Kerry for President (Oregonian endorsement - they endorsed Bush in 2000)

[swag]

http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1097409458114160.xml

First four graphs here (though the editorial gets even better):

When George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001, he and his team moved quickly to push government hard to the right.

This effort came even though Bush campaigned as a moderate and his narrow, contested election was anything but a mandate for sweeping change.

But if Bush partisans could turn aside disagreement with a brusque "elections have consequences" in 2001, it turns out today that governing has consequences, too.

One of them should be that Americans elect John Kerry president in November.

. . .

[swag]

1. And a not terribly enlightening comment on the endorsement

from the Oregonian's "public editor"

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/public_editor/index.ssf?/base/editorial/1097323439152041.xml

Publisher Fred Stickel argued strongly in an editorial board meeting that The Oregonian should endorse George W. Bush.

On today's editorial page, the newspaper backs John Kerry.

The decision reveals starkly how the newspaper makes political endorsements, from the range of opinions behind the scenes to the extraordinary independence that a publisher grants his editors. I wrote about the endorsement process last month and decided to revisit it to detail how this year's decision evolved because I anticipate many readers will have questions about it.

The decision is the responsibility of Bob Caldwell, the newspaper's editorial page editor. But he relies heavily on the other members of the newspaper's editorial board. The board is made up of Caldwell, the newspaper's six editorial writers, and also Stickel and Editor Sandy Rowe.

. . .