Obama's Dramatic Sweep of California Newspapers (DKos diary)

[City Lights]

Obama's Dramatic Sweep of California Newspapers
by psericks

Fri Feb 01, 2008 at 02:54:32 PM PST

Today, the Oakland Tribune and the Los Angeles Times endorsed Barack Obama for president, finishing off a remarkable sweep of the major newspaper editorial boards across the state. Among others, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the San Jose Mercury, the Sacramento Bee, the Modesto Bee, Santa Cruz Sentinal, and the Santa Barbara Independent have all endorsed Obama.

This newspaper sweep is so extensive and so comprehensive that I'm not sure Clinton has received the endorsement of a single editorial board in the state. In total, 28 California newspapers have endorsed Obama, from southern California to the Central Valley and the Bay Area and northward, newspapers of every size and in every kind of community.

Indeed, although Clinton gained a number of early endorsements from some of the state's most ambitious and networking politicians, such as Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, Obama has been dominating the recent rounds of endorsements, picking up some of the most effective and respected members of California's congressional delegation, such as George Miller, Linda Sanchez, Berkeley's Barbara Lee, San Jose's Zoe Lofgren (an avid Dean supporter in 2004, who described being swayed by her children), Palo Alto's Anna Eshoo, Xavier Becerra, and Adam Schiff.

The San Francisco Chronicle glowed after meeting with Obama two weeks ago:

In a Jan. 17 meeting with our editorial board, Obama demonstrated an impressive command of a wide variety of issues. He listened intently to the questions. He responded with substance. He did not control a format without a stopwatch on answers or constraints on follow-up questions, yet he flourished in it.

He radiated the sense of possibility that has attracted the votes of independents and tapped into the idealism of young people during this campaign. He exuded the aura of a 46-year-old leader who could once again persuade the best and the brightest to forestall or pause their grand professional goals to serve in his administration.

When Obama visited the offices of the Los Angeles Times, this was the result, according to former staff writer Ken Reich:

It was striking last week that, when Obama came to the L.A. Times to meet with the editorial board, the usually idealistic Times staff gave him a rapturous reception. There is no question who the staff favors, and it is not an extension of rancorous, divisive government in Washington that the Clintons, like the Bushes, have come to represent.

To read the rest of this great post, click here.