And the result is in
It’s endorsement season in America. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his commanding poll lead, Obama has to date matched his favour with wavering voters with a knack for tempting skeptical editors. The running tally shows the Democrat ahead 179 – 60 in major editorial endorsements. This is interesting, for a number of reasons. Such liberal bias is relatively recent. A reliable source told me a while back that until Bill Clinton, LBJ in 1964 (in the aftermath of an assassination) was the only postwar Democrat to gain more endorsements than his Republican opponent. This changed with Kerry. Now Obama has a handy lead. Such a situation makes the decision of right-leaning publications more intriguing. Some are predictable. Few can have been surprised by last week’s lengthy Obama hagiography in the New Yorker; it also would be a stretch to describe the Guardian’s endorsement as coveted. Others are more interesting. The Financial Times for instance, sometimes a swing endorsement, came out for Obama.
Were Prospect to endorse candidates, ours would clearly be hotly anticipated. Our studious neutrality in such matters, however, means the The Economist is perhaps the most interesting decision. The magazine—socially and economically liberal—would like to endorse a socially-liberal republican. It would probably have liked the 2000-era McCain, but instead gave a hearty endorsement to Governor Bush. It has recently run a fairly tough editorial line on Obama, criticising his positions on trade and the economy in particular. And its editor, John Micklethwaite, wrote a (very good) book in which he predicted the long-term ascendency of American conservatives, a notion which has perhaps been slightly undercut by the recent implosion of that movement. The decision is one which I have a small insight into, as a former Economist intern. Under the previous editor, Bill Emmott, a poll was taken of the Economist’s hundred or so editorial staff. (In 2004 this was said to overwhelmingly favour Kerry.) This informed the decision, but ultimately the choice was for the editor alone. In 2004, in a rather woosterish editorial, Emmott sided with his staff and went grumpily for Kerry. What of this year? Obama’s lead, his self-evidently superior candidacy, and the need for newspapers to side with a winner, give three strong reasons to suspects an Obama nod. I’d be surprised if they don’t. Nonetheless, the Economist’s political staff tends to be more right-wing than its ordinary writers, its editor is a thoughtful, principled centrist conservative, and the magazine has traditionally taken a hawkish, McCain-ish foreign policy line on Iraq and Iran. Perhaps there is room for a very minor October surprise after all.
UPDATE: reliable sources tells me that the decision is made; in news unlikely to much bother the swing voters of rural ohio, the editor announced to his staff meeting this morning that Obama will, this Thursday, be able to count The Economist among his official backers. With back to back endorsements for Kerry and Obama, perhaps we should see it as a Democrat-leaning newspaper after all?.
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The Economist is big business Republican– as soon as McCain picked Palin the craaazeee Evangelical republican fringe candidate– they lost the Economist.
I will eat my hatstand if they endorse McCain.
I tend to agree. But you never know. I, sadly, don’t have a hatstand, so can’t join you in any furniture consumption to prove the point.
“Woosterish” seems an odd description of an editorial. This would imply it being in a “what ho, Kerry!” style. Surely the word is “Pooterish”?
If the Economist’s US correspondents have anything to do with the magazine’s (sorry, “newspaper’s”) endorsement, to judge by their blog – http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/ – it’ll be a shoo-in for Obama. But the biggest endorsement of all has got to be that of the Anchorage Daily News – http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/567867.html – surely the first and last time anyone will find themselves saying that.
I read a piece in The Economist back in August, in which a relatively balanced editorial expressed fears about Obama’s tax-raising policies. This is the sort of guff (effectively defending Bush’s billionaire tax cuts) that makes the editors look like past-it ideologues. What about growth? Or, if you prefer less ‘liberal’ measures of good policy, what about fiscal common sense? Or how about this, from your In Fact colum this month:
Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. As of 10th October 2008, a $10,000 investment in the S&P stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, or $51,211 if Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the depression is excluded. Invested under Democratic presidents only, it would have grown to $300,671.
But no. The main thing is to carry on attacking some illusory socialism in our midst.
[...] October 27, 2008 I am so sad. “Why, Matt?”, I hear you all cry in half-arsed semi-interest. Well, the world will find out this Thursday who The Economist have decided to endorse for President. I’m looking forward to finding out with pathetic excitement. And it’s sad because it’ll have no effect on anything whatsoever. Anyway, things seem to be looking good, judging by the last paragraph on here. [...]
Looking over the past endorsments I was surprised to see that The Economist endorsed Geroge W. Bush (seriously???) and Dole. This year I would think the choice would be easy to make: Obama has displayed superiority in just about every area, and wether the right-wingers agree or not, I would always go for a tax-and-spend liberal over a borrow-and-waste conservative. Not since the Great Depression did government grow as much as under the “conservative” George W. Bush – and all we have to show for it are endless wars and a crippling financial crisis. At some point the budget needs to be balanced, and in the last 40 years it was only Bill Clinton (a Democrat) who actually did so. McCain’s budgetary math has little connection with reality, as does his foreign policy (he seems to want to restart the Cold War).
This is the only media endorsement I have been waiting for, I am a huge fan of the Economist, and though I am left-leaning liberal, I find the Economist to be thoughtful and insightful. I did however feel that with the tone of some of their recent stories they really did want to endorse McCain. And I found the August piece mentioned above incorrect in their finally analysis though I know the capital gains issue is something many pro big business folks are wary.
However when Greenspan admits as he did last week that there is a flaw in the way free market systems and capitalism are working (that being they do not! Because the do not really exist not at least as Adam Smith defined) it would be hard for The Economist to support someone like McCain who has morphed into something unrecognizable. I think his (his?) pick of Palin was the nail in the coffin.
[...] According to this blog, The Economist is set to officially endorse Obama tomorrow. Â They endorsed Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. [...]