‘Tis the Season.

Every four years American newspapers try to convince their readers to vote for Candidate A over Candidate B in the presidential debate. This election season of course those candidates are Republican John McCain and Democratic Barack Obama. I thought I would inform Instablogs readers about these newspaper endorsements and what candidate is getting most of them. (This might be a multi-part contribution).

The Los Angeles Times - Obama
The Kansas City Star - Obama
The Chicago Tribune - Obama
The Chicago Sun-Times - Obama
The Washington Post - Obama
El Diario/La Prensa(largest Spanish daily in New York) - Obama
The San Francisco Chronicle - Obama
The Dallas Morning News - McCain
The Tampa Tribune (Florida) - McCain
The Denver Post - Obama
The Salt Lake Tribune - Obama
The Oregonian (Portland, Oregon) - Obama
The Miami Herald - Obama
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Obama
The Bangor Daily News (Maine) - Obama
The Times Record of Brunswick (Maine) - Obama
The New York Daily News - Obama
The Atlanta Journal Constitution - Obama
The Columbian (Washington state) - Obama
Las Cruces Sun-News (New Mexico) - Obama
. . . . . . . . .

There are many more endorsements, Obama picked up 25 paper endorsements on Friday alone. So far Obama has picked up 66 endorsements to McCain’s 18; a 3-1 ration. In 2004, in contrast, John Kerry only had a short lead over George Bush, when all the paper’s had made their endorsements Kerry had 213 to Bush’s 205.
Obama clearly has a big lead with paper endorsements over McCain and, outstandingly, Obama was picked up endorsements from traditionally Republican papers including The Chicago Tribune. The Chicago Tribune has not endorsed a Democratic once in its 161 year history. And although The Los Angeles Times is a left-leaning paper, their endorsement of Obama is the first presidential endorsement for the paper since 1972’s endorsement of Richard Nixon’s reelection. As of yet the nation’s three national and among its most prominent and influential papers have not endorsed any candidate: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Their endorsements are forthcoming.