Endorsement Season

Endorsement Season

Well I made my big endorsement Sunday and it looks like I was right on time, as the state's papers start to trickle out their endorsements one a day.

The Gazette, unusually, started at the top of the ticket (usually papers go countdown style, with the little stuff first and The Big One last). They blew it by backing Branstad, but in a pleasant surprise reversed itself and endorsed Dave Loebsack:

"Although we endorsed Loebsack’s Republican challenger, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, in 2008, we don’t feel she has offered a compelling enough case to unseat the incumbent this time around... the Ottumwa ophthalmologist’s second campaign hasn’t quite convinced us that she has distinguished herself from the party line via her own ideas."

The Reg starts on the back of the ballot yet says judicial retention is "by far the most important question in this year's election":

Protect our system of government, and the checks and balances that rely on the independence of the courts.

The voters of Iowa should make that happen by voting "yes" on all three Iowa Supreme Court justices up for retention in this election. Indeed, unless Iowans know of a credible reason why any judge has proved unqualified to remain on the bench, they should also vote "yes" to retain all 74 appeals- and trial-court judges on the ballot across the state.

The Register also editorially opposed the constitutional convention question.

Closer to home, the Press-Citizen also supports keeping "every judge and justice on the ballot." As for the two statewide issues on the ballot, they oppose both the convention and the Water and Land Legacy Amendment:

Passing this amendment would increase the pressure for the Iowa Legislature to increase the sales tax rate in order to fund it -- along with whatever other projects would be able to claim the extra five-eighths of that penny.

We are for conservation efforts, and we hope the Iowa Legislature finds the political will and the votes to move forward with creating a Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust. But we don't think this proposal belongs in the Iowa Constitution.

But the day's most critical endorsement came in the New York governor's race:

Weekly World News’ Bat Boy, the half-bat, half-boy tabloid hero, announced today his intention to endorse Jimmy McMillan of The Rent is Too Damn High Party for Governor of New York.

The gubernatorial candidate has been invited to receive the official endorsement at a ceremony to coincide with Bat Boy’s “Going Mutant” book party slated for Oct. 25 in New York City’s East Village.

Bat Boy has a long history of endorsing worthy political candidates, such as President Obama, and causes, such as the fight against White Nose Syndrome by Bat Conservation International.

The Space Alien was unavailable for a rebuttal.