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Politics Government

Crawford Newspaper Endorses Kerry 346

Posted by michael from the all-hat-no-cattle dept.
ramoth4 writes "Local Crawford, TX (Bush's adopted hometown) paper The Lone Star Iconoclast has endorsed John Kerry for president. Kerry's home paper, the Boston Globe, hasn't come out with an endorsement yet. It's a very interesting editorial, especially in light of Bush's performance in the first debate."
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Crawford Newspaper Endorses Kerry More

Crawford Newspaper Endorses Kerry

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  • This is news? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:00PM (#10442119)
    A paper in town of 46,000 people makes an endorsement? Who cares if it's Bush's 'adopted' home town?
    • Somehow I don't think they like him better in New Haven.

    • Re:This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DaoudaW ( 533025 )
      Did you RTFA? It has nothing to do with being in a small town. It's a solid editorial made ironic by the fact its from Bush's home town.

      • Re:This is news? (Score:2, Redundant)

        by N3WBI3 ( 595976 )
        As ironic as gor losing his home state of Tenesee and Bill Clintons home state of Arkansas in 2000?

    • Re:This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:09PM (#10442267) Homepage
      A paper with a circulation of 425, no less. Nevermind the Lowell Sun endorsing Bush [lowellsun.com], though.

      --trb
  • I'm asking because a paper named "The Lone Star Iconoclast" doesn't sound too mainstream, and suggests pre-existing partisanship.

    Rob

    • Re:Is this Crawford's only newspaper? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) * <seebert42@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:02PM (#10442164) Homepage Journal
      The interesting thing about the pre-existing partisanship comes out in the editorial- where they go through every single instance of supporting the President going back to the 2000 campaign, and exactly how he failed in EVERY instance. In addition, I found the section on what his real campaign promises should have been to be quite interesting- and they're right, nobody would have voted for what he actually accomplished.

      • Quotes from various places in the article: (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:36PM (#10442656) Homepage

        Quotes from various places in the article:

        "The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda."

        "He let us down."

        "He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong."

        "Again, he let us down."

        "Job training has been cut every year that Bush has resided at the White House."

        People in Crawford are in a position to know George W. Bush a little better than most citizens. It seems that the newspaper is merely saying openly what a lot of people in that town think.

        Also, Bush's alcoholism is a matter of importance. For example, look at this: Is Bush drinking NOW? [dailykos.com]. For a more in-depth analysis, see this: The psychological effects of alcoholism provide a framework for understanding the Bush administration. [futurepower.org] Remember, Bush quit the Air National Guard the same month the ANG instituted drug testing. Did he fall off the wagon again?

        --
        Bush: "When Saudis attack, invade Iraq."
        • I have alcoholics in my family- the one surprising thing in that article is that Bush was seen with a Beer. I'm sure most Bush supporters would simply say "So What?", but to me, a single drink is enough for an alcoholic personality to destroy his life, his business, and take as many people down with him as possible. It's not possible for an alcholic to have "just one" drink. My grandfather, a 12-beer-an-hour drunk, was always on drink #2- he could see the one he was drinking and the empty in front of him

  • Bush != Conservative (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ericspinder ( 146776 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:02PM (#10442155) Journal
    I think that it just goes to show, that true conservatives cannot vote for Bush. The Republican Party is no longer conservative, they are a bunch of various single-issue voters who cobble together for political strength. As the debates progress, more people will see John Kerry, not as the man Bush and his cronies has spent million to defame, but as a strong leader, who really cares about the people of America and America's place in the world. Other than a couple of retread ideas from his first campain (tort reform, etc) Bush has a campain based on attacking Kerry as weak; he cannot run on his record, so he tries to burn his opposition.
    • Not on all issues. Both candidate's approaches domestic and fiscal issues are classical liberal -vs- conservative approaches. For example:

      Problem:
      --------
      Health care costs are skyrocketing, causing small businesses to suffer.

      Kerry:
      ------
      1. Raise taxes on the rich.
      2. Use that to provide a tax credit to small businesses who provide health insurance to their employees.
      3. Work toward universal government-mandated health care.

      Bush:
      -----
      1. Allow small businesses to pool into larger groups to get cheaper heal

      • Allow small businesses to pool into larger groups to get cheaper health care.

        you know that's not bad, too bad he has only had 4 long years, and hasn't done it yet!

