In this Part, I’ll be looking at the WaPo endorsements. Afterwards, I’ll provide some commentary.
First, lets see how partisan they were. In the statewide races, they endorsed 3 of 3 Democrats. In the in 23 Delegate Districts that they made endorsements in, they endorsed 20 Democrats and 3 Republicans. In the 26 total endorsements that they made, 88.5% were Democrats. Now, how can the WaPo legitimately claim to be a non-partisan newspaper? Not only that, only 46% of their nominees won. None of their statewide picks won, nor did their Republicans, as well as a few others.
Very interesting. I think voters will be looking at the WaPo picks next time with a grain of salt. How can we say that the Washington Post picks candidates that share the values of the voters? Creigh Deeds won by the biggest landslide in VA history. My message to the Post: Please endorse more Democrats running for Statewide office. Voters of VA love rejecting your picks.
November 18, 2009 at 12:36 pm
To be fair, I don’t think the Post’s endorsements are meant either to be predictions or claim to be representing the values of the voters. They are endorsing who THEY believe are the best candidates. What they believe is best may or may not have any corollation to what Virginians believe is best. And clearly this time around, the corollation was virtually zero.
But having said that, I share your overall appraisal of the Post’s conduct during the campaign. I wrote a somewhat lengthy critique of their coverage in one of my blog posts recently:
http://jasonffoster.blogspot.com/2009/11/bob-mcdonnell-and-washington-post.html