The Hillary Clinton campaign has been trumpeting The Bulletin's Sunday endorsement of the New York senator - The EYE got an e-mail from them about it yesterday - but statewide, Barack Obama is clobbering Clinton in the newspaper endorsement race.
As of this morning the Illinois senator had picked up editorial endorsements from The Oregonian, the Eugene Register-Guard, the Medford Mail Tribune, the Ashland Daily Tidings, Willamette Week, the Portland Mercury, the Portland Observer, The Skanner, Pamplin Media (which publishes four papers in Portland, Forest Grove, Estacada and Gresham) and, way out in cowboy country, the East Oregonian.
Obama even has won the endorsement of The Bulletin's sister paper, the La Grande Observer. (Although both papers are part of the Western Communications chain, they're editorially independent.)
As far as The EYE has been able to ascertain, the only Oregon daily besides The Bulletin that has endorsed Clinton is the Salem Statesman-Journal.
Newspaper endorsements don't carry as much weight with voters as they used to, maybe, but they still give candidates a little added credibility - as well as providing good quotes to use in their commercials.
Afterthought: Besides complaining that Obama's resume is a little thin, The Bulletin said it was endorsing Clinton because she would "be more likely ... to defeat McCain in November." Now, why would what is arguably the state's most Republican-leaning daily newspaper want somebody who's likely to defeat McCain in November?
