Huck Gets First of the Major U.S. Newspaper Endorsements
By Mr. Ed Posted in 2007 — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The Dallas Morning News is a top ten U.S. daily newspaper. To my knowledge, it is the first of the major daily's to make an endorsement in the presidential race.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/storie...
This is a fair and balanced editorial; even my HuckaBasher friends at RedState will find the editorial to contain a fair amount of criticism of Huck.
I find the timing of this piece curious in that the Texas primary isn't until early March. Lots can happen between now and then; the DMN seems to really be sticking it's neck out with such an early endorsement.
By the way, the Dallas Morning News is also considered to be the most conservative major newspaper in Texas. It's arguably the most conservative of the top ten major U.S. daily's.
...but also find it interesting that this statement came from the Dallas Morning News, one of GWBush's most ardent supporters. You'd think they'd be fully aware of GWB's pre-presidential foreign policy education.
Mr. Ed
Straight from the Horse's Mouth
Most of the candidates don't have a lot of foreign policy experience. It's clear that I favor Romney, and the best he can say is global business and the 2002 Olympics. After reading that biography, I really appreciated the time W took to familiarize himself with the issues, and he surrounded himself with serious people. I hope my guy is and has been doing that. I was surprised at the language Huck's piece used, and there was the NIE thing.
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney
How long does it take to be knowledgeable about all the complexities of International relations? If Huck is just now starting, where will that put him next November? Can he catch up, and find a position that HE is comfortable with? Did any of the debates cover foreign affairs issues? I can't remember. Romney had a piece in the Foreign Affairs magazine back in September. He and Obama both wrote one for that issue. While I think Romney used the expression "Global Jihad" three too many times, the piece is what turned me into a Romney supporter. The Obama article on the other hand was a bush hit piece with no ideas that made sense to me. Some of the language in Huck's piece reminded me of that. Now, I interned for the State Department over the summer, and I would never trust those guys to the government no matter how much they know about the world. It's important to me that our leaders know the issues and have a stance on them.
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney
let me clarify the State dept. thing. I mean I wouldn't trust a state dept. guy to be the POTUS and commander in chief. Bill Richardson has plenty of foreign relations experience, but...
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney
...didn't reflect on Huck's foreign policy views, which you can disagree or agree with.
The NIE issue was that he didn't have enough staff to keep him informed during a busy campaign schedule about the release of the NIE until the next day.
Mr. Ed
Straight from the Horse's Mouth
Maybe if he moved some of the bookers he's hired for talk shows and stuff and have them do some research.
But it totally shows exactly what and who Huckabee is in my opinion, all flare and flash, and about paper thick on all the matters of import.
Heck, he doesn't even had realistic plans for the one or two items he's "strong" on... abortion and gay marriage.
And as someone who lives in Dallas that endorsement won't matter much. Presidential Politics aren't here yet in Dallas... at least not West Plano or Frisco...thank God!
Actually McCain got the first endorsement from the Boston Globe. They are 10th in circulation while the Dallas Morning News is 13th.
==== 13 ====
I've seen the DMN circulation listed anywhere from 10th to 13th. This link shows the Globe to be 15th.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0004420.html
Mr. Ed
Straight from the Horse's Mouth
to determine their vote?
If someone is too busy to do their own research as everyone generally has a computer -- then maybe they are too busy to vote.
Sadly, newspaper endorsements do carry weight. Even coming from a left leaning paper. It's the spiral of silence theory, everybody wants to be on the winning side so they can tell their friends they voted for the winner. This just enables the Media to continue to be agenda setters.
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney
So endorsements do matter. During the 2004 election, biasness by the MSM is worth 15 points for the Kerry campaign.
So no surprise.
I thought it was a fair endorsement that brought some good points. I take issue with this however.
"Mr. Huckabee is not an ideal candidate. Once a Bush-style Republican on immigration, his recent hard-right turn smells of opportunism. He too often wings it on foreign policy. But Govs. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also took office without foreign-policy experience. Much depends on the quality of a president's advisers. A chief executive's core foreign-policy convictions matter most, and on those, Mr. Huckabee is a standard conservative."
I recently finished reading a biography of Condi Rice. It states that for a long time before announcing his candidacy, George W. Bush had Condi and others including his father bring him up to speed on foreign policy matters. The book says that when the Bush's went fishing, they'd bring Condi along just to talk foreign policy. It seems to me that Huckabee hasn't done that, maybe he's on it now, but it's a steep learning curve.
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. --Mitt Romney