Argus Endorsement Countdown

The Argus does its best to spread the 'Daschle-as-victim' meme today with this story, which is 1A and top of the fold. While the story should be about what Daschle claims in his current ad--which is untrue and features some odd speakers--the Argus report goes on about ads that might happen down the road which might hurt Daschle. And remember how the Rapid City Journal promoted weekly Lincoln-Douglas style debates and criticized the scripted and dull formats of most TV debates and said our democracy would be better off with more lively back-and-forth debates? Today's Argus Leader editorial board says there are enough debates already! Who are these people? First they systematically ignore stories that are negative about Daschle, depriving the voters of information they need to make an informed decision, and then they oppose a thorough debate schedule for the candidates. It's like they think Republicans are "evil" and want Daschle to win or something. The editorial opposing more debates also reminded me of the story they ran when Thune challenged Daschle to a rigorous debate schedule. Instead of reporting on the challenge, the Argus found an expert to say 'debates don't matter.' Funny how the news stories they report nicely fit into the newspaper's editorial stance. Anyway, since August is almost over and we've yet to see any interesting, in-depth, biographical, historical pieces scrutinizing the candidates and we've witnessed the Argus Leader systematically ignore stories which might hurt Daschle, I'm close to giving up. Since the Argus wants Daschle to win, they should just say so now. They've endorsed Daschle every time he's run for office and I'm almost certain they will do so again this time. So save us the wait, Argus Leader. Just endorse now. That way people will know where you're coming from when you construct stories to aid Daschle and when you ignore stories that hurt him. By my count, it's about 70 days until the election. Instead of waiting until the final weekend to endorse Daschle, the Argus Leader, at long last, should just do it now.