COMMENTARY: Endorsements Coming, But Why?

By the time election season is done, the editorial board of this newspaper will have interviewed about 60 candidates for public office to discuss their campaigns, their opponents and the future of cities, counties and the great state of Arkansas.

I could wallpaper my office with the colorful fliers candidates pass out to prospective voters and our board. Whether Democrat, Republican or nonpartisan, the candidates’ handouts promise dedication, leadership, integrity, listening, representation, common sense, increased services, lower taxes and constituent communication. They use all the time-tested, consultant-approved watchwords.

New candidates promise new voices, new directions, new ideas.

The folks we’ve seen before tout experience, stability, established relationships.

I’ve been in the newspaper business now for 24 years as a professional, so that accounts for 12 election cycles, plus school and special elections. For a little more than a decade, I’ve been involved in the endorsement process of my newspaper.

Some folks, including candidates, are shocked a newspaper endorses at all, but newspapers have a long history of making their selections known.

Here’s our process: We educate ourselves on the issues and candidates, then invite people in contested races one by one to visit with members our editorial board. Then members of the editorial board discuss each race and make a pick. Those picks will be identified in the coming days in the daily space reserved for our editorial board’s perspective on the left side of this page.

This process is separate from the newspaper’s news gathering process.

Reporters who write stories about the campaigns have nothing to do with the interview process or the editorial board’s deliberations.

Indeed, the reporters typically find out who the newspaper is endorsing at the same time our readers do. Endorsements play no role in how a race is covered by reporters.

One candidate the other day flatly refused to meet with our editorial board.

“You guys are going to do what you want to do anyway,” he said. A brilliant analysis, given none of us are likely to voluntarily do what we don’t want to do. His assumption was clearly the editorial board members make up their minds ahead of the interviews and nothing can change them.

He’s wrong about that.

We pay attention to campaigns and form opinions about issues we read about in our reporters’ stories. But there have been many times I started interviews expecting one outcome only to discover after all questions are answered the outcome was different. Sometimes that meant a candidate won me over with how informed she was on the issues and sometimes it meant a candidate botched things so badly that the prepackaged version I had been impressed with just didn’t measure up.

Candidates who failed to get our endorsement in one race have returned in future years far more prepared for the job and have earned an endorsement.

So what do we expect you to do with the endorsements? Well, to borrow a phrase, you’re going to do whatever you want to do. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Our endorsements should be one part of the discussion. We have a great opportunity to visit with the candidates, and many voters don’t have that. The collective impression expressed by the editorial board is worth consideration. Our endorsements generally will center on who we believe will most effective in the position they seek.

It’s not about any litmus test on any particular issue. Indeed, the editorial boards I’ve been involved with over the years have endorsed candidates with starkly different world views and stances on the same issues. Why? Because we’re not trying to pick candidates who simply agree with us on issues.

We endorse the ones who seem the best fit for the population of voters they seek to represent and who can demonstrate their knowledge and likely effectiveness as an officeholder.

Why do newspapers endorse? Newspapers, on their editorial pages, express opinions all year long about issues important to our communities, state and nation. Newspapers urge people to get informed and to vote because that’s what citizens should do.

It would be odd, it seems to me, for newspapers to suddenly become silent on the critically important question of who governs.

You can expect to see this newspaper’s endorsement selections in the coming days on this page. In the end, I have the utmost respect for the people who put themselves on the line to seek public office. But elections are about choices, and choose we will.

It’s up to each reader how much weight to give or not give to the opinion of this newspaper’s editorial board. I encourage voters to do their homework and make their own decisions.

GREG HARTON IS OPINION PAGE EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 10/15/2012

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