Boil and simmer: how we endorse

Since there has been so much interpretation of how and why The Seattle Times endorses candidates and supports issues, perhaps you should hear from the guy who does it for a living.

The Times' opinion-page support of Mike McGavick for U.S. Senate caused some readers to cancel their subscriptions — although that's not nearly the amount of flak we took for endorsing Michael Dukakis for president in 1988, George W. Bush in 2000, Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and some members of the Seattle School Board last year. As with any daily newspaper in a country divided, a region divided and a state divided, readers and commentators tend to look in a mirror when deciding how their daily news, opinion and comic strips appeal to them that day. That explains why anyone can cherry-pick an endorsement and argue selectively that the paper's judgment is flawed.

I like to think our world, the one you and I share, is more complicated than that. An endorsement for a major political office is not a checklist; it is a combination of events and emotions that catch a moment and, with an editorial eye, tries to bring an accumulation of opinions to a boil.

Boil and simmer, boil and simmer is the world of the editorial writer as events, ideas and candidates move around the stovetop and the laptop.

In our endorsements of McGavick and Republican Dave Reichert in the Eastside 8th Congressional District, the usual hubbub about The Times being one of the most liberal newspapers in the state died down a bit. In the case of both candidates, members of the editorial-page staff looked at party independence among the top priorities, along with growth in or out of office.

I think newspapers that can't reach beyond one ideology or one party get very dull and ignore the complexities of a campaign. As to why we do endorsements, it goes back historically to newspapers as purveyors of opinion first, before there were news departments.

For a paper not to use its institutional voice would remove a freedom, a crucible for candidates, and reduce the ability of a paper to connect so strongly with readers. People get mad at talk radio, at newspapers, but does anybody get mad at local television news?

At each day's editorial staff meeting — 9:30 a.m. — ideas based on staff research or news events are tossed around the table. The decision to support McGavick went back and forth for several weeks. We all knew the timetable for commentary such as this is moving up. It's no longer possible to wait until a week before an election to make a recommendation.

The staff was split and I was part of the decision that went with McGavick. On Reichert, the staff was nearly unanimous for the incumbent. In dozens of cases over the years, we have endorsed candidates we expected to lose on election night. Going with the favorites isn't much of an editorial page.

Of 14 daily newspapers in the state — plus The Oregonian — seven endorsed McGavick and eight picked Cantwell, the eighth paper being The Oregonian. So, among 14 editorial boards, the state was split 7-7. Of the state's nine congressional seats, only two are in serious contention, meaning seven members do not need to run on their record, campaign much or face the television and print reporters of the state.

If this is a referendum on the war, or on Bush, or on the economy, it is clear the state's two major political parties don't think so because they don't find, fund or support any serious challengers in seven out of nine districts.

We continue to endorse in many races. That list is printed on today's Opinion pages and is culled from the longer, daily editorials we've been writing since Labor Day. Our critics see the decision for McGavick as inconsistent with other candidates and positions we've endorsed. But independence has also been around this place for 110 years, and you never can count that out.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com