• The Publisher’s Notebook •

Political Promise

BY ANNE SOBLE

Newspaper political endorsements are an anachronism dating back to the time when the public was not as well educated and informed as it is today, and didn’t have to ward off election information overload.
The Malibu Surfside News joins the two largest circulation papers in the nation, and others, eschewing endorsements. If a newspaper is to be an independent voice, it has to be independent of the political process.
Many newspapers still endorse out of an inflated sense of self-importance, or, quite possibly, to curry favor with perceived victors. These endorsements are shown by every leading study to be ineffective. Family, friends, and personal figures of authority and respect, such as clergy, outrank all other influences.
Today’s citizens eagerly express their opinions, which are primarily formed in their personal worlds by what is familiar, as well as by the same factors that influence their values, political and non-political.
Another electoral anachronism is the last week of frenzied campaigning with mass media and mailboxes saturated with political advertising that may benefit the swollen ranks of campaign consultants more than it does the candidates or issues they represent.
However, these anachronisms cannot mute the fact that change, however it is defined, is at the core of the 2008 election. Change will come, whatever the final vote count, because it is the only constant in a world where nothing is certain but uncertainty.
As humanity and technology coalesce in unintended and unexpected ways, citizens place their faith in representatives to weigh cumulative self-interests in a collective context and produce the common good. This cannot be modeled in an elegant mathematical equation. The common good is a messy jumble of variables that shift so often, it is easy to lose track of them.
Campaign rhetoric notwithstanding, elections are nothing less than the greatest leap of faith that people can take as a nation. It is a gamble on the future. As Americans know all too well, there is a high price to pay when it appears that their bets were misplaced.
The specifics of campaign electioneering often fade as the reality of governance sinks in. Platitudes fall by the wayside as the difficulty—sometimes the near impossibility—of balancing competing interests, often with limited financial resources, takes over.
Nov. 4 is a beginning, not an end. The hard work begins after the last votes are counted. Only then will Americans see whether the campaign’s political promises become the promise of the future they seek.