Creative Loafing: Are Newspaper Editorial Endorsements No Longer Helpful to Candidates?

Like Rick Scott, Texas GOP governor’s aversion to editorial boards only seemed to help him with voters
November 9, 2010 at 7:20 am by Mitch Perry

RICK-PERRY-large300The Judith Miller and Jayson Blair scandals at the New York Times are just a couple of reasons that the mainstream news media have lost credibility with the American public. A year ago, the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press reported that just 29% of the public believed that news organizations always get it right, whereas 63% said that news stories are often inaccurate.

And that’s all the public. The year-old survey shows that most Republicans have always had more skepticism, but more Democrats over the years have joined them in bashing the news media (the ascension of Fox News is probably the reason for that number rising among the Dems).

That’s why newspaper endorsements count less than they ever have. In the just-concluded race for governor, Alex Sink somehow thought we still lived in a world where they did matter, as she constantly trumped up the fact that every single major newspaper of significance in the race had endorsed her over Rick Scott. She said it in debates, she repeated it to reporters, and even mentioned it while on the campaign trail.

During one of only two prime-time debates the gubernatorial candidates engaged in (avoiding debates was another tactic employed by most Republicans running for statewide office in Florida this year), Sink boasted that not only had she received every endorsement from a major paper in the state, but that Scott hadn’t even deigned to appear at any editorial board meetings as a candidate.

Scott replied that he was too busy meeting with the people of Florida. It was a great answer, since the fact is that most of the public just wasn’t that impressed that Sink did meet with editorial writers. Forget the fact that they all endorsed her.

Scott employed the same strategy against Bill McCollum, and was successful both times.

Now we learn that Texas’ newly re-elected Republican governor, Rick Perry (who’s been all over the “liberal” media over the past week, hawking his new book, Fed Up!), employed exactly the same media strategy while beating his Democratic opponent last week by 13%.

And he did the same thing against U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison during the GOP primary, blowing off ed boards and receiving none of their endorsements either. And oh yes, he ended up beating her soundly, with Hutchison getting only 30% of the vote).

What does this mean? Well, as the Pew poll reports, most Americans get their information from television, not from the newspapers. Which means a one-minute ad calling your opponent, say, “an Obama liberal” might be matched by a candidate mocking two candidates arguing with each other with an admonition that they ought to “get real.”

In either case, those ads are going to be seen and absorbed by more people who are watching the tube than those reading the dailies, much less the editorial page.

Former Bush & McCain media strategist Mark McKinnon, writing in the Daily Beast, drops this interesting nugget:

Mike Baselice, Perry’s highly skilled pollster, acknowledged Wednesday at a public forum sponsored by The Texas Tribune that the campaign asked primary voters in Texas whether a newspaper endorsement would make them more or less likely to vote for Perry. Only 6 percent said an endorsement would make them more likely to support Perry, while an eye-popping 37 percent said it would make them less likely (56 percent said it made no difference).

That poll just confirms what has been a growing trend for years. No doubt that in local races (particularly for judges), endorsements/recommendations still have an impact. But it’s nothing like it used to be years earlier. All things considered, it’s a good thing that candidates sit down with newspaper editors to discuss the issues, but obviously there’s no requirement to do so. And with the success of Scott, Perry and others (like Pam Bondi, who lost the newspaper endorsement war to Democrat Dan Gelber in her race for Attorney General but beat him convincingly on election night), expect more candidates, at least on the right, to keep blowing them off in the future.