From the Reporters

The Case for Election-Year Empiricism

 

A staple of any election year is the cacophony of newspaper endorsements, which for the most part tend to follow established political patterns. It comes as no surprise when The New York Times or The Washington Post endorses a Democratic nominee for president, nor when The New York Post or The Washington Times backs the GOP candidate.

The divisiveness of this particular campaign has caused many media outlets to step up their usual rhetoric. For example, The Wall Street Journal, bound by its historical policy of not endorsing candidates, instead devoted much of its October editorial and op-ed space to a carpet-bombing of the Kerry candidacy, with particular attention to Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns, culminating today with a lead editorial about Bush that stops shy of an endorsement only by its omission of the word "endorse."

But one of the most interesting developments this year is that some surprisingly balanced dialogue has emerged from some unexpected quarters. The Economist, which has a traditional rightward lean and notably supported the invasion of Iraq, this week reluctantly decided to endorse John Kerry. Still more notably, The American Conservative, unable to reach an editorial consensus, packaged its endorsement as a collection of six essays that in turn offer cases for both Bush and Kerry, as well as three independent candidates, and even one argument in favor of that act of democratic sacrilege: not voting at all.

The bottom line is that, out of all the partisan rancor in one of the most divisive elections in recent American history, there actually may be an endgame trend toward traditional partisans rethinking entrenched positions and making stronger distinctions between a party doctrine and an individual candidate, affirming that each deserves its own equal and independent scrutiny when making decisions at the ballot box. For all the talk of American politics devolving into a reality TV caricature of itself, maybe informed, nonpartisan political debate is not yet dead after all.