        Provide tax-free health care savings plans for employees (much like flexible spending accounts are today)

        Again 4 long years, plus the government needs to take in some money. Bush has been giving too much of my an my child's future away to his core supporters already (huge defict)

        Medical liability reform to keep the lawyers out of the

        • Again 4 long years, plus the government needs to take in some money. Bush has been giving too much of my an my child's future away to his core supporters already (huge defict)

          These are a reality now in the form of Health Care Savings Accounts. If you qualify for such an account by having a high-deductible insurance plan (either individually or at work), you can put money into an HSA like you would a flex plan, but anything that you don't spend will stay there for next year (that's the savings part of it

  • Tripe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the morgawr ( 670303 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:04PM (#10442194) Homepage Journal
    This junk is quoted from the Democratic Party's website and framed as the independant thoughts of the editors. If you want to slam someone at least be creative about it instead of committing plagarism.
    • Got a link?

      • Try their platform (Political sites are blocked from work or I'd post a URL). Also if you don't realise that this is the democratic party's possition on these issues being quoted you've got your head shoved pretty far up....
        • Also if you don't realise that this is the democratic party's possition on these issues being quoted you've got your head shoved pretty far up....

          That may be true , but are those positions wrong?

          • They are opinions and can be neither right nor wrong. They can however be original or copied. In this case they are copied and for a newspaper opinion page, which is supposed to be the home of original opinion, copied opinion should not be acceptable.
        • I looked, didn't see the "Bush turned his campaign promises insided out" position anywhere on the DNC's website.

          Your insult aside, I don't see this as anything other than a newspaper editor explaining why he changed his endorsement from Bush to not-Bush. If you want to call this parotting the DNC's platform--well, I'd have to say that you're abstracting the issues so far that you'd be unable to tell the Green Party from the Democrats or Terrorists from Muslims.

    • The American Press is mostly a mouthpiece for the two major parties. It is very rare to find a good, objective article in most of the newspapers or on the TV.

      I'm not at all suprised that newspapers would lift the text directly from the DNC website, after all, they've been lifting text from the Bush Administration for the last 3 years, the Clinton Administration before that, etc.

  • It's sad... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Your_Mom ( 94238 ) <slashdot@@@innismir...net> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:04PM (#10442198) Homepage
    It's sad that the AP picks up the fact [littlegreenfootballs.com] that a paper with a circulation of 425 supports Kerry. But there is not mention that the Lowell Sun, a ciculation of 100,000+ and a major newspaper in Massachusetts, Endorses Bush [lowellsun.com].

    No Bias here. Noooooosiirrreeee.
    • Let me know when the Boston Globe endorses Kerry.

      • Re:It's sad... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by (trb001) ( 224998 )
        It doesn't really have to, the Globe is known to be one of the more respectable but left-wing papers in the country, next to the LA Times. Not surprising considering Boston, and the entire state of MA, tends to be rather left-wing itself. Remember the Globe is also the paper that first fubar'd and ran all the CBS memo stuff like it was gospel.

        --trb

    • Re:It's sad... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by isaac ( 2852 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:22PM (#10442459)
      It's sad that the AP picks up the fact that a paper with a circulation of 425 supports Kerry. But there is not mention that the Lowell Sun, a ciculation of 100,000+ and a major newspaper in Massachusetts, Endorses Bush.

      What makes this a story is that Bush's hometown paper endorsed him in 2000. The Lowell Sun has been attacking Kerry relentlessly since 1972 when Kerry first moved there and upset the local good-ol-boy political network. It's not "news" when the Sun publishes the same "Vote Kerry's Opponent" endorsement it's published for the last 32 years.

      -Isaac

      • Oh yes. Kerry the outsider. That's a good one.

        Though I guess it's relative. Are you an upstart here if your family's only lived here 200 years rather than 300?
    • From your link:
      He said he will do all that is humanly possible and necessary to make certain that terrorists never strike again on U.S. soil. Can anyone deny that President Bush has not delivered?
      Heh. No, I can't deny that...

  • Why do we put up with this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sgant ( 178166 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:12PM (#10442311) Homepage Journal
    I was just wondering, why would a Newspaper or a news outlet go out and say "We're endorsing this candidate over this other one".

    I mean, shouldn't they at least TRY to be non-biased about the news they report? I know I know...there is this "Liberal Media" that's suppose to pump up all Democrats and rake-across-the-coals all Republicans...at the same time there are conservative news outlets that almost try to convince us that Democrats cause cancer....but shouldn't they at least pretend to not be biased?

    I want my news from unbiased..."we don't endorse anyone" kind of thing. I know, it's a pipe dream to try to find just raw news reporting without SOMEONE saying it's biased one way or another.

