Newspaper Endorsements

The Bakersfield Californian has decided not to make an endorsement at all:

he Californian got out of the presidential endorsement business in 2012, when, for the first time in our history, we did not make a recommendation. That was the race between incumbent Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Many newspapers have done the same in recent years.

This time, the party lines are blurred, with a Democratic candidate who sounds like Ronald Reagan when the subject is Russia and a Republican candidate who expresses views on international military cooperation and trade that run counter to previous Republican positions.

But then Trump himself has reminded voters, more than once, that he is the candidate of what “is called the Republican Party, it’s not called the Conservative Party.” And Clinton has alienated her party’s liberal wing by cozying up to Wall Street — so much so she may have trouble bringing supporters of her vanquished primary foe, Bernie Sanders, into her tent.