We’ll be making our endorsement for the GOP nomination for state treasurer on Tuesday.
Apparently, some statewide elected Republicans couldn’t wait for us to tell them whom to support. They’re out on the hustings pushing their respective favorites today.
Not only that, they’re bragging about their intraparty impetuosity. Here’s the lead of my latest e-mail from the Ryberg campaign:
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – Senator Greg Ryberg today announced the support of Governor Mark Sanford in his campaign for South Carolina Treasurer. Sanford traveled the state with Ryberg to endorse his candidacy stopping in five cities – Greenville, Rock Hill, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, and Columbia.
Meanwhile, Henry McMaster — who I thought was trying to get along with everybody these days — has picked his own man (sorry, no photo available as of this writing):
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina’s Republican attorney general has issued an opinion. He says Rick Quinn is the best qualified candidate for State Treasurer.
You’ll just have to be patient to see which one we’re going for. In the meantime, you can read our other endorsements to date right here, plus a bunch of bonus materials — just like on a DVD. I recommend checking it out. Owing to a temporary glitch, these were not available on the special Web page over the weekend. Enjoy. And react.
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Who gives a “rat’s rear” about whom The State “newspaper” endorses? Why should The State tell people whom to vote for? Arrogance, I say.
Actually, Spencer, it’s honesty. People are always saying we have this agenda or that agenda, or we’re favoring this candidate or that candidate. The endorsements are the one place where the newspaper tells you, as an institution, which candidate it believes — based on far more probing than most voters ever have time for — should be the winner.
The point isn’t to tell you how to vote. It’s to give you a sound, well-founded argument for voting a certain way, so that you can place your own thoughts and observations against that, and make your own decision. The idea is that for having gone through this process, you will make a better, more thorough decision — whether you vote for the ones we endorsed or not.
I don’t know about the rat, but I’ve worked MY rear off for the past five or six weeks interviewing and studying toward this point in the process. Here’s hoping you find some value in it, in spite of yourself.
Brad,
Some people can’t see the forest for the trees. Many also don’t understand the role of a newspaper. Many don’t understand that newspapers provide a valuable light on the activities of a lot of people we just don’t have time to keep up with all the time.
I don’t always agree with your endorsements (I do at times) but I always enjoy them because they often make me consider opinions that are different from my own.
I like doing that. It forces me to really think about my own decision. My vote is important to me. I don’t want to waste it. It reflects my own values and, I hope, what is best about our government process. I don’t take it lightly and I really sit down and think about my choices.
Touchy, touchy!!
Well, I read just about zero of the State’s ENDORSEMENTS because I don’t think you (the State) should be endorsing ANYONE. If you simply put forth facts and figures on EVERYONE RUNNING with NO endorsements attached, NO favoritism, then that would be fine. But you do take a stand and say “this is the best candidate to vote for”. By doing so, you imply (whether you mean to or not) that everyone else should vote as you suggest.
And, I appreciate that you have been working your rear off the past five or six weeks to provide information. After all, it’s your job.
As for the “forest for the trees” guy, ALL VOTES ARE WASTED under the current two-party system. We are voting for the best, or worst, of the TWO candidates which the two parties permit us to vote for.
Spencer, let me tell you something about the truth. Facts and figures don’t tell you the truth. They don’t even tell you a fraction of the little piece of the truth that I — one, fallible individual that I am — may possess. They tell you scattered little bits and pieces of it. Everything that lies between, that joins the facts and figures together and makes them add up to a coherent, TRUE whole, is subjective.
It took me almost 20 years in newsrooms, most of it as an editor, to figure that out. But news people aren’t allowed to fill in those gaps, not completely. Oh, they can write “analysis,” but that falls far short if it’s done by the rules.
So I switched to editorial, where you are expected to report ALL that you see, including the parts that make sense of it all. And after several years in editorial, I realized that I had only suspected the half of it, if that.
That’s because in news, you don’t even let your mind go to certain places. But in editorial, you not even go there, but you explore those places thoroughly, because you’re not only going to have to set out your subjective perceptions alongside the facts, you’re going to publish them for hundreds of thousands of people to read, and they are going to pick them apart the best they can.
So you examine your judgments, and reexamine them, and then knock them all down and start again. You do this day after day. You do it under a lot of pressure, because every day, you know you have a page to put out for the NEXT day. You develop parts of your mind that lay dormant before. If you’re any good at it, you get better as you go.
And if you’re honest and conscientious, your share all of your observations with the reader. If you’re afraid, and don’t want to take risks, you hold back.
You also learn that what you say isn’t the final word. Readers out there have their own perspectives and ways of perception that can add to the whole, and fill out the discussion. I’m not just talking about calls and letters and blogs here, but the conversations you have with friends and neighbors after you read what we have offered.
That’s why we do endorsements. To do less would be to shirk an important duty. For you not to read them is to pass up the opportunity to participate in an important process, for yourself and for your fellow readers and citizens.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve learned and concluded. Take if and do with it what you will. As Sean Connery said in “The Untouchables,” “Here endeth the lesson.”
BW. I’ll have to read your post several times to see if I can make any sense of it and fully respond. To tell you the truth, I don’t see where it’s the “duty” of ANY newspaper to ENDORSE anyone. It may be your right, but we “ain’t out here waitin’with bated breath” to read what any of you write.
And, I sure as hell don’t think I’m passing anything up by NOT reading whatever your newspaper publishes.
PS – I thought “here endeth the lesson” came from the Catholic and Episcopal Churches.