    Just always wondered why newspapers go out on a limb like that.
    • The claim (true or not, I don't know), is that the editorial staff of a newspaper and the news staff (including the news editor) are completely different. So, you can get a paper with news reporting that is "un"biased, or biased in direction, and editorials that biased in a different direction.

      When people have explained this to me, they always cite a famous newspaper, The Washington Post, perhaps? I can't remember, but has anyone else heard this explanation?

      If true, then it would help explain why newspape
      • That's an interesting way of looking at it. Acts as kind of a filter for the reader to know where the paper is coming from.

        Never thought about it that way. I suppose I'm trying to live in an idealized world.
    • Just always wondered why newspapers go out on a limb like that.

      Like Soylent Green, newspapers are made out of people.

      The fact is that some journalists go into reporting as a way to satisfy their desire to be listened to. They report what they want you to hear in the way they want to you hear it.

      Many uphold and respect the idea of no bias, but only the stupid believe that they are really unbiased.

      Small town papers don't pay well, and won't necessarily have the kind of reporter that can be as un
    • Uh, maybe you're new the game but most *editorial* pages contain, well, *editorials*. And the reason they have editorial pages is because they don't want their own bias to interfere with the news stories they publish. The problem is *not* with the editorials themselves, it's with publishing editorials in the news pages.

      See the editorial today in the nytimes as an example of this. They publish an editorial saying that Condi should be fired because of the Iraqi centrifuge lies/mistruths/errors/whatever.
  • Kerry's home toilet paper, the tabloid Boston Herald [bostonherald.com], hasn't endorsed anyone yet either.
  • in their facts. Blaming Bush for Clinton's budget and economic problems, etc. The Social Security privatization plan has been pushed since before Bush was in office. And Kerry has had to tear down the plan Bush has pushed. It promises to be more successful than anything else Kerry can come up with, which is basically to keep the current plan until the Social Security plan goes bankrupt, which will be in most of our lifetimes.

  • More of this? (Score:3)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#10442422) Journal
    As with most of the stories that wind up in this section, this is:

    1) Ludicrously insignificant
    2) A week old

  • Well that settles it then... (Score:3, Funny)

    by AnwerB ( 255422 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:19PM (#10442423)
    Well that settles it then! Everyone vote for Kerry!

    I mean, really - I have no idea who to vote for until someone tells me. I'm just scared that someone will come along and endorse Bush, and then I'll have no idea what to do...

  • Social Security (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the morgawr ( 670303 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:26PM (#10442528) Homepage Journal
    The most disturbing thing about this article is it's point of view on social security. It shows a compleate lack of understanding and total disreguard for reality.

    Social Security as it exists today is a massive government mandated pyramid scheme that lets politicians in Washington dupe millions of people out of hard earned money on the grounds that it's "for retirement". In truth had the government issued savings bonds (the lowest yeild investment you can get) to everyone on Social Security everybody would have been better off. The government could have used the lower interest debt to pay off higher interest debt and the retireees would have more money. Furthermore the retirees would know EXACTLY how much money they have for retirement and know it is gauranteed instead of having some vague promise subject to political whims. Instead, the current scheme was concocted where people working today pay for those who worked before them and they in turn will be paid for by those who work after them. Obviously this rely's on the pool of workers never dropping, a rediculous assumption. Furthermore, as it is, the payouts on Social Security for almost all beneficiaries are below inflation (that is they are getting less value out then they put in) and served as a worse investment than savings bonds (which is considered the lowest return you should every accept and then only in small ammounts). While this isn't that big of a deal for those of us making enough money to plan for retirement without social security, many people who are less fortunate then us NEED that money to be invested wisely so that they CAN retire. Ripping them off for political gains is amoral behavior and should stop. What we need to do is get the government and it's bueracray out of running a retirement bussiness. Steps:

    1. Give everyone who has paid into social security savings bonds retroactively for all of the money they put in. Use this lower interest debt to pay off the higher interest debt the government already has. This should free up enough cash to deal with the people who choose to cash out of their savings bonds early.
    2. The treasury deparment already has an automatic payroll program for savings bonds. Transition social security to this (including the employer matching).
    3. Given any american who wants it, the option of opting out (and being responsible for themselves).
    These steps can "privatize" social security without any added beuracracy, legislation, and little cost.
    • These steps can "privatize" social security without any added beuracracy, legislation, and little cost.

