Perhaps the biggest shocker of today was the endorsement of Joe Biden by the right-wing Manchester or New Hampshire Union-Leader, which hasn't endorsed any Democrat for president in over a century:
Building this country up sits squarely within the skill set of Joseph Biden. We have found Mr. Biden to be a caring, compassionate and professional public servant. He has repeatedly expressed his desire to be a president for all of America, and we take him at his word. Joe Biden may not be the president we want, but in 2020 he is the president we desperately need. He will be a president to bring people together and right the ship of state.
Biden is not perfect. We are not satisfied with his responses about his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. His understanding of gun rights leaves a lot to be desired (Joe says we only need shotguns). He suggests cops faced with a deadly threat should “shoot them in the leg.” He also seems to be copying more pages out of the “Green New Deal” than we would like.
Our policy disagreements with Joe Biden are significant. Despite our endorsement of his candidacy, we expect to spend a significant portion of the next four years disagreeing with the Biden administration on our editorial pages.
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Not a newspaper endorsement, but I do want to point readers to the NYT's blistering obituary of the GOP. It isn't to be missed:
Most horrifically, Republican leaders have stood by as the president has lied to the public about a pandemic that has already killed more than 220,000 Americans. They have watched him politicize masks, testing, the distribution of emergency equipment and pretty much everything else. Some echo his incendiary talk, fueling violence in their own communities. In the campaign’s closing weeks, as case numbers and hospitalizations climb and health officials warn of a rough winter, Mr. Trump is stepping up the attacks on his scientific advisers, deriding them as “idiots” and declaring Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert in infectious diseases, a “disaster.” Only a smattering of Republican officials has managed even a tepid defense of Dr. Fauci. Whether out of fear, fealty or willful ignorance, these so-called leaders are complicit in this national tragedy.
The degeneracy has been going on since the 1960s, beginning with Nixon's Southern Strategy following the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the bleeding of the Dixiecrats from the Democratic Party. The gangrene was just beginning to start on the GOP and now it has ravaged the party to look even worse than Mitch McConnell looks now.
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More endorsements for Joe Biden:
Biden is well positioned to repair the wreckage Trump has made of the federal government, from the foreign service to the science agencies Trump has tried to politicize. As vice president in the Obama administration, Biden played a central role in the last economic recovery and is equipped to handle another one.
Even before the pandemic struck, Trump did no better than the Obama-Biden administration on job creation, the stock market and economic growth. (Remember his promise to pay off the national debt in eight years? It's now $27 trillion, up more than $7 trillion from four years ago.) Biden knows that the recovery process will require, first and foremost, a comprehensive national response to the COVID-19 crisis that has upended Americans’ lives and left large sectors of the economy reeling.
This extraordinary moment in the history of our nation requires an extraordinary response. With his plans, his personnel picks, his experience and his humanity, Joe Biden can help lead the United States out of this morass and into the future. Your vote can help make that happen.
Will this endorsement have any effect on what you read about the presidential campaign in USA TODAY’s news reports? No. Will it cause the Editorial Board to pull its punches if Biden were to become president? Also no.
We may never endorse a presidential nominee again. In fact, we hope we'll never have to.
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In the middle of a 100-year pandemic in which Donald Trump’s fatal failures have been magnified, it’s easy to forget that the president proved himself an unethical, unprincipled, unstable, juvenile, incompetent, ignorant, lying, fearmongering, race-baiting chief executive before any of us had heard of COVID-19.
Recall that he was impeached in December and tried by the Senate in January for trying to strongarm an ally to announce a political investigation into Joe Biden’s son. And long before that, Trump had racked up a record of bad behavior that he has in certain respects succeeded in breaking the system. So many norms has he violated, the public has grown numb.
This was written back in July.
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Like virtually all second-term elections, this year’s presidential vote is largely a referendum on the incumbent. Unlike most previous second-term elections, this choice is straightforward. Joe Biden must be the country’s next president.
This is partly because Donald Trump has been disastrous to the American idea of democracy and partly because Biden’s experience, decency and judgment will not only serve the country well but, in fact, make him the antidote to four years of authoritarian delusions, juvenile insults and outright betrayal.
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Honolulu Star Advertiser: Behind a paywall.
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Columbus Dispatch: I believe this is the same editorial as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune endorsement.
The Star Tribune Editorial Board believes Democratic nominee Joe Biden has the character, experience, purpose and vision to so lead this nation as its next president.
At every juncture where President Donald Trump could have brought this country together, he has sought to tear it apart. The ongoing lack of a federal strategy to deal with COVID-19, the mistrust he has cultivated about scientific evidence, his blatant politicization of masks and social distancing, all have crippled the nation's ability to meet this crisis head-on.
Early on in the pandemic Trump deliberately turned states against one another, in a Hunger Games-style scramble for needed resources, creating needless havoc. Even now, having contracted the disease, he continues to downplay its severity, jeopardizing those around him and turning the White House itself into a hot spot.
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Donald Trump has proven to be the president we feared when he was elected four years ago: divisive, impulsive, self-reverential and, ultimately, ineffective.
Trump has twisted his office for personal gain, billing taxpayers millions for stays at his resorts and extorting the leader of Ukraine to interfere in this year’s election, bringing about a well-deserved impeachment. He prefers taunts and tweets to negotiation and compromise. His contempt for U.S. allies, denial of climate change and sympathy for white supremacists will harm America for years to come.
Trump must be held accountable for bungling the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in lost lives and an economic collapse unlike any since the Great Depression.
His unfounded claims of mail-ballot fraud and refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power are beyond irresponsible.
But our purpose isn’t to tell you why Trump shouldn’t be reelected. His unfitness for office is self-evident.
Joe Biden is the antidote the United States needs after this poisonous presidency. Biden is the antithesis of Trump: polite, empathetic, a man who believes in government and puts other people ahead of himself.
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oe Biden should be the next president of the United States.
He should be the next president of the United States because he is caring, trustworthy and experienced. He should be the next president of the United States because he has committed to following the science and leading our country out of this pandemic.
Yes, you might have heard that he’s also a Democrat. He deserves your support anyway.
Everyone knows that Kansas is a red state. We’ve reliably cast our votes for Republican presidential candidates for decades upon decades. But we’re also not a hopelessly partisan state. We have elected Democratic governors and U.S. representatives. We have elected many problem-solving moderate Republicans to the Statehouse.
That’s because we value the old-fashioned civic values and virtues. We value decency, the kind seen in legendary politicians like Nancy Landon Kassebaum and Bob Dole. We value watching out for our neighbors, no matter the color of their skin, their religion or their sexual orientation. We value putting in a hard day’s work. We value the opportunities this country has brought us, as we know that so many of us are immigrants.
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More to come...
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