HOW DARE NEWSPAPERS EXPRESS OPINIONS ON THEIR EDITORIAL PAGE! Your endorsement of political candidates disgusts me even more than your editorial “cartoons.” I’ve had enough of political parties forcing us to pick between their hand-chosen candidates. If the candidates relied upon our money to run their campaigns, were selected as their parties’ nominees in open elections, and stood for party platforms decided through a series of publicly held conventions, then our voices MIGHT FINALLY BE HEARD. Oh, if only!
This is a “cut & paste” from NotePad, so I hope it’s not too fouled up.
Well, I’ve read it all over several times and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve “_____ you off” royally. My point was that newspapers unfairly support some candidates to the detriment of others.
If fact, in your piece, WE ARE NOT ALONE, you and the Greenville News together “blow off” three seemingly decent candidates (IMHO) and simply wipe them from the slate for consideration. You then write a disparaging, insulting note on one Kerry Wood who seems like an OK candidate. At least he’s not a politician. And, you torqued his sister out as well. She said ” …. you, Brad, seem to gloat
whenever something negative is written about a candidate YOU do not ENDORSE”. (07 JUN 2006, 10:32:33am). You never responded.
So, why should anyone put credence into endorsements by The State for the “best candidates”? Who says they’re the best? Regardless of all the research you may have done because “schlubs like us” don’t have the time, mental ability or resources to do it, it’s still OUR decision on whom to vote
for. You and newspapers have unfair advantage, just like celebreties, when it comes to influencing how someone votes. How many votes can you sway versus, say, Spencer Gantt?
I just think all candidates should be given equal time, equal consideration, equal reporting and equal respect– whether you think they’re “also rans” or not. If they are qualified to run, then they are due the same treatment as incumbents, politicians, Democrats, Republicans and The Rich.
Nothing personal here. I feel the same way about all reporters, all editors, all newspapers. And, I’m not saying you should change what you’re doing. It’s your right to write as you choose. It’s your opinion, and you’re an opinion writer. No one has to read what you write, and if they do, they
don’t have to agree with it.
Sure hope Mr. Wood runs as an Independent Write-In Candidate in the fall. He’s got my vote.
The biggest problem with the endorsements, overt and covert, is that the editors are not honest about the reasons. They won’t say, “We think Bob Staton will be no threat to the bureaucrats who want to spend more money. He won’t ruffle any feathers by dismantling pork barrel programs we like, the junk left over from Tennenbaum and every other predecessor.”
They won’t say, “We hate the way candidate so-and-so knows more about the issues than we do. He’s arrogant. Qualified but we just dislike people who correct us when we are wrong.”
Instead, they serve up transparent mush about how scientific and objective they were, and how they had open minds going into the interviews and debates.
And they carefully avoid listing all the things the candidate wants do and why they support or oppose it. They pick one issue they can paint as good or bad, “simplify it for our unwashed readers.”
Is this Lee or Lee “spam”? Whatever, it’s good stuff.
Spencer, just click on the name to check the e-mail.
[email protected] is Lee.
[email protected] is a goon, posting under several names to disrupt the threads.
Another sham is journalistic objectivity.
85% of the editors and TV news producers surveyed voted for Clinton, Kerry and Gore. Many of them MC fundraisers for Democrats.
Many of the top ones belong to secret clubs promoting a globalism run by a small aristocracy. They are sworn to secrecy.
Others hobnob with politicians at retreats like Renaissance Weekend, where they will be banished if they ever reveal what went on. The politicians manipulate them like children, while they tell each other how smart and objective they are.
Lee, more good stuff, and thanks.
As you seem to be a “problem child” on this blog, along with Mark Whittington and me, please do me a favor and take a look at my website —
http://www.writein-sc.blogspot.com
and give me your honest opinion on it — on that site. Thanks in advance.
Journalistic “objectivity” doesn’t exist. That was my point in one of the posts above.
Our endorsements are not “scientific” or “objective.” I explained carefully that the very value of editorials arise from the fact that they tell the full truth as we see it — and no one can do better toward the truth than to tell it as HE sees it — and that means including the subjective impressions that exist between the facts and figures, and help them make sense.
I’ll have to go find the post from Kerry Wood’s sister. Which post was it on? But I won’t be apologizing for dismissing her brother’s candidacy.
It is the complete truth that there are two candidates mostly likely to get the nomination. The contrast between them is huge, and stark. The consequences for our schools of picking the wrong one could be very dramatic. I worry very much that readers will not avail themselves of enough information about those two to make a sound choice between them on Tuesday, and in the runoff.
Any distraction caused by candidates who have no chance makes it more likely that voters will make a choice they will later regret. Mr. Wood means well, but don’t you understand that in some races, third candidates are actually recruited to split votes, to distract people away from a better candidate they might otherwise vote for? That’s because of this mechanism I’m talking about.
Whatever.
WE ARE NOT ALONE. 05 JUN 2006.
No one has suggested an apology.
A lot of times an incumbent or annointed candidate has no opposition, until an independent or third party candidate files in order to force a shows that most people don’t really like Mr. Big. The other major party scrambles to find a credible candidate, usually very dignified and above reproach.
Soon the polls show Mr. Big with 48%, Mr. Challenger with 47%, and Little Guy with 5%.
The pundits and press demand that Little Guy withdraw. After an underfunded campaign by the Challenger, Mr. Big wins by a hair, and the other major party, pundits and press denounce third party and independent candidates as “spoilers”.