      Great. Except I am confused over the "little cost" line. If we give someone a savings bond, then there is a cost. It may be hidden somehow by being a bond (and maybe you can explain it to me), but a bond still has some cost somewhere along the way. Note that it is pretty likely the government is already paying low interest rates on it's debt (the government refinances its debt the same way we all re-

    • Re:Social Security (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Social security really was designed by those that believe in the re-distribution of wealth. Now that we have that system in place, people depend on it, so we can't cut it off without massive social upheaval.

      I'm all for reforming social security, but transitioning to a system where you pay into your own savings account has a few problems.

      1) where do you get the money to support those that are currently on Social Security? Right now, it comes from those that are putting money in. As I'm sure you're awar
      • Basically I'm suggesting that we rework our liability to make our debt more flexible (see other comments above).

        > How do you fund those that can't work, will never work (the disabled)?

        This is currently a separate program, I presume it would stay that way.

        > How do you resolve the fact that some people, even if forced to save a portion of their income, will never have enough money saved to be able to retire

        I would strongly encourage those people to refuse to work in jobs that don't pay them subs

  • Meaningless (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mtaco ( 520758 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @01:29PM (#10442569)
    It's ironic, but meaningless. The owner/editor is a Democrat who has run for office, been defeated, and doesn't live in Crawford.

    Most of the town residents have started boycotting the paper since the editorial ran.

  • If I were Kerry I would disavow this endorsement. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:53PM (#10443581) Homepage Journal
    This isn't a respectable paper. Its founder was a very virulent anti-Baptist writer. One who took very negative views of black Americans.

    Nah, I don't think I would want this endorsement, regardless of how many years since its founding. The original founder is just to shameful.

  • As a Conservative, this said it best for me. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Sevn ( 12012 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @02:58PM (#10443646) Homepage Journal


    Why I will vote for John Kerry for President - by John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

    THE Presidential election to be held this coming Nov. 2 will be one of extraordinary importance to the future of our nation. The outcome will determine whether this country will continue on the same path it has followed for the last 3½ years or whether it will return to a set of core domestic and foreign policy values that have been at the heart of what has made this country great.

    Now more than ever, we voters will have to make cool judgments, unencumbered by habits of the past. Experts tell us that we tend to vote as our parents did or as we "always have." We remained loyal to party labels. We cannot afford that luxury in the election of 2004. There are times when we must break with the past, and I believe this is one of them.

    As son of a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it is automatically expected by many that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration's decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent, and barring some utterly unforeseen development, I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.

    The fact is that today's "Republican" Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word "Republican" has always been synonymous with the word "responsibility," which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today's whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.

    Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.

    In the Middle East crisis of 1991, President George H.W. Bush marshaled world opinion through the United Nations before employing military force to free Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. Through negotiation he arranged for the action to be financed by all the industrialized nations, not just the United States. When Kuwait had been freed, President George H. W. Bush stayed within the United Nations mandate, aware of the dangers of occupying an entire nation.

    Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? I wonder. In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, "If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both." I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.

    The Republican Party I used to know placed heavy emphasis on fiscal responsibility, which included balancing the budget whenever the state of the economy allowed it to do so. The Eisenhower administration accomplished that difficult task three times during its eight years in office. It did not attain that remarkable achievement by cutting taxes for the rich. Republicans disliked taxes, of course, but the party accepted them as a necessary means of keep the nation's financial structure sound.

    The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today's Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.

    Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the

  • And in other news... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by raider_red ( 156642 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @04:15PM (#10444585) Journal
    Both major parties want to control your life. There's about five inches between the agenda of the Democrats and the Republicans, and only on highly divisive issues which are harped on because they're highly divisive.

    They're also both aided and abetted by a media which never concentrates on substantive issues and instead gives us a constant, meaningless stream of soundbytes, empty endorsements, and stupid comments about which candidate had the slicker speaking style or better hair.

    We've let politics in America degenerate to the banality of the Redskins/Cowboys rivalry, (btw: Go Cowboys!) and in effect, insured that the government will grow stronger at our expenses, and for the benefit of big business and other special interests.

    What to do about it? This year, I'm seriously planning to vote for a third party candidate who more closely matches my values. I'm also taking the attitude that I should live my life the way I want to. If I don't like one state's tax policy, I'm not moving there. I voted with my feet and moved to Texas instead of California. If you don't like Wal-mart and other unethically run businesses, then find some locally owned businesses to patronize. If you don't have any, please move to Austin and support our local businesses. I didn't buy an SUV bacause I don't want to consume that much fuel, and I bought a 1000 square foot condo instead of the big house I can afford. I don't see the need to buy a bunch of needless crap to fill up a big house.

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