' argument."

Mark McKinnon, Bush's former media adviser and a former consultant for McCain, played down the idea that the president is as much of a burden as his party label is this year. "I think voters figured out long ago that John McCain is not George Bush," he wrote in an e-mail exchange. "But it doesn't matter much either way. John McCain is a Republican, and in the current environment, that's about a 10-point anchor dragging on your chances."

McCain spent Monday in Missouri, a critical swing state, where he continued his efforts to sow unease about Obama's economic policies as a plan to redistribute wealth rather than grow the economy. "I think a lot of blame is put on George Bush that does not deserve to be there," said Carol Pappas, 52, a stay-at-home mom. "On the other hand, a lot of Americans are blaming George Bush for the economy, which I disagree with. In order to have a chance in this election, McCain . . . has to have them understand that this is not another eight years of what they perceive as bad government."

Some of the people at a rally in St. Louis criticized Obama for making more of a connection between Bush and McCain than is warranted. "He isn't George Bush," said Cathy Beck, 49, who runs a small business with her husband. "I think this has been one of the unfairest campaigns of my lifetime."

Craig Shirley, a conservative consultant and author of the forthcoming "Rendezvous With Destiny," about Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, said in an interview that McCain is doing the "right thing" before Election Day. But he said the senator avoided the one major break he could have made with Bush -- opposing the Wall Street rescue package.

Going against Bush would have put voters on notice that McCain is a different kind of politician, Shirley said.

"He would have helped himself immensely if he had opposed the bailout," he said. "All the elites were all arrayed against the American people. He would have been the populist champion standing up" to them.

Washington Times hasnt endorsed McCain yet?

No.
This is a list of the yet to endorse


USA Today (1) (N)
Wall Street Journal (2) (N)
New York Times (3) (D)
Arizona Republic (10) (R)
Newsday (11) (D)
Star-Ledger (15) (D)
Star Tribune (19) (D)
St. Petersburg Times (20) (D)
Indianapolis Star (26) (R)
Orange County Register (29)
Baltimore Sun (32) (D)
Rocky Mountain News (35) (R)
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (39) (D)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (40) (D)
Courier-Journal (41) (D)
Cincinnati Enquirer (43) (R)
Charlotte Observer (44) (D)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (45) (R)
Oklahoman (46) (R)
St. Paul Pioneer Press (48) (R)
Detroit News (49) (N)
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (52) (R)
New Orleans Times Picayune (53) (N)
Omaha World-Herald (54) (R)
Richmond Times-Dispatch (57) (R)
Virginian-Pilot (58) (D)
Hackensack Record (64) (D)
Hartford Courant (61) (R)
Investor's Business Daily (65) (R)
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (67) (R)
Democrat and Chronicle (70) (D)
Florida Times-Union (71) (R)
Birmingham News (74) (R)
Honolulu Advertiser (75) (D)
Providence Journal (76) (R)
Des Moines Register (77) (D)
Grand Rapids Press (80) (R)
Knoxville News Sentinel (84) (R)
AZ Daily Star (88) (D)
Tulsa World (89) (R)
Tacoma News Tribune (90) (D)
Wilmington News Journal (91) (D)
Syracuse Post-Standard (92) (N)
Morning Call (94) (D)
Wichita Eagle (R)
Journal News (95) (D)
Albuquerque Journal (97) (R)
The State (98) (R)
Springfield Republican (D)
Baton Rouge Advocate (R)
Philadelphia Daily News (96) (D)
Charleston Post and Courier (99)

Where do you get that? I was just curious as to what the numbers are? National rankings?

I have always heard USA today is number 1 because of the pretty colors. God its a retarded "newspaper", I remember I was sitting in a little sushi place waiting for food and I picked it up to read about the SuperBus or whatever that huge plane is called. Rather then describe its size in sqft, it said it can hold 3.5 million ping pong balls. I will never pick it up again.

Originally Posted by Splash Log

Where do you get that?

DemConWatch: Presidential Newspaper Endorsement List

Mon Oct 20, 3:01 pm ET
The vice presidential candidates are picked. The conventions are done. So are the debates. What's a political watcher to do with the 15 days left before the election?
You can always try to decipher the polls or wait for the October Surprise (if it hasn't already happened yet). Or, you can do what we did this weekend: meander through the avalanche of endorsements that have been handed down from newspapers and other notables during the campaign season.

There have been a few newsworthy endorsements recently as some high-profile Republicans have publicly moved to Democratic territory. Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley's son, endorsed Barack Obama (and subsequently lost his column at the National Review over it). Colin Powell did the same this weekend. Republican talk show host Michael Smerconish announced he'd be voting for a Democrat for the first time in 28 years. (We should note that even though he's a fixture on the McCain campaign now, Sen. Joe Lieberman jumping parties to endorse John McCain was also news at the time.)

But those are just a few voices that received attention for making unexpected choices. There are a lot of other endorsements out there, so here's a round-up of some nods.

First, the political ones. President Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the NRA have endorsed McCain. Hillary Clinton, Caroline Kennedy and the AFL-CIO have endorsed Obama.

Obvious political endorsements can be boring, so thank Hollywood for giving us Heidi Montag, Matt Damon and the Baldwin brothers. Montag of "The Hills" fame endorsed McCain and then he endorsed her right back. Matt Damon said Obama is his guy and (more famously) noted that Sarah Palin's candidacy sounded like a "bad Disney movie."

Then, there's the dueling political posturing of a couple of the brothers Baldwin. While neither may have explicitly endorsed a candidate, you could probably tell by watching "Saturday Night Live" this weekend that Alec is a loud Democrat and little bro Stephen is an outspoken Republican. (Stephen even went so far as to challenge Obama to a boxing duel for charity.)

Baldwins aside, what you might find more useful is knowing who newspapers endorse. The Chicago Tribune, for example, is backing Barack Obama. It's the first time in the paper's history that they are endorsing a Democrat for the presidency of the United States. A few days after the Trib endorsement, McCain picked up his own big-deal endorsement from a paper in the swing state of Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch.
There's a comprehensive list of newspaper endorsements over at Editor & Publisher, but we've pulled a few of the other key ones below:

Boston Herald – McCain
Los Angeles Times – Obama
New York Post - McCain
Washington DC Examiner – McCain
Washington Post – Obama

Poll: Israelis like McCain over Obama

Published: 10/27/2008

Israelis would elect John McCain over Barack Obama for president of the United States, a poll found.

The poll found that 46.4 percent of Israelis would vote for McCain, the Republican candidate, and 34 percent for his Democratic opponent, with 18.6 undecided, Ynet reported Monday. The survey, conducted by the TNS Teleseker polling agency on behalf of the Rabin Center for Israel Studies, interviewed 500 Israelis aged 18 to 65.

Among nearly half of those surveyed, or 48.6 percent, believed McCain would be better for Israel, while 31.5 percent said Obama would be better. More than 5 percent said the candidates would have the same effect on Israel, and 14.2 percent were undecided.

Each candidate was favored by 37 percent on who would better handle the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Israel was one of three countries who chose McCain over Obama in polls of adult citizens, Rabin Center head Alon Pinkas told Ynet. Georgia and the Philippines also opted for the veteran GOP senator.

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but isn't it unethical for newspapers to endorse either candidate?

I'm not trying to sound stupid and I know the media is shamelessly biased, but this is a bit surprising to me.

I'm also surprised a Massachusetts paper like the Boston Herald is endorsing McCain.

Model citizens endorse McCain

Originally Posted by fufu

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but isn't it unethical for newspapers to endorse either candidate?

I'm not trying to sound stupid and I know the media is shamelessly biased, but this is a bit surprising to me.

Here's something I found.
Newspaper endorsements of political candidates stir controversy even among journalists.
Many think endorsing people in political races muddies the readers' trust of the paper as an independent observer. Others feel that newspapers serve an important function in sifting the wheat from the chaff in politics, and then pointing out the wheat.
Big, medium and small papers across the country continually argue their viewpoints on endorsements.
Consider these lists written in 2006 by Stephen J. Winters, then opinion editor of the Connecticut Post:
"Here are reasons why we endorse:
* "to fulfill our obligation and responsibility as a constitutionally-protected media enterprise to not only be a part of our communities but to also help improve those communities.
* "to offer information and perspective that voters can use in evaluating candidates.
* "to create dialogue with our readers.
"Our endorsements are not made:
* "to tell readers who they should vote for.
* "to make a compact with any candidate.
* "to figure out who's most likely to win a contest."

I'm also surprised a Massachusetts paper like the Boston Herald is endorsing McCain.

I thought it was Democratic State.

Ahhh, I see. So basically all news papers agree to split up endorsements? I wonder how they are chosen. Still, I wonder why all newspapers wouldn't cover both candidates in depth. I guess there must to be too much to cover.

and yes, MA is a "democratic" state, one of the most "liberal" in the country.

It's their job to be fair and accurate but sadly some media outlets tend to be partisan like FOX and the Post for the Right and for the left you have KOS. There's always room for news if it's worthy.