Congratulations, Hillary!

South Dakota's largest newspaper, the Argus Leader, went on record today in support of Hillary Rodham Clinton for President.

Editorial: Clinton is top candidate for Dems

Excerpts from the endorsement:

(Clinton's) resilience and determination never should be questioned. She has met or overcome every challenge or roadblock in her way, and there have been many. Her determination to carry the nomination process through to its real conclusion has perhaps earned her a grudging respect from those who would never support her.

Obama is justifiably credited as a powerful speaker, but Clinton holds her own easily. As those who have attended her South Dakota rallies can attest, she is quick on her feet and energetic. She frames her ideas clearly in speeches and answers questions with genuine directness.

Clinton is the strongest Democratic candidate for South Dakota.

Her mastery of complex policy detail is broad and deep, and her experience as a senator and former first lady matches that.

Clinton's energy policy is forward thinking and wise. She advocates a broad federal research initiative to help solve our looming oil crisis. It's a plan that would join university researchers, private industry and individual inventors behind a common goal...Is ethanol part of the answer? Clinton believes it is but not necessarily corn ethanol...That is not precisely the answer South Dakota wants to hear. Corn-based ethanol has been a boon for farmers here. But the simple fact is that she probably is correct...

Clinton has demonstrated a real commitment to Native American issues and will have visited several South Dakota reservations before the race is over. Clinton is precisely correct when she says that people outside the region have a poor understanding of the troubling trends on our reservations...

Her truly universal health care plan would be welcomed by thousands of South Dakotans. Even on reservations, where health care is nominally universal already, such a plan would be welcome. The federal government would never be allowed to subject everyday Americans to the kind of care Native Americans living on reservations routinely receive.

(emphasis added)

The endorsement is especially gratifying to Clinton supporters given the extreme overreaction to a reference she made to RFK in the Argus Leader interview -- an incident which was shamefully exploited by Barack Obama's campaign.

And, the Argus Leader endorsement is gratifying in light of furious efforts by party elites to end the nomination process before the convention, even though neither candidate will have enough pledged delegates by then.

Thank you, Argus Leader, for confirming what 18 million people already know:  Hillary Clinton is the best Democrat to be President!

Cross posted at TexasDarlin

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...goes to Barack Obama, with a great writeup that hits some solid and salient points on who is best suited to lead America's foreign policy.

Today (12/30/07), Barack was endorsed by the Marshalltown Times-Republican, a daily newspaper serving central Iowa.

Full text after the jump.

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Yet another great newspaper endorsement for Barack Obama -- this one from one of the largest papers in the country, the Dallas Morning News:

Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination

America is at a historic crossroads as a woman, a Hispanic and an African-American vie for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Two of those candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were finalists for our recommendation - not because of ethnicity or gender but because they most closely aligned with our positions on major domestic and international issues.

Mr. Obama is our choice because of his consistently solid judgment, poise under pressure and ability to campaign effectively without resorting to the divisive politics of the past.

Race is not an overriding factor for us. But it is undeniable that America has failed to heal its racial wounds, including here in Dallas. We need a motivated leader capable of confronting the problem, and no candidate is better equipped than Mr. Obama. His message isn't about anger and retribution. It's about moving forward.

There's been lots of noise about his lack of experience. It is a legitimate concern, considering he's a 46-year-old first-term senator. But Mr. Obama's experience in elective office matches that of Abraham Lincoln before he became president. And he has served more time on Capitol Hill than four of the past five White House occupants.

If youthful inexperience were such a liability, it has failed to resonate despite his opponents' best efforts. Mrs. Clinton, by contrast, flip-flopped over a plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Her campaign accepted donations from questionable sources. When Mr. Obama's support recently surged in early primary states, her campaign tried to smear him over drug use in his youth.

It's a tired ploy that has failed in four previous presidential elections. Bill Clinton twice won election after admitting he'd smoked (but not inhaled) marijuana. George W. Bush won despite an alcohol problem and drunken-driving conviction at age 30.

Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Obama "irresponsible" and "naive" for saying he would talk to leaders of rogue nations like Syria and Iran. Considering the current failed strategy of confrontation and diplomatic isolation, we think Mr. Obama is wise to include direct negotiations among his tools to reduce regional tensions.

Mr. Obama drew criticism for saying he would pursue terrorists, if necessary, by sending troops into Pakistan. The fact is, U.S. troops have been going into Pakistan for years in pursuit of terrorists. All Mr. Obama did, in effect, was to keep that option open for the future. To say otherwise is to declare Pakistan a sanctuary for America's enemies.

Mr. Obama, the son of a white American mother and black Kenyan father, spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country.

His life experience gives him a unique perspective and a greater ability to build diplomatic bridges.

We don't always agree with his positions, but we recognize his potential to unite disparate political factions and restore cooperation between the White House and Capitol Hill.

Americans are tired of divisive, hard-edged politics. Democrats would inspire a refreshingly new approach by choosing Mr. Obama as their 2008 candidate.

http://www.dallasnews.com/

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The recent launch of the staunchly pro-business, anti-reality Fox Business Channel serves as yet another reminder that conservatives have too strong a grip on the national media, hampering any chance that we may have of real progressive social change.  While FBN's first week was marked by technical glitches, low viewership numbers, and poor editorial choices, it's easy to imagine how the channel could soon skew business reporting even further to the right, thereby making it more difficult for progressive voices to sway investors and business owners to be socially responsible.

There are a variety of strategies for moving the tone of media discource back to the left, but today I want to focus on one which I think gets far too little attention: creating progressive traditional mass media.  Progressives certainly do have some traditional media, including a large number of alternative weekly newspapers throughout the country and a small armada of prominent national magazines.  We also have some mass media, by which I mean media whose viewership/readership numbers compare reasonably well with purportedly non-partisan/non-ideological, or obviously conservative national-distribution media of the same format.  Unfortunately, almost all of our mass media is in new media: the progressive blogosphere is one of the few mass media institutions whose audience reach competes reasonably well with purportedly non-partisan or conservative political media of comparable format.

The lack of progressive traditional mass media is a big problem for both the political effectiveness of our movement, for obvious reasons.  Taken as a whole, the traditional mass media still reaches far more people than progressive media, and therefore helps drive political discourse.  Politicians gravitate to that incredibly large source of potential votes, and tend to eschew progressive arguments in order to garner traditional mass media coverage.  In this kind of environment, it's incredibly difficult to establish progressive electoral and legislative narratives.  True, the traditional mass media are slowing losing audience share to newer, more progressive media, but this shift is far too slow.  With the average household still watching nearly seven hours of TV per day, it seems likely that traditional mass media will have an outsized influence on our political discourse for at least another decade, and possibly much longer.

There are four kinds of traditional media which progressives need to watch carefully, and in which progressives should try to establish a foothold.  In order of priority, I think they are: cable news, national newspapers, local newspapers, and talk radio.  With one exception, each of these mass media are currently under the influence of an outsized and outspokenly conservative mass media institution: Fox News Channel (cable), the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post (national newspapers), Clear Channel radio network (talk radio).  I added local newspapers to the list because there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of conservative businessmen, ranging from Rupert Murdoch to Dean Singleton, to snap up local newspapers and turn them into right-wing rags.  This effort is far from complete, but it appears to be the latest thrust in the conservative movement's longstanding effort to control traditional mass media.

More on what is being done to address this gap, and what more we need to do, over the flip...

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Yesterday, I posted a diary asking help in formulating a response to an editorial printed in my local newspaper that slanders those who oppose Bush's escalation.

I have written a draft of a response (quoted over the flip).  There were many things I wanted to talk about such as the fact the all three Iraq war veterans in Congress voted for the resolution, how the Iraq War took time, effort, troops, materiale, and attention away from the hunt for Osama, and so on.  However, I decided to keep in short (158 words) and focus only on the question of supporting the troops, hoping it will increase the chances of getting printed.

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