ChipShots from the Louisville Rough

The Dallas Morning News's editorial board has withdrawn its recommendation for a Republican running for county commissioner after the candidate acknowledged setting up a trust for his children with a provision rewarding them if they married white people. This is reprehensible and should disqualify him from serious consideration for public office.

There was a time when this type of information would have been known prior to an endorsement thanks to investigative journalism and face-to-face interviews. Even if a paper's editorial board was on the politically opposite side of a majority of its readers, their nod to a particular candidate was based on a belief that a local paper would do what it thought best for their community. That ship has sailed. 

This is more proof that newspapers in general and their candidate endorsements have become almost meaningless. The idea of newspaper editorials dispensing wisdom through unsigned assertions of what “must" or “should” occur seems outdated. Publications telling Americans whom they ought to vote for, especially Americans whose political views the editorial writers do not share, seems downright embarrassing.

Does anyone really place any level of importance on political endorsements anymore? When I ran for Louisville Metro Council the only endorsement I sought was the vote of each District 16 registered Republican. The local paper was more interested in a general election fight between a Democrat with a real chance for victory and a Republican much further to the right than his would be constituents. My primary opponent received "endorsements" from most of the locally elected GOPers without meeting with me for comparison. Those weren’t endorsements. They were favors in exchange for future considerations. The deal had been cut.

Do your own research on candidates. Don't accept endorsements from newspapers as gospel. Ask yourself why elected officials choose one person over another. Reject Senator Clinton's opinion that women vote as they are told to do by their husbands.

Elect those YOU have determined best represent your views and values. Pay more attention to what goes on in your community. Before you cast a ballot for an endorsed politician, see if you can name three specific actions he or she took that benefited you. If you can’t, then vote for the person whom you think will do what’s best rather than do what they are told to do by fellow politicians or the local